THE EYES OF MAYFAIR
Sure that no one had followed or spotted him the last time he intercepted his mother coming home from Mayfair, Sherlock decides it is safe to meet her in the same area again. He slides down Carnaby past Lear’s shop, turns at Beak Street, and then walks west, staying close to the buildings. He repeats the route twice before he catches sight of her. Though she looks as if she’s aged even more in the last few days, a hint of excitement is mingled with the worry and sadness in her face. Her eyes are shifting back and forth as if she knows Sherlock is nearby. He creeps up behind her and in minutes they are behind the Haymarket again.
The boy has been having second thoughts during the day: perhaps, if he flees the city and tries to start life again somewhere else, the murderer will leave his parents alone. He’s been thinking about the black coach sitting outside their home; of it brutally trampling Irene. This has all grown too dangerous.
But then his mother turns to him with shining eyes.
“I’ve done it!” she gasps.
“Mother, I …”
“I have news. News you won’t believe.”
He hesitates. “You found a one-eyed man?”
“I found four.”
Sherlock is speechless.
“And they know each other. I have it straight from a long-serving housemaid.” Rose catches her breath. “Do you remember when I told you about the Mayfair gentleman who treated his wife terribly and had a strange look in one of his eyes? How one eye seemed dead?”
Sherlock nods.
“Well, the housemaid I asked was one of his. That gentleman, that brutish Mayfair man … has a false eye.”
Sherlock still doesn’t know what to say. What if they are really on the verge of solving this? What are the chances that there are more than four one-eyed men in wealthy little Mayfair? Isn’t one of them almost surely the murderer? He swallows hard. Maybe the nasty one is him! He has to stay calm. He is getting ahead of himself. Just because this man is unpleasant, doesn’t mean he is the villain. There are three others to consider.
“What do you mean they all know each other?” he asks.
“I was told that they have a great deal in common. All four married up in society; owe their wealth to their wives, bought positions in the army. All four were officers during the Crimean War and had the misfortune to suffer wounds to their eyes. On the first weekday in each month they get together, raise a glass of port, and talk about old times.”
A league of one-eyed men.
“And here are their names.”
One of Rose’s shaking, aging hands plucks a torn piece of paper out of the pocket in her dress. There are four names scrawled on it, and beside them, four addresses.
“Mother, you shouldn’t have …”
She puts a quivering finger to his lips.
“Don’t say another word. I asked more questions, yes, found their addresses. That is what you need. Solve this, son. Free yourself and that poor man, and come home to me. And let that woman rest in peace.”
She’d told him what to do.
Staggering through Trafalgar Square, reeling from what she said and not watching for enemies, he considers his options. Fleeing is not one of them. The villain might not know he is gone for some time or might do something to make sure he stays away. He must solve the crime and do it soon. It’s the only way to make sure they’ll all be safe forever.
“Master ’olmes!” says a voice through cupped hands. He’s been spotted. Without thinking, he responds by lifting his head.
He’s near Dupin’s kiosk. The crippled newspaper vendor is motioning him over.
“’ead down!” he instructs. “What’s wrong with you, guvna’? You’re about in plain view!”
Sherlock snaps out of his stupor and lowers his head.
“Take this,” mutters Dupin and jams something into the boy’s grimy coat.
He leafs through it, his mind riveted elsewhere, knowing he must act immediately, but not sure how. There is little in the paper on the Whitechapel murder, anyway. Mohammad’s fate is sealed. In five days, he goes to trial. It will be over in an instant. Sherlock can barely think. What is he going to do? The big daily ad for entertainments at The Crystal Palace looks back at him; beside it a much smaller one for a chimney cleaning company.
Chimney sweeps! He looks down at his frame … thin as a rail.
He has to get close to his suspects, very close, and he has to find indisputable evidence of one man’s guilt. Suddenly … he knows how he’ll do it.
He crosses the river and walks south for miles out of the city into the new suburbs and on toward the green, rolling pastures and villages of Sydenham. No one seems to be following him. He finds another field, another stone fence, and collapses. It is a beautiful, early May evening and as the sun falls, he can hear the birds singing. Somewhere not far off, crows are calling. He drifts into the deepest sleep he has had for weeks. He is frightened, but his mind is set.
He has come to this countryside in pursuit of the tools he needs to execute his final and most dangerous moves. The Crystal Palace is just a mile or two away; in fact, he saw it glowing in the night when the sun first set. Wilber Holmes works there, and though he may never know it, he is about to become an accomplice in his son’s desperate scheme.
When Sherlock wakes, the sun is already well up in the sky. He finds a stream and tries to make himself as respectable as possible, then begins trekking through the fields past the village of Forest Hill and along a road into Sydenham. There, on an elevated stretch of land, sits the mighty Palace.
