Eye of the Crow by Shane Peacock Read Free Book Online Page B

helmets with black straps across their chins, long blue overcoats with wide belts around the middle, and thick black boots on their feet. One holds a “bull’s eye” gas lantern in his hand.
    “My name is Inspector Lestrade,” states the man in the civilian clothes. He is an aging chap, perhaps nearly sixty, with a bushy mustache, and dressed in brown corduroy trousers, black waistcoat with a pocket watch on a chain, and dark brown coat; he is lean and ferret-like, but with a bulldog attitude. “Do you have a son?” he inquires.
    “Why … why, yes.”
    “We need to speak with him.”
    Wilber turns and looks across the room at the little bed, terrified. He sees his son, sitting up, staring back at the police. There is a curious hardness in the boy’s face, a look of steel in his gray eyes.
    The three men advance across the room and surround him, as if he might try to escape.
    “What’s your name?”
    “Sherlock Holmes.”
    “Were you, or were you not at the location of the Whitechapel murder past midnight this day?”
    The boy pauses.
    “I was.”
    Wilber is astonished.
    “Sherlock? No. No! He couldn’t have been. He was right here. He and his mother went to the opera.”
    “The opera?” inquires Lestrade, looking around at the poverty-stricken room. “Your wife attends the
opera?”
    “Jews,” murmurs one constable to the other.
    “We didn’t actually attend,” says the boy in an even voice. “We just stood outside and listened.”
    “Yes,” says Wilber, “Yes, that’s right. I misspoke myself.”
    “Indeed,” responds Lestrade.
    He eyes the boy again.
    “You have been observed at the murder scene
twice,
on two consecutive days. What is your explanation?”
    Wilbur is stunned. He tries to speak, but can’t.
    “I have none,” says Sherlock.
    “I see,” snaps Lestrade. “You were also observed, by this constable,” he motions to one of the policemen, “at the arraignment of Mohammad Adalji, the villain in this hideous affair. Not only were you observed there, but the accused spoke to you: only you. Did he not? Don’t deny it.”
    “I won’t.”
    Wilberforce Holmes stares, openmouthed, at his son.
    “What did the Arab say?” Lestrade is twirling an end of his mustache.
    “He said he didn’t do it.”
    One of the constables barely hides a smirk.
    “There is no question that he did it!” shouts Lestrade. “Are you involved with him?”
    “No.”
    The inspector studies the boy’s face for a while before he speaks again.
    “Do you know something about this? Do you know something that we should know?”
    Sherlock hesitates. He doesn’t want to withhold evidence from the police, but he can’t tell them about the glass eye, either. It might be the Arab’s only chance, the only clue to what really happened. He can’t just give it away, not to the very people who hold Adalji’s life in their hands.
    “No, sir.”
    “I’ll ask you again.”
    “No need.”
    “Why?” The detective thinks the boy may be ready to confess something.
    “I know nothing.”
    Lestrade’s face turns red.
    “We have jailed one scoundrel, young sir. But a coin purse is missing. We know that because we found beadwork particular to such an item in the alley. We know you frequent the streets, consort with gangs.”
    “My son does not con …” starts Wilber, but Sherlock cuts him off
    “I know nothing about the purse.”
    “Then you had better come with me,” barks Lestrade.
    “WHERE?”
    It is Rose. She has risen from her bed and entered the room to see two policemen and an inspector surrounding her son.
    “We are arresting your boy on suspicion of withholding evidence.”
    “Or on the possible involvement in a murder.” It is the constable with the gas lantern. He looks at Mrs. Holmes with cold eyes. He is a soldier against evil and it shows.
    “But that’s absurd!” sputters Wilber Holmes and reaches out toward his son.
    “Obstruct us and you will come too,” says the constable.
    The