The Secret Fiend Read Online Free Page A

parasol he has ever received from Irene Doyle. Those were mere caresses next to this. Beatrice Leckie smacks him across his cheek with a stroke that comes out of nowhere and would have scored many centuries on the cricket field and brought all of England to its feet. Her strong working-class hands are small but not delicate – and there is passion in her blow. She indeed cares about Sherlock; he can feel that now. But whether there is hatred or love in her mind is uncertain.
    He actually falls backward from the slap.
    “Return to your master, you … you
little
boy! Go back to your dreams and your selfish ambitions! There is more to the world than you imagine. Leave us! We will get our own ’elp!”
    There is nothing else he can do. Stunned, he leaves them sitting alone, seething on the bench under Big Ben. As he trudges home, he reconsiders everything he has seen and what the girls said, wondering if he might be wrong. But he can’t believe that this “crime” was anything but a setup, created to draw him in. It was all too easy. Of the millionsof possible targets in the city, why would this fiend strike
his
close friend, causing her to run directly to him? It is like an occurrence in a melodrama. But why did Beatrice strike him like that, why such absolute fire in her eyes, why was she so emotional about his refusal to help? There was real fear, real feeling in her anger, not just the reaction of a schemer found out. Was there really a Spring Heeled Jack on the loose in London? And why was Sigerson Bell carrying a black and green costume and sneaking around in the middle of the night … just when the villain appeared?
    People aren’t what they seem, not even friends. Everyone is a potential suspect at all times. Trust no one.
That is the only wise thing that Malefactor has ever said.
But … Sigerson Bell, dressed up as a fiend?
It doesn’t make any sense. After all, the villain had black hair, wasn’t old…. But didn’t the apothecary have a jar of black liquid in his hand tonight, and a full-faced mask? He might have performed some magic, transformed himself … or put someone else up to it. He thinks again of the blue flames coming from the Jack’s mouth. Sherlock chides himself.
What I am considering is ridiculous.
    Then again, nothing about this incident makes sense. And girls
never
do, especially the ones who attract you. First there was Irene Doyle, now Beatrice Leckie.
    Women!
    He feels in his pocket for the villain’s note. It isn’t there.

SECRETS
    S herlock doesn’t hear Sigerson Bell leave the shop later that morning. Bell is gone before the sun is up – before the boy awakes – and doesn’t return until late at night. Holmes decides to keep a close watch over him the next day. It is a Sunday, the lad’s day off, but he rouses at the same time as the old man, jumping up from his narrow bed in the wardrobe the instant he hears feet descending the spiral staircase. His master nearly falls down the remaining steps when he spots him. The apothecary adores his young charge, but has resigned himself to the fact that rising early is not one of the boy’s strong points. He is a good lad, a hard worker … once he gets going.
    They lock eyes and stare at each other for a long time, neither saying a word. Suspicion hangs thick in the air.
    “My boy!”
    “Yes, sir?”
    “What is the occasion? You are out of bed prior to my descent!”
    “I thought I’d turn over a new leaf. I plan to rise early from this day forward.”
    “And pigs shall fly from the rear ends of donkeys,” says Bell under his breath.
    “What was that, sir?”
    “Not a thing, my boy, not a thing, just an expression of admiration. I embrace this initiative on your part. Shall you be fixing my breakfast as well?”
    That is indeed his plan.
    Everything seems to be almost normal with Sigerson Bell this morning. That is, as normal as things usually are around the shop.
    As the curve-backed old man does his morning calisthenics of