Sherlock Holmes: The Coils of Time & Other Stories (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 1) by Ralph Vaughan Read Free Book Online Page B

quite foolishly as it turned out, uttered similar sentiments to his superiors at the Yard; in a way, he wished he could have been as direct as young Jimmy, but had he been so he would have received censure much more severe than a simple reassignment, a post he had ignored to follow his own interests and to keep his word to Sir Reginald.  There would be a reckoning, he knew, for his dereliction, but a successful conclusion to the case of William Dunning, which would necessitate, of course, a solution to the mysteries of the Vanishments and the East End Ghosts.  After all, Kent reasoned, his superiors could denigrate his accomplishment, but Sir Reginald was a very important man.
    “You must go easy on Inspector Kent,” Holmes cautioned.  “He is out here precisely because he is trying to help.”
    Jimmy lowered his proud head, a bit.  “Sorry, guv.”
    Kent acknowledged with a curt nod.
    “Ain’t none of us seen the Ghosts yet ourselves,” Jimmy continued, “but we seen their spoor.”
    “Spoor?” Kent asked.
    “Tracks and drops,” Jimmy replied.  “Queer tracks, those, all narrow and stunt-footed, and gawdalmighty the stink!  About sewers mostly.”
    “I knew it!” Kent exclaimed.  “The fools!”
    “Tell us about the man in black,” Holmes prompted.
    “Cor! Owd you know ‘about that bloke?”
    “Then your mates have come across reports of such a man lingering about the East End, asking questions about the Vanishments and the Ghosts, but, curiously, not seemingly interested in the causes.”
    “The man in…” Kent started to say, but Holmes silenced him with a slight gesture.
    “Aye, that’s right, Mr ‘Olmes,” Jimmy averred.  “Dressed all in black, ‘e is, and with a tongue cryin’ he ain’t no London man.”
    From the description relayed by young Jimmy, there was no doubt the mysterious man in question was none other than the man who had made his escape by breaking out the Neptune’s rear window, the man who had questioned the old sailors in that haunt of all things nautical.  Several residents of the Surrey side and the East End, and even some west of Aldgate, reported being approached by this man who spoke with an accent odd enough to be noticed in a city marked as the greatest confluence of accents and dialects outside of India.
    He came out of the mist or the night, or stepped from shadows to question people about the Ghosts, asking after those who had vanished.  He was no journalist, for he never took notes or quested for inflammatory opinions, and he was certainly no agent of the government seeking to stem the tide of fear, for he always made himself scarce when the police were around.  He spoke with a quiet and grim certainty, as if there was no doubt in his mind as to the reality of what he sought, no mystery as to its cause, no question that they were connected events.  He was ever impatient with the ignorance he encountered among London’s unlettered and superstitious masses, obviously so, and yet he always lingered and listened as long as was necessary, as if he held in his heart some hidden guilt that refused to let him go until he had expatiated a measure of that guilt by listening to the horrors of the night in full.
    “Nobody knows who ‘e is,” Jimmy said.  “But there’s some who feared ‘im like ‘e was a demon ‘imself.”
    “What about a name, lad?” Kent asked.
    Jimmy screwed up his face in thought.  “Well, Crip done heard tell of ‘im mutterin’ when ‘e was close, not clear like, but somethin’ like ‘time seems Maddoc’s folly.’  But ‘e bein’ Maddoc or the folly…”  Jimmy shrugged, then stood with crossed arms.  “All’s I got, Mr ‘Olmes.  ‘T’ain’t much, I reckon, but it’s what we got …”
    “Quite an admirable effort after so short a time,” Sherlock Holmes said.  “We can ask no more from you and the others.  See as to the division of this among your fellows.”
    Jimmy grinned widely as he caught the