THE UNUSUAL GIRL

Sherlock won’t say anything more. He doesn’t think it wise. It is dawning on him that there is something suspicious about the fact that he’s been placed in this cell right next to Mohammad Adalji. When he mentioned the eye he spoke quietly and cautioned his new friend to lower his voice and say nothing more.

The police are listening. He is sure. He hopes he hasn’t said too much already. He examines his cell in more detail: there are tiny holes in the ceiling; little cracks in the wall; he is imprisoned near the door that leads right to the office.

The boy spends the day lying on his stone bed trying to understand his situation. It is difficult to concentrate. He is frightened. The Arab is indeed going to die. And here he is, helpless: associated with an open-and-shut murder case. What are they going to do to him? What can they do to someone held on suspicion of withholding evidence? They’ve imprisoned him, haven’t they? And they aren’t letting him go. But what if it’s even worse? What if they think he and Mohammad killed that woman together? He feels his stomach burn.

Oh, God. As the day wears on, his spirit sinks as low as the new London sewers. The Arab’s desperate prayers fill the cells.

Every time Sherlock thinks of his mother and father he looks to the door hoping to see them. He wants them here, to hug him and tell him it is all a dream. He thinks of how desperately upset they must be. But the jail begins to grow dark and they don’t appear. It doesn’t make sense. Why aren’t they coming?

“Jailer!” he finally shouts, rising to his feet.

The stern-looking turnkey moves slowly toward him.

“Why aren’t my mother and father …?”

“Perhaps they’re busy,” the man growls.

It’s obvious … his parents aren’t allowed to visit. He explodes.

“You can’t keep them from me! You can’t keep me here!”

The jailer walks away.

Sherlock falls onto the bed, shaking. Control yourself, he thinks. He must reason this through. Do they really believe we killed her together? He slows his breathing. They charged Mohammad with murder, not him. Why are they trying to break him down and why spy on him? Don’t they already have what they need to hang Adalji?

And then it dawns on him. He puts the facts together … how the police are treating him, their focus on the purse when they questioned him, all of it. Everything becomes clear.

He mumbles to himself as he lies on the bed, knees drawn to his chest.

“They think they know exactly what happened.”

He can see it now.

“I wasn’t really arrested for withholding evidence. I’m not being held in jail for that, or for murder. They think I’m guilty of something else.”

He knows their theory.

“We’re thieves and work together…. The Arab is bigger and good with a knife, he was simply meant to scare her with it … I was young, fast, and street-wise, meant to snatch the treasure and make off with it … the Jew’s job. But our robbery went badly. She struggled and the Arab killed her. I fled with the purse. I hid it somewhere in a hurry and I keep going back to the area to get it, but haven’t retrieved it yet. That’s what they think! That’s why they’re holding me in jail without visitors and why they placed us beside each other. They want to see if I’ll let something slip about the purse to Mohammad, or better still, confess…. Then they will have the Arab, the half-breed, and the money.”

Strangely, for an instant this discovery actually makes him feel a little better. Now he has two clues: the glass eye and an understanding of the authorities’ motives. He isn’t entirely helpless anymore. He has lit a small candle, however dim, at the entrance to the tunnel of this mystery.

But what consolation is that? Doesn’t this mean they think Sherlock an accessory to murder? Can’t they put him to death for it? He won’t have a barrister, either. They can hang boys at thirteen! He curls up into a ball on the bed, petrified. What hope does he have now? Nothing can ever give him hope again. But he is wrong. The very next day, hope comes into the jail in the form of a girl.

She arrives about noon, accompanied by her father.

A turnkey and a constable strut up to Mohammad’s cell. They take him out. The constable holds a pistol cocked and pointed; the turnkey binds the prisoner’s hands behind his back and shoves him onto a chair. There, his feet are strapped to the wooden legs. They push him, chair and all, back into his cell.

“Mr. Andrew C. Doyle,” bellows the jailer, “and his daughter, Irene, with express permission of Scotland Yard.”

The large man with the big walrus mustache and well-cut tweed suit doesn’t interest Sherlock. The girl doesn’t either, at first. They pass him. The man’s eyes, brimming with kindness, never stray from Mohammad in the next cell, but the girl notices Sherlock through his barred window. She glances his way: just a glance. There are questions in her face.

The boy goes back to his bed and sits on it, listening.

“Good day, Mr. Adalji, I am as announced,” says the man in loud but friendly tones that are obviously meant to soothe. Slight Scottish accent, thinks the boy, raised in the Edinburgh area, came to London in his teens, religious, a freethinker, and a respected philanthropist. Sherlock sizes him up in an instant. The boy is especially glad of his skill of analysis now. As of today, it will be very important to know others well and imagine what sort of threat they might be. He has made it a point to study traits such as accents, even how they fade after people settle in London. He can tell many things by the tone of the man’s voice, the fact that he is in a jail speaking with a foreigner accused of murder, and his clothes. He is a spiritual man (though perhaps a dissenter), holds certain political views, wants to help others, gives to the poor.

