Young Sherlock Holmes: Bedlam (Short Reads) by Andrew Lane

It was one of those rare days in London when the sun shone on clean streets and the air did not smell of rotten vegetables and horse dung. A night of
heavy rain had washed the streets clean without, mercifully, overloading the sewer system, and the cobbles and brickwork of the city glistened proudly like a man showing off his freshly cut and
oiled hair. Sherlock knew it wouldn’t last for long, but for a while it made London into somewhere he thought he could live, one day.
    Sherlock and his tutor, Amyus Crowe, had left Farnham earlier that morning. Sherlock’s brother Mycroft had invited them for lunch at his club – the Diogenes. His reason, which he
explained in a letter that had arrived the day before, was that he wanted to talk about Sherlock’s schooling. Having been removed from Deepdene School for Boys and placed in the care of the
big American Amyus Crowe, it seemed to Sherlock that Mycroft was now wondering if he had done the right thing. Mr Crowe was a brilliant teacher, but only on certain subjects. Survival in the
wilderness, tracking animals, fishing for carp and trout, identifying poisonous fungi, a little bit of recent political history and the logical analysis of evidence – these were all his
strong points. Mathematics and Latin – not so much.
    Sherlock would much rather study the things that Amyus Crowe was teaching him, because he could see their value, but his brother had a strange regard for those areas of the syllabus for which
Sherlock could see no earthly use. Every now and then he threatened to bring in another tutor to complement Crowe’s lessons, and Sherlock had either to avoid the subject entirely or try to
talk him out of it. ‘If you want to make something of yourself,’ he would say, ‘then you need to learn dead languages, theology and the more obscure facts of history. There is no
alternative, I’m afraid.’ The fact that Sherlock had no idea what he wanted to make of himself cut no ice with his brother. ‘You will go into the Civil Service, of course,’
he would rumble. ‘Either that or banking.’
    The hansom cab that Sherlock and Crowe had taken from Waterloo Station dropped them outside the Diogenes Club, which lurked behind an unremarkable door. Crowe, resplendent in his white suit and
hat, flicked a coin up to the driver and strode across the pavement to the door, but as he did so a passing man in a suit and bowler hat jostled against him. Crowe turned to deliver a sharp rebuke,
but the man unexpectedly pushed him in the chest. Crowe staggered backwards into two other men who were passing. Within moments, all four men were arguing.
    Unsure what to do, Sherlock stepped away from the cab. As he did so he heard movement behind him. Someone had come around the side of the cab and was looming at his shoulder. He turned his head,
but liquid sprayed his eyes and nose. Gasping, he raised a hand to wipe his face clear, but his arm suddenly seemed to be moving in slow motion. His attention became fixated on his fingers and
thumb. They looked like they weren’t even a part of him: pink, fleshy things that moved of their own accord. The lines on his palm took on the appearance of rivers crossing a landscape, like
a map seen at a distance.
    What was happening to him?
    He felt nauseous. His head felt like it had doubled in weight, and as he laboriously swung it around to look for Amyus Crowe he saw that the big American was staring at him in concern, but
Crowe’s face was swimming in and out of focus, and although his lips were moving Sherlock couldn’t hear anything apart from what sounded like the tolling of a distant bell. The cab and
the sky and the brickwork of the buildings were all bleeding together into a mishmash of colours that made him feel as if he was looking at the world through a stained-glass window. He needed to
rest, to sit down and gather his wits, but when he took a step forward his feet tangled together and he stumbled. He fell, and it seemed