It was built in 1851 as part of the Empire’s Great Exhibition, right near the heart of London in beautiful Hyde Park. Much of the world came to the city that year to see the grandeur of Queen Victoria and her people. From Europe, Asia, Africa, the Far East, and America, an incredible one million per month passed through its doors. Inside, nations (naturally lead by the British Empire) displayed the progress of civilization: spectacular new machines, remarkable weapons, exotic silks, precious china, and famous jewels. It was a magical building made of nearly a million square feet of glass, like a see-through castle from the future come to life.
When the Exhibition ended, its masterminds did another amazing thing. They packed it up and moved it, thousands of tons of iron and glass, to this hill in Sydenham. There “The Palace of the People’s Pleasure” grew and show business added its flavor: you could see Blondin on the high rope, The Farinis flying through the air, operas so big they might have been performed for God, circuses with their roaring menageries, and Ethardo, balancing on his ball as he climbed his twisting slide to the sky.
It looms now in front of him.
Sherlock can never decide exactly what it looks like: either the biggest glass cathedral the world has ever known, or a greenhouse made for giants. It stretches an impossible length, its endless panes of curved glass walls and ceilings shine in the sun.
People are moving in crowds from the train stations as he ascends the massive grounds, past the life-size models of ancient dinosaurs, the colorful flowers, and the many pools, artificial lakes, and magnificent fountains.
The boy has been here before on a few free employee days with his parents. He knows exactly where he needs to go and how he needs to do this. He walks up one of the huge stone staircases. The steps lead to a wide, wrought-iron-gate entrance.
In order to get in, he is going to try what the Irregulars call “the rush,” a simple way of entering a crowded event without paying. He’s heard Malefactor instruct his charges about it before. The rush simply involves getting into the flow of a crowd and moving quickly, eyes looking forward, giving the impression that you are meant to be where you are, walking forthrightly into any venue. If you do it correctly, you will rush past the ticket taker and into the building. If he calls out to you, you never look his way, but simply keep moving and disappear into the entering throng. It works best in wide, crowded entrances, and such is the case today. In Sherlock goes, eyes cast into the Palace, moving spryly with the flowing mass. They sweep him ashore.
The boy doesn’t even bother to look up at the magnificent glass ceiling. He has to find his father. At exactly noon each day Wilber releases the birds.
Sherlock’s scheme for getting close to the Mayfair suspects, so close that he can prove one guilty, is a daring, almost reckless plan. He is about to put it in motion.
The moment when his father releases the Palace’s doves of peace is always spectacular. Thousands of birds are freed from their cages at once, watched by much of the day’s crowd, sometimes numbering more than twenty thousand strong. Sherlock has seen it and loves it. Everything seems to stop when the moment comes. All eyes go to the glass roof as the birds soar. The boy, given to being just as interested in a crowd’s reaction as he is in the attraction itself, remembers looking up, and then down at the spectators’ awed response. That was when he noticed that even the professionals who had seen the doves fly so many times were riveted. Among them were the dancers who performed the popular Chimney Sweep Stroll not long after. A row of them sat on benches nearby and stood as thousands of white wings took flight. Each had a handbag. Each left it unattended as they looked to the ceiling.
Sherlock is guessing that those bags contained their costumes.
He sees his father at a distance. Wilber is immersed in his job. He has the ability to do that, to set aside whatever trials life has given him and concentrate. Sherlock can see the lines in his face, which seem deeper every year. The boy wishes he could speak with him.
But not today.
He keeps his eye on his father’s progress and slips around to where the chimney sweep dancers are gathering. There they are, bags in hand, sitting. He creeps up close, pretending to be fascinated by the preparations for the release of the doves.
He waits.
Noon hour. His father is always punctual. A great fanfare of trumpets begins. The crowd hushes. They watch the cages. The dancers stand up, setting their bags on the floor.
Whoooooooooooosh!
Up go the doves. Up go the eyes of nearly twenty thousand people. Sherlock pounces.
Seconds later he is running across the grounds of the Palace, heading north toward the city, a chimney sweep’s handbag in his grip. It is his ticket into the mansions of Mayfair.
But first he will hold Malefactor to the pledge he made to Irene.
It doesn’t take Sherlock long to find the Irregulars. They, after all, are keeping an eye out for him. He spots a dirty little head looking his way from a lane near the Seven Dials. It pops back and disappears. Sherlock enters the lane. Malefactor is leaning against a dirty building, tight-lipped as his rival approaches. The mixture of respect and hatred that is always in his face when they meet has increased. He isn’t pleased that he is being compelled to help Sherlock Holmes, that he and Irene were listened to, undetected, that this upstart is doing well. He clearly wants to scream at the boy or strike him, but he can’t – his voice and his arms are pinned back by the words of Miss Doyle.
“I need some advice,” says Sherlock, stopping just beyond an arm’s length away.
Malefactor lunges, seizing him by the shoulders and pulling him down an intersecting passageway and into a little court. There, he pitches him to the ground. An abandoned vendor’s basket is overturned nearby. The gang leader picks it up, straightens it, and sits on it, his eyes dead, his mouth closed. Several Irregulars, led by Grimsby and Crew, slither up to listen.
