Chapter 16
According to Sherlock, we were going to Bethnal Green in search of two people — the mysterious Spaniard and Betty, Merridew’s aunt. But then, I wondered, why were we seeking out the madwoman on the sidewalk?
“The old beggar says she saw a devil, right?” Sherlock asked as the carriage passed over bumpy, muddy streets. “She described him in a very precise way . . . wrapped in a large cloak, without a face . . .”
“With a red spot instead of a face!” I almost shouted.
“And, in your opinion, do you think that would be the way a crazy old woman would describe someone with his face hidden behind a red scarf . . . like the Spaniard?” Lupin pondered.
“How do we even know the ‘devil’ that crazy woman was talking about and the Spaniard are the same person?” I objected.
“I’m not saying they are,” Sherlock corrected me. “But they could be . . . especially if that lit window is the house we are looking for — Aunt Betty’s house!”
I was struck by that possibility, and I began to look out the window eagerly. I had sworn to myself that I would not set foot again in that neighborhood — not for any reason at all — and now, a few hours later, I was gushing at the thought of returning!
Since those days, I have learned that adolescence is an unpredictable, reckless age. Anyone looking for evidence of this fact can find plenty by simply following my actions during those chaotic hours.
“Whoa! Whoa!” the coachman cried, stopping the horses so we could get off.
Sherlock passed him his last coins, asking him to wait in the area. The man placed a top hat on his head and smacked his lips noisily. “I’ll wait for you for a few minutes, boy, but any longer and I’m afraid that someone might jump out of the shadows and eat my horses,” he said with a wary grin on his face.
At first, the three of us headed off in different directions to try to find the old beggar, but before any of us turned a corner, we decided it would be best not to separate from one another.
We teamed up again, peering around buildings into the shadows and the dense fog that hovered on the roads like a small army of ghosts.
After a few minutes, I heard the voice of the coachman behind us, and then the sound of horses’ hooves. “That fool is already gone!” I exclaimed.
But I was wrong. Soon the carriage appeared in the fog on the street next to us. “May I know what are you looking for, you three?” the coachman asked.
We told him, and he snickered, spitting tobacco onto the street. Moving forward on the streets accompanied by the slow creaking of the carriage and the heavy breathing of the horses was even more frightening than walking alone.
No light could break through the gray cloak of fog that wrapped up the houses. All we could see was the murkiness blanketing the streets and the tiny shadows of rats running away, frightened by our movements. The few people that we passed moved to the other side of the street with the same feverish speed of the rodents.
“It’s here!” Sherlock said suddenly, making us stop. I could not figure out how he knew. We were at an intersection that was completely identical to the previous one, and there was no beggar crouched on the sidewalk.
“The smell,” Sherlock said. “The smell remains.” He crossed the street, put his hands on the moist, musty walls, and oriented himself.
“Over there,” he said, pointing out a distant, yellowish glow. It was a window, the lighted window of a house swallowed by fog.
Sherlock ran in that direction. I tried to hold him back. I thought that maybe we should have a weapon with us before we went into the unknown, but when he shook free from my grip, I just ran after him. Lupin lingered behind, ordered the coachman to wait for us, and then ran after us.
The house was surrounded by a small garden invaded with weeds. It was short — a ground floor and an upper floor, topped by a roof with two chimneys. The lighted window that we could see from the street was on the top floor.
Sherlock pushed through the garden gate and climbed up the two steps to the entrance. The front door was ajar.
“Miss Betty?” he asked. “Ophelia?”
Silence.
Sherlock pushed the door open farther, making it creak in a terrible way. Inside, we found a true disaster.
It was dark, but we could see that pots, pans, furniture, and books had been thrown to the floor. There was a hallway straight ahead that led to a kitchen, a small library on the left side of the entrance, and on the right was a flight of stairs. A little light shined down from above. The railing of the staircase was damaged, and many paintings were now lying on the steps, their frames torn apart.
Sherlock put a finger to his lips. He made a gesture that indicated I should keep an eye on the hallway to the kitchen, and then he began to carefully climb the stairs.
I stepped over the frame of a painting, making the old wooden floor moan beneath my feet. I watched Sherlock move slowly up the stairs, one step at a time, and I stared into the dark kitchen ahead of me, my heart pounding in my throat with every step.
Suddenly, I heard the garden gate squeak, and I jumped. But I soon calmed myself, realizing it was Lupin who had joined us.
Then I thought I heard a noise upstairs.
“Sherlock!” I yelled. But he waved it off and continued up the stairs.
I reached the kitchen doorway and looked around. The first thing I saw were plates and cups thrown on the ground, broken into a thousand pieces, cabinets that were emptied in a wild way, and then . . .
My heart beat a violent blow in my chest.
I felt my legs freeze. A curtain of darkness fell over my eyes. I sat down slowly, unable to hold myself up. I would have certainly fainted if the cold of the marble kitchen floor against my legs had not helped me snap out of my nightmarish trance.
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes again. I was not wrong.
There was a woman’s body lying beside the pantry door . . . white and still as snow.
I put my hand on my mouth to keep from screaming.
It was Ophelia Merridew.
The floor creaked and made me turn suddenly. I saw that Sherlock was most of the way up the stairs, and above him, at the top of the staircase, was an imposing figure. The person was wrapped in a cloak and wore a big hat pulled down over his forehead and a red scarf that covered his face.
“STOP!” Lupin shouted from the front door.
I heard a loud noise. The wooden railing along the stairway came down with a tremendous crash.
Sherlock Holmes had been pushed down the staircase by the devil of Bethnal Green. The force of his fall had taken down the railing, and he fell headfirst to the ground, landing in a pile of wood fragments and debris.
The devil came down the staircase two steps at a time, moving quickly toward Lupin like a huge black thundercloud.
I cried out in fear and ran toward Sherlock, who was curled up on the ground.
Lupin and the stranger scuffled. The masked man picked up Lupin and threw him forcefully across the room. Lupin landed heavily by the door. The stranger rushed out to the street, disappearing into the fog.
Sherlock was the first to get up, groaning.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He nodded. He pressed his hand on his shoulder as he staggered outside.
Lupin followed him, limping. I found myself alone, just a few steps away from the corpse of poor Ophelia Merridew. I realized that the feeling of faintness I had experienced a few moments ago was still very real.
“Drats!” I hissed between my teeth. Gathering all my strength, I ran outside, stepping over the rubble that littered the floor.
When I arrived outside in the fog, I found Lupin and Sherlock both leaning against the iron gate. “What is happening now?” I asked, surprised by their calmness.
I heard the crack of a whip and a horse trotting in the distance.
“As it happens, we have given up our carriage to the devil,” Sherlock replied. “So we have no way to follow him. But perhaps the coachman has seen his face . . .” Sherlock was turning it over in his mind as he thought out loud.
Sherlock stared silently at the dark trunks of the trees as if they were the bars of a cage. Lupin, however, was breathing hard. It looked like his temple and his right hand were wounded.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
He slowly opened his fingers and showed me what he had swiped during the struggle with the Spaniard. It was a strip of red silk, a little bigger than a playing card.
“And you?” he asked me.
I shook my head doubtfully. Who knows? Maybe I was about to give up. Maybe I was going to confess that the whole investigation was too much for me. In truth, that is how I felt. But I did not say those words ever.
Just then, we heard a groan coming from the house. “He . . . help . . .”
So Ophelia is not . . . I thought. We all stared at one another in silence.
“Let’s go!” I shouted at last.
And with that, all three of us ran back into the house.