The Secret Fiend by Shane Peacock Page B

Sherlock. “You’ve learned to fight, you ’as, ’olmes.”
    It has been more than a year since Holmes last encountered John Silver, the former bully of Snowfields National School. He was the biggest boy there, and the most athletic, with muscles bulging through his soiled clothes, his feats in the little stone schoolyard extraordinary – he could leap like no one else. They had grappled once, on the cobblestone ground outside the school near the London Bridge Railway Station, Silver a full eleven stone in weight, pinning thin Sherlock down, spitting on him, slapping him in the face, calling him Judas the Jew, humiliating him in front of his classmates.
    But that was long ago. And much has happened since.
    “Yes, Silver, I have learned to defend myself. I have done quite well … for a Jew.”
    “I am sorry, Sherlock. I didn’t means nuthin’ by it. I never did, really.” The big lad, now seventeen years old, begins to cry.
    “You are a fool. But if Miss Leckie and Miss Louise will accept your apology, so shall I.” Beatrice and Louise nod. “I must tell you, however, that what you have been doing these last few days is against the laws of our nation, and your prank may have had more serious consequences than you imagined. Get to your feet!”
    Silver struggles to his pins, gasping with pain, gingerly holding his broken right arm with his left.
    “Last few days?”
    “Close your mouth. I heard a police whistle at the moment I fractured your arm. I have no doubt that a Bobbie or two will be here in moments. I will stand just a short distance up the street, in the shadows. It is foggy enough now that they won’t see me. You will stay here, in this square with Miss Leckie and her friend. You shall not touch them, speak to them, or even look at them … I will watch you! When the police arrive, Miss Leckie will inform them that you attacked her, just as you did Miss Louise on Westminster Bridge, leaping down tonight from the roof of her father’s shop, but you fell and fractured your arm, and also sprained both your ankles, so badly that you could not escape. You shall admit to both of your assaults, the one on the bridge and the one tonight. As you see the Forceapproach, you will pretend to be crawling away, your ankles injured. Lie down.”
    “But it wasn’t me, Master ’olmes! I promise you. I just got dressed up tonight, first time! I reads about it in the paper … and I thought of doing it. It wasn’t me that first time on the bridge, nor the other time! I just did it tonight.”
    “Sherlock,” says Beatrice, “perhaps ’e is telling the truth, perhaps –”
    Sherlock steps toward Silver, a menacing look in his eyes. “Get down! Get down or I will crack your other arm the way I did the first!”
    Silver immediately slumps to the cobblestones.
    “Miss Beatrice is indeed a lovely lady, too lovely to be near the likes of you. She is kind and forgiving. But you sir, must feel the full force of the law against you, or you shall do something like this again. Take your medicine, sir, go to jail, contemplate your life … and change it!”
    “But …”
    “I will be in the shadows up the street … watching you.”
    “Sherlock,” says Beatrice, “I will tell them what truly ’appened. I will tell them ’ow brave you were, ’ow –”
    “If you care for me, Miss Leckie, you will say nothing of the kind. I have had it with seeking notoriety. It is enough for me that justice has been served tonight, that this fool is off the street. Perhaps there will be a day when I feel differently. Good night. I am glad that you are safe, and that your safety has been assured into the future.”
    She glows at him. He fades into the fog and hides in adoorway up the street. He must admit that it feels good to do it this way. In a sense, it makes him an even greater hero. But he shakes off that inflated notion.
Justice.
He has protected Beatrice the way he should have protected his mother, and Irene Doyle. That is