“I knew from the beginning that the Arab didn’t do it,” snaps the boss. “But you, how did you know?” It isn’t for Sherlock Holmes to know more about a street murder than he. At the very least, the outlaw wants further information in exchange for his advice.
Sherlock doesn’t want to tell his rival. It’s never seemed right to him to tell this criminal everything he knows.
“How were you so sure the Arab was innocent?” repeats Malefactor, impatient.
“By looking into his eyes,” says Sherlock, sitting up and rubbing an elbow.
“Not good enough, idiot!” screams Malefactor, standing up and looming over him.
The boy needs more from the gang leader – so he will have to play cricket with him.
“Because of what he said about the crows,” says Sherlock.
“Yes?” It means Holmes is to say more.
“When I first spoke to him,” Sherlock continues, “he mentioned very innocently that he’d seen the crows in the sky at the Old Bailey courthouse. That was all he knew about them.”
Malefactor grasps it instantly.
“Elementary, Holmes.” He nods, “The Arab hadn’t seen or heard the crows before, but the murderer would have. The person who killed that woman heard the crows scream and saw them in the alley … and would never forget it.”
“I’d just told Mohammad that the crows led me to the murder site.”
“And he never made a connection.”
“Precisely.”
“Simplicity itself,” Malefactor mutters.
“You and I think alike sometimes,” says Sherlock.
“Not really,” retorts the older boy. “You want some advice? … Talk.”
Holmes gathers himself. “I have to break into a house in Mayfair.”
Malefactor wonders what Holmes is getting himself into. “First,” he begins, “you need an obvious reason to be there, so that if someone sees you on your way, they won’t be suspicious.”
“I have a reason. I am a chimney sweep.”
He pops open the handbag and pulls out his costume and containers of makeup.
Malefactor raises his eyebrows. He is astonished. Holmes has picked the perfect disguise – one that will allow him to get into a house – black, so as to camouflage him at night, take him down the chimney instead of through a door, and make him unrecognizable if someone sees him.
“You must be in the house for only a brief time. You will know exactly what you are looking for before you enter – and where it is apt to be. Therefore, you will visit the house ahead of time and observe your entry point and how to get to it. You will note the occupants of the house and their habits.”
Sherlock nods.
“Either the house will be empty, or everyone will be asleep when you enter. If that does not turn out to be the situation, you will immediately vacate the premises. You will know, at all times, exactly where, and how, you will leave the building.”
Malefactor pauses. He motions for the Irregulars to leave, then moves closer to the tall, thin boy.
“What exactly, might I ask, are you looking for?” He knows the boy has been withholding information.
“A one-eyed man.”
“Precisely.”
Sherlock chooses the first address on Rose’s list, the one where the rude man lives. Then he puts on his chimney sweep costume and enters Mayfair. He’s never seen anything like it. This is an opera for the rich. The big, white and yellow houses rise on each side of every street like the ornate homes of gods, many five storeys high: gleaming black iron gates on the streets, pillars up the steps at the arched entrances, flowered balconies on upper floors, and areas for servants below stairs. Ladies with purple parasols and matching silk dresses stroll by or clatter past in phaetons and broughams, attended by liveried coachmen. Butlers and footmen appear on front steps. Uniformed cooks and maids scurry around the houses and in through back doors.
Sherlock’s destination takes him into the heart of Mayfair, past the extravagant shops of New Bond, onto a smaller street leading to extra wealthy Berkeley Square, and just past it. He begins casing the house, watching everything that happens near it and around it. He notes the help, the lady, the perfectly dressed children … and then, just as the sun sets, the gentleman on his way home. He is a big man, broad shouldered and a little fat, his cheeks and chin overgrown with red mustachios and a long, red goatee – indeed the cad whose face his mother disliked, and maybe, just maybe … the villain. One eye never blinks.
After the man enters his house, Sherlock looks through one of the tall front windows. From there he can see much of the ground floor – a majestic dining room filled with gleaming furniture. He walks casually down the street and returns, then glances in the other front window and sees a wood-stained staircase leading upstairs.
He’s heard that there are never bedrooms on the ground floors of the rich. As dangerous as it is, he will have to enter one. That is where he will find the man himself. Moreover, if there is any evidence of guilt about, it won’t be in the areas of the house the rest of the family frequents. Sherlock isn’t sure how the rich live, but he has a feeling that unlike his poor mother and father, many wealthy husbands and wives sleep in separate bedrooms, in their own private worlds.
He has to go upstairs, find where the man sleeps or where his desk or study is, where he might keep something he wants to hide from others. If anything incriminating was in the villain’s possession when he left the murder scene, Sherlock is betting that it made sense for him to keep it, thinking at first that no one would ever dream of searching a Mayfair mansion, then within a day, knowing that an Arab would swing for the crime and he would never be a suspect. There would be a smarter time to destroy it, after the butcher-boy is dead and the case is closed.
Sherlock looks up at the house. There are five chimneys. He will get in through one of them. He heaves a sigh. It is nearly six o’clock. The whole family is home. The time has almost come.
Tonight!