George Mann - Associates of Sherlock Holmes

“Mrs Oxford has been investigating the curious series of murders in Clapham. I’m sure you’ve heard about those , my boy.”

I have and all. Gruesome stuff. Caught wind of it when Mr Holmes and Dr Watson talked about it. Men and women of any age, any class, all left dead with weird sigils carved in ’em. Some people call it religious, some go right for “occult”. All I know is it gives me the shivers.

“What’s that got to do with me or my letter?”

“Does Mr Holmes hire dense servants on purpose? Really. It’s all anyone’s talking about – the police, my employer, your employer…” And his eyes go back to my hand holding the letter. “If Sherlock Holmes is Sherlock Holmes, he’ll know that Mrs Oxford is already on the case. And he doesn’t approve of her particular methods.”

“What’re you talking about?”

The butler laughs at me. Actually laughs. Like I’m some sort of idiot. “Stop playing the fool. Mr Holmes knows already that my employer intends to take matters into her own hands, and this is his method of alerting the authorities in secret before she can act. And I cannot allow that to happen.”

“Shows what you know. This –”

But I stop, because I remember Mr Holmes said don’t let anyone know where it’s going. This fella’s obviously well off track, but I do as I’m told. Besides which, I get the feeling he’ll just think I’m lying to him to put him off the scent anyway. So I shake my head and I say, “This is getting where it’s going whether you like it or not!”

Now his blood’s boiling, I can tell. And he makes a grab for me. Makes an actual grab for me! I jump out of the way and hop a fence nearby, but I don’t stop there. Who knows? Maybe he can hop fences. I’m not taking that risk. I keep running down the alley, even though I can hear him scrambling and swearing and not getting anywhere, and I don’t stop ’til I’m round the corner.

That’s when I drop down to the ground and catch my breath. My heart’s going like a bumblebee. What’s in this letter that’s so important? And what makes him think it’s about him? I mean, maybe it is. Like I said, I follow directions, so it’s not as though I’ve looked inside. I stare at the letter for a few seconds.

“You’re a lot more trouble than you’re probably worth,” I tell it, and I shake it a bit, as though that’ll help anything. Then I stuff the letter inside my jacket for safekeeping and try to get myself sorted out again. Running away from the butler’s taken me off course. I can’t go back the way I came, and I really have to keep my head down now in case he’s decided to try and come at me from another alleyway or something.

Now, as I’m sitting getting my bearings, I can hear footsteps from up ahead of me. I’m about to panic, but then I realise it’s not big stompy footsteps, it’s little tappy ones. More like a lady’s boots. And I look up and I see this woman walking towards me all slow. She’s dressed nice, with flowers on her hat, and she looks sort of pretty and gentle. I don’t know what a lady dressed this nice would be doing walking around a back alleyway, though.

She sees me, and she looks sort of taken by surprise and goes, “Oh, dear! Are you all right, young man?”

No one’s ever called me a man before, so that’s a bit nice. I jump up and I straighten my suit and I tell her I’m just fine, miss. Always call them “miss”, not “ma’am”, no matter how old they are. They like thinking you’ve mistaken them for really young, even if they’re not. This lady’s maybe my mum’s age, so not really young, but enough that she’ll still care if she’s a miss or a ma’am.

She gives me this really warm, sweet smile, and she pats me on the head and asks what happened. I’m careful, obviously. I don’t tell her what actually happened. Just that there’d been this terrifying sort after me and I had to get away from him.

The lady, she puts on this sad, shocked face, and she puts a hand to her heart like I’ve told her my dog’s died. “Oh, you poor darling! I’m ever so sorry you had to go through that!” But I tell her that’s all in a day’s work for me, and I give my buttons a polish with one sleeve.

“Honestly, though, what would someone like you be doing running about in back alleys? There’s no call for that.”

“Someone like me?”

“Yes, you’re Sherlock Holmes’s boy, aren’t you?”

Seriously? Am I this easy to spot? I really am regretting not wearing a different jacket. But I say, “If you mean am I Mr Holmes’s page, then yes, miss.”

“That’s what I thought. You’ll want to be more careful, you know. Especially considering what you’re carrying.”

“What am I carrying?”

“Well, I don’t know. Why don’t you show me?” And she holds out her hand, still smiling like there’s not a single thing strange about what she’s doing.

I’m about to put a hand on my jacket to cover the letter, but I shove my hands in my pockets instead. No sense giving away where it’s hidden. “I don’t think I ought, miss.”

She laughs. It’s sort of a pretty laugh, like Christmas bells, but there’s also something a bit strange about it. Like I ought to be afraid of it a little. “Why not? It’s almost certainly to do with me, so I should have a look, don’t you think?”

“You seem pretty sure of what I’m carrying, miss. What if you’re wrong?”

“Well, we can find out, surely. Is it a letter?”

I flinch. “Miss?”

That laugh again. “I suppose that’s a yes. Is the name Angelina Pritchard in it anywhere?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I snap back, and then I add, “assuming it even is a letter, which I haven’t said it is , miss.”

That pretty smile is still there, but it doesn’t look quite as nice anymore. It’s like it went all frigid, but her face hasn’t actually moved at all. “Is that so? Well, I can keep making some fairly educated guesses. I do love guessing games, don’t you?”

“Not really, miss, no.”

“Well, then.” She puts a finger to her lips and looks up, like a little girl pretending to think hard. “Well, then. I can hazard a guess where you’re taking it. The Houses of Parliament, I presume?”

…what?!

“Miss, I think you’ve got the wrong person entirely. I haven’t got a clue what you’re even on about.”

That nice smile, even the frosty version, is gone now, and she’s glaring at me like she’s about to gut me. Here I’m starting to wonder if that’s the only way anyone’s ever going to look at me ever again. She sort of leans in really close, and I can smell her perfume, violet and something else that’s giving me a headache.

“Oh, Sherlock Holmes has trained you very well, indeed, hasn’t he? You’re tight as a steel trap, aren’t you? Well, I know better. I know he’s on to me, and I know he means to stop me from doing what I intend to do.”

“I don’t even know what you intend to do, miss.” And I’m really not keen to find out.

The lady steps back and she’s still fixing me with that angry glare. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you haven’t heard about me. I don’t believe for one moment you haven’t overheard Lord Wainwright in Mr Holmes’s rooms talking about me, telling him he’s afraid of me, of what I could do to him. And I most certainly do not believe the letter you’re delivering isn’t a warning.”

Well, it doesn’t much matter what she believes, does it? Lord Wainwright’s a new one on me, so if he’d been over talking about being scared of anything, I certainly didn’t know.