been averaging perhaps two visitors a week lately, and what they pay him for his poisons has been barely enough to feed them. Perhaps the boy can make a sale. He would sell something to the devil today, if he had to, to help the old man.
The nose, hair billowing out each nostril, looks one way, then another, and finally enters, leading a very thin man with a very small cranium and receding forehead inside. He glances furtively around, and then motions to three others, who follow. They look remarkably alike, all dressed in wet, smelly clothes, black from head to foot, matted hair clinging to their skulls. Sherlock immediately recognizes the dress and attitude of four toshers, who find their living in the sewers and always work in groups so they won’t get lost. They search the subterranean arteries of London for prizes, wary of being spotted through the gratings on the streets by pedestrians in the upper world, and of rats, who live in gangs in the underworld, their poisonous bites fatal. A Londoner has to be vigilant indeed to ever see a tosher. Once or twice, Sherlock thought he glimpsed their shadows through a sewer hole, but toshers always darken their lanterns when they near the light.
“Fortune shone upon me today, young man,” says the one with the prominent proboscis. “And when we comes up, we is here on this street, and we sees your shop. Have you leeches, sire? Or arsenic?”
“We have both, sir.”
“Well, sire, I promised me wife that if I ever found a treasure like this here half-crown, that I would buy her some arsenic, so as to make her cheeks pink.” He looks around the room for thieves and then holds out his hand to reveal a silver coin nestled deep in his filthy hand, while the others lean forward to look. “And I also says to meself, I says, Lazarus, get yourself some leeches, sir, and suck the bad blood from your veins.”
“He’s been feelin’ poorly,” another tosher squeaks, to remind Sherlock.
“I recall.”
“What would you be chargin’ for a pinch of arsenic and a bottle of leeches?”
Sigerson Bell doesn’t believe in using leeches to suck “bad blood” from the veins of the ill. It is a medieval practice that does more harm than good. But the apothecary does have a bottle of those slimy little devils, swimming in green liquid back in the lab. He only uses them for experimentation. Women, mostly well-to-do ladies, do indeed take poisonous arsenic, sometimes too much of it, to give an alluring glow to their cheeks. But Bell frowns on that too. This is not a sale the old man would make.
“Two shillings,” says Sherlock.
Lazarus hands over the half-crown. The boy opens the strongbox behind the counter. There are eight coppers inside. He returns six to the tosher. Moments later, the men slip smiling from the shop with a bottle of leeches and a pinch of arsenic in hand, sliding through the doorway likewafer-thin creatures of the underworld. Sherlock watches them through the window. They look suspiciously up and down the street, pull off a sewer grating, and vanish.
Not long after, as the boy lies awkwardly in the shop window, sweeping the cobwebs away, he turns toward the street and cries out.
A huge face is staring back at him, inches away through the glass. It has black eyes and black eyebrows. Lord Redhorns.
“A message for Mr. Bell,” he shouts through the thick window. “Four days. Tell him, that boy. Four days!” Redhorns stomps off down the street, the crowds parting in front of him like the Red Sea did for Moses.
By mid-afternoon, Sherlock has both the front room and the chemical laboratory cleaned up like never before. But he is restless. He can hardly wait for the apothecary to return, and not just because he has polished the half-crown and set it on the examining table for Bell to see, but because he desperately wants to be free to do something about the Mercure case. What, he isn’t sure.
He keeps hearing Redhorns’ threat.
Four days
.
This business
The nose, hair billowing out each nostril, looks one way, then another, and finally enters, leading a very thin man with a very small cranium and receding forehead inside. He glances furtively around, and then motions to three others, who follow. They look remarkably alike, all dressed in wet, smelly clothes, black from head to foot, matted hair clinging to their skulls. Sherlock immediately recognizes the dress and attitude of four toshers, who find their living in the sewers and always work in groups so they won’t get lost. They search the subterranean arteries of London for prizes, wary of being spotted through the gratings on the streets by pedestrians in the upper world, and of rats, who live in gangs in the underworld, their poisonous bites fatal. A Londoner has to be vigilant indeed to ever see a tosher. Once or twice, Sherlock thought he glimpsed their shadows through a sewer hole, but toshers always darken their lanterns when they near the light.
“Fortune shone upon me today, young man,” says the one with the prominent proboscis. “And when we comes up, we is here on this street, and we sees your shop. Have you leeches, sire? Or arsenic?”
“We have both, sir.”
“Well, sire, I promised me wife that if I ever found a treasure like this here half-crown, that I would buy her some arsenic, so as to make her cheeks pink.” He looks around the room for thieves and then holds out his hand to reveal a silver coin nestled deep in his filthy hand, while the others lean forward to look. “And I also says to meself, I says, Lazarus, get yourself some leeches, sir, and suck the bad blood from your veins.”
“He’s been feelin’ poorly,” another tosher squeaks, to remind Sherlock.
“I recall.”
“What would you be chargin’ for a pinch of arsenic and a bottle of leeches?”
Sigerson Bell doesn’t believe in using leeches to suck “bad blood” from the veins of the ill. It is a medieval practice that does more harm than good. But the apothecary does have a bottle of those slimy little devils, swimming in green liquid back in the lab. He only uses them for experimentation. Women, mostly well-to-do ladies, do indeed take poisonous arsenic, sometimes too much of it, to give an alluring glow to their cheeks. But Bell frowns on that too. This is not a sale the old man would make.
“Two shillings,” says Sherlock.
Lazarus hands over the half-crown. The boy opens the strongbox behind the counter. There are eight coppers inside. He returns six to the tosher. Moments later, the men slip smiling from the shop with a bottle of leeches and a pinch of arsenic in hand, sliding through the doorway likewafer-thin creatures of the underworld. Sherlock watches them through the window. They look suspiciously up and down the street, pull off a sewer grating, and vanish.
Not long after, as the boy lies awkwardly in the shop window, sweeping the cobwebs away, he turns toward the street and cries out.
A huge face is staring back at him, inches away through the glass. It has black eyes and black eyebrows. Lord Redhorns.
“A message for Mr. Bell,” he shouts through the thick window. “Four days. Tell him, that boy. Four days!” Redhorns stomps off down the street, the crowds parting in front of him like the Red Sea did for Moses.
By mid-afternoon, Sherlock has both the front room and the chemical laboratory cleaned up like never before. But he is restless. He can hardly wait for the apothecary to return, and not just because he has polished the half-crown and set it on the examining table for Bell to see, but because he desperately wants to be free to do something about the Mercure case. What, he isn’t sure.
He keeps hearing Redhorns’ threat.
Four days
.
This business
Similar Books