“This is my daughter, Irene.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” she says kindly.

The boy imagines her sitting on the stone bed next to her well-groomed father, looking sympathetically into the eyes of the poor accused murderer. She’d floated past in an instant, but Sherlock recalls her perfectly.

“I am with The Society of the Visiting Friends of London,” begins Mr. Doyle. “We comfort the unfortunate, the guilty, the falsely accused, whatever you are, sir. We go into the rookeries, the jails, and opium dens. I read about your case in The Times and was given special permission to see you. We are simply here to talk. We will not judge you. Everything said between us will stay between us.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“That is between you and God. We are your friends.”

The girl is tall for her age. Sherlock likes that. She has long blonde hair that curls at the top and runs down the back of her neck in thick, shining waves; and dark brown eyes, darker than his own gray ones. Her clothes are plain: a white blouse frilled a little near the neck where a red ribbon is tied, a beige woolen shawl, a dark cotton dress that hangs down almost to the top of her black boots, no crinoline. She seems about his age. He likes that too. He wonders what questions she had when she looked at him. And he wonders why she and her father don’t judge Mohammad Adalji.

Sherlock wishes he could know more about her. But for some reason he can’t get a complete picture. She is a bit of a mystery. He likes that too.

The Arab won’t say much to the Doyles. He speaks a little about his past, about coming to England, his dreams. But he always stops before he arrives at that horrible night in the East End. Sherlock can hear the girl responding to him, encouraging him to say more. But before long, he simply stops.

They thank him and call for a turnkey. Then they stand outside the cell while Mohammad is untied. Mr. Doyle blesses him with a Christian prayer. As he does, Sherlock gets up and watches from his door. He has a clear view through the bars. Irene has her eyes closed, her hands clasped in front of her. Sherlock lowers his head. When he lifts it, she is looking at him.

The prayer finishes at that instant. She closes her eyelids abruptly and then opens them again. Andrew Doyle regards Sherlock.

“Bless you, my son,” he says.

Irene simply nods.

And then they are gone.

It has a remarkable effect on Sherlock. A sort of peace comes over him. The cells seem even dimmer without her. He thinks long and hard about those dark brown eyes.

In the night, he tries again to imagine more about her. But still, she seems elusive. He isn’t used to that. He thinks of the advice his father so often gives him.

“Observation,” Wilber always says, “is not only the primary skill of the scientist, it is the elementary talent of life. Use your eyes at all times, my boy. They will not lie to you if you focus them fully. Use all your senses: hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching (though that last one, your mother can say more about than I). Truly seeing things is a great power. It will give you strength even when fate seems to have made you weak.”

But try as he might, he can’t truly see this girl. He estimates her age, remembers her face, that hair, but that is all.

The next day, he lies in his cell feeling sorry for himself, convinced there is no way out of the hole he is in.

Then he hears a sweet voice.

“I understand your name is Sherlock Holmes.”

He almost leaps to his feet. She has come alone this time. It has taken remarkable courage. Respectable young ladies rarely venture out alone in London.

“Yes,” is all he can say. She is standing in the hall in front of a burly turnkey who clutches a truncheon in his hand.

“You are very young to be in jail, sir,” she says.

“I am innocent.”

He wishes he hadn’t said the words the instant he utters them. He is sure that every prisoner who has ever been in this jail has said them many times. And he is very sure that she has heard them so often that it makes her numb.

“I am your friend,” she responds.

Those words sound wonderful.

“They want me to talk with you from the hallway.” She smiles. “And I don’t want them to tie you up.” The turnkey is walking away down the hall and she lowers her voice, “I’m surprised they allowed me in, though father’s name carries a great deal of weight. I was passing the Opera House across the street in the crowds with my governess and slipped away. I have never done anything quite like this before, but you looked awfully lonely yesterday.” She takes a breath. “Father has always taught me to be independent, you know, very much so. We do things differently at our house … though this may be a bit too different, even for him. Miss Stamford is likely quite frantic by now!”

They exchange smiles. Irene’s nervous talkativeness makes Sherlock like her even more. She is wearing a red dress this time, dark red, and a crinoline underneath that makes it billow out, ending just above her white-stocking ankles. She holds a pretty blue shawl around her shoulders.

He stands at the steel door, his nose pressed through the bars. She smells like soap. The words pour out of him.

“I am here only because I read about the murder, because I visited the crime scene twice, because Mohammad spoke to me.”

Her presence is doing something to him.

