The Secret Fiend by Shane Peacock Page A

bare-footed Sherlock by the little toe of his left foot, holding it again between a thumb and forefinger. The pain was even more excruciating. The boy screamed so loudly that it would not have been surprising if the queen, three miles away in Buckingham Palace, had complained of the noise.
    “I can make you do anything I want now. Stand up please!”
    Sherlock leapt to his feet … or foot, bouncing up onto just one pin.
    “I can make you go this way.” He led Sherlock to the left, bouncing on one foot and crying out. “Or this way!”He pulled the boy to the right. “I can make you fly to the moon, if I choose.”
    “SIR! IT’S ME. YOUR APPRENTICE! SHERLOCK HOLMES!”
    The old man released him. He looked a little disappointed. “Yes, quite right. I am getting too involved, too intense about this again. You are correct to chide me.”
    Sherlock had slumped into a chair.
    “Now, if I seized you by the ear lobe, it would have the same …”
    The boy had jumped up and hidden behind the laboratory table.
    “Just tell me, sir, just tell me. No need for another demonstration.”
    “Quite right again.” A smile came over his lips. “If you REALLY want to hurt your opponent. If you want to finish him quickly, do what I just did … to a BIG bone!”
    The old man had showed him how.

    As the Spring Heeled Jack grabs Sherlock by the throat with his right hand, intent it seems, on ripping it out, the boy does the opposite of what most thugs in London street fights would do. The Jack’s arm is held straight out, stiff as a board. Rather than trying to simply knock the arm away, downward, Holmes grips his enemy by the forearm with his left hand, actually holding the Jack’s arm in place, keeping it straight and held tight to the throat. Now, he has the bigbone that Bell spoke of in exactly the position he wants it. Continuing to hold him firmly, Sherlock seizes the fiend under the elbow with his other hand.
    “When you execute a maneuver, my boy, do so with the utmost violence!” Bell is fond of saying, his eyes alight. “No shrinking violets allowed!”
    Sherlock pulls down on the Jack’s forearm with his left hand and shoves up from under the villain’s elbow with the right, moving his arm in directions it most definitely does not want to go. He does so as if he wants the elbow to fly into the air and sail over the River Thames. There is a loud
crack
, the sound of a big bone fracturing in two.
    The Spring Heeled Jack’s scream pierces the night. He is instantly on the ground, gripping his misshapen arm, moaning with pain, pleading with Sherlock Holmes for mercy.
    Down the street somewhere, they hear a loud, piercing whistle.
    “John Silver!”
    Beatrice has rushed forward and is standing beside Sherlock, looking down at the injured villain. Louise has arisen from her faint and is walking toward them too, holding her head.
    “John Silver?” repeats Sherlock. It is indeed that boy, though not really a boy anymore. He lies in a heap, holding his arm, his clothes now obviously a crude costume he has made – his hair oiled up to look like it sprouts ears, his face smeared with coal, a ragged black cape with green stripes over his shoulders, black gloves on his hands, with nails protruding from the fingers.
    “I am sorry, Beatrice,” cries Silver, “wery sorry. I was just tryin’ to scare you. I liked you so in school, but you’d never looks at me!”
    “And you thought this would make me do so, John Silver?”
    “I knows that some girls, they like the bad ’uns, the scary ’uns. I is big and strong, and I can handle meself. Lots of girls, they like that. I thought I’d scare you, then come back and offer to protect you. I thought maybe I’d tell you later that I was the Spring ’eeled Jack … maybe you’d … kind of like that too … maybe?”
    “Then you don’t know a thing about me, Master Silver.”
    The big lad, his face white with pain, drops his head and grips his arm, then looks up to