“I won’t judge –”

“No … don’t say that. I really didn’t do anything wrong. But I’m going to do something now. It’s time someone did. I’m going to solve this crime. And not just for me, or Mohammad. Whoever killed that poor woman needs to be brought to justice…. It isn’t fair!” He pauses, realizing that he’s almost shouted the last three words and they’ve echoed down the hallway.

It had been a waterfall of frantic words. Now there is silence. She simply looks at him, not sure what to say. She really shouldn’t be here, but this unusual boy has drawn her.

“Solve it?” she asks.

“I have a clue,” he says in a quiet voice.

The main door slams open. A man appears in the hallway: Inspector Lestrade. The ferret-like detective fixes his eyes on Sherlock’s.

“Having a chat with Miss Doyle, are we? Anything you’d like to share?”

Sherlock is aghast at his slip. Maybe this is why they let her in. He’d actually mentioned the clue! Had he said it too loudly? He didn’t think so. But the inspector knew he’d mentioned something important and had deemed a sudden confrontation worthwhile.

“Well?” asks Lestrade.

“I … I’m … just …” He looks at Irene. There aren’t questions in her eyes anymore, just understanding. “I was … just … boasting, sir, to this young lady.”

The inspector observes Irene, who gives him a shy smile. Then he stands still for a long time, staring at Sherlock. The boy drops his eyes. They can all hear the big clock in the office ticking through the main door. The inspector starts tapping his foot in time to it.

“We have some discussions in our future, you and I!” Then he vanishes almost as quickly as he appeared.

Irene comes back the next day. This time her governess is with her, waiting in the office, bearing a note from Mr. Doyle allowing her to visit when accompanied. Last night, after Miss Stamford made her distressing report, Irene had apologized to her father, but then asked if she might begin to do some of “their work.” Mr. Doyle was impressed. (She had calculated that he would be.) He is raising her to be a strong, unique woman with a social conscience, and unusual, even unladylike ambition is to be encouraged. She didn’t mention that the first place she wanted to visit was the Bow Street Police Station.

Inside the jail, their conversation grows. They talk about their lives. He is amazed by her bravery, but also her sense of duty, love for her father and his mission, her kindness, and intelligence. She finds herself revealing details she normally keeps from inmates, and even mentions the street where she lives. He, in turn, tells her marvelous things: he shows off.

“Our jailer is five feet seven and a half inches tall, calculated by the length of his stride in the hallway. He is left-handed, married with three children, two girls and a boy. And did I mention he is forty-six years, five months, and seventeen days old?”

“You are making that up, you rascal,” she says, smiling.

“Partly,” he admits. “I heard the other turnkey tease him about his age.”

But the rest is true and he proves it. Then he does the trick again: about the other turnkey. It is like magic. It makes her laugh. But when he changes the subject and tells her about his life, he sees tears in her eyes. He is a loner, and desperate to be more than the world has allowed him to be.

But Sherlock Holmes isn’t just talking. There is a method to his conversation.

He made up his mind the night before that there are two things he absolutely has to do: keep his mouth shut about what he knows … and get out of jail. Irene Doyle is his only connection to the outside. If he has any chance, it will have to be through her.

Slowly, without once saying anything directly about the crime or what he knows of it, he tries to show her that he is the sort of person who shouldn’t be in jail. She’s met many prisoners; he has to somehow convince her that he has been falsely accused. He speaks of his sense of justice, and subtly hints with expressions in his eyes that he knows something about the murder: something that might free him, and Mohammad too. All he needs is a chance.

The next morning, as he takes his breakfast of glue-like porridge, hoping Irene will visit again, his mind is racing. His eyes dart around his cell and up and down the hall for any way out. But escape from the Bow Street jail seems impossible. It is sealed like a canning jar. He thinks until his mind goes in circles. Finally he stands up and jams his wooden spoon into the goop in the bowl. He starts to pace. Nothing! Nothing will work. When he finally sits down, he notices something peculiar. The spoon is still sticking straight up in the porridge. It hasn’t moved an inch. And when he tries to pull it out, it takes some effort. He taps the food with his hand. It has hardened into a remarkably solid mass. He can see the perfectly shaped outline of the business end of his spoon in the stiff mound. His heart beats faster. He wedges out a small piece of porridge and slips it into his pocket, then returns the bowl to the turnkey. A few hours later, when Irene comes through the door as fresh as an English country breeze, the chunk of porridge feels as hard as stone.

He molds their conversation again, trying to pull all the right levers, and just before she leaves, he makes a pointed comment.

“You wouldn’t want to eat the porridge in these parts,” he remarks with a smile, but looks straight into her eyes as if he is entering them. “It not only tastes like Plaster of Paris, but if you let it sit for a while, it hardens like it too. I would be willing to wager that I could make a tool out of it … that would split wood.”

Her eyes widen. She thinks for a moment, as if trying to make a decision. Without saying another word, she rises and leaves the jail.

There is a way out of this cell. And indeed … Irene Doyle is the key.