A Study in Sherlock

The boy was ill. He knew he was ill, and the fact that the school matron had sent him home—and Matron rarely sent anyone home—meant his demise could be imminent. The spots on his chest itched, worse than the itch caused by crushed rosehips when Weston—the sniveling rat, Weston—pushed a handful down the back of his collar. This morning he’d scratched and itched throughout Latin and into Algebra. And then after lunch the itch went from his chest to his legs, and then began to be apparent above the collar of his cornflower-blue-and-black uniform blazer. He’d wheezed and coughed well into Geography, and finally laid his head on the desk as if begging for mercy. But at least that was better than home, where there would be only his mother, Aunt Ethel, and his grandmother for company, with the occasional visit from his ill-tempered Uncle Ernest, who only ever talked about money and how much the family was costing him. He sighed and the sigh made him cough again. It was a long walk from school to the house and no one had offered to accompany him; he was, after all, expected to act like an Englishman, and the stiff upper lip—even one with a giant teasing spot on it—was not permitted to wobble. Once home, his mother would send him to bed and that would be that. The school would not let him rest though; work would be sent in a brown paper parcel for him to complete from his sickbed. He was second to last in his class to come down with measles, so he knew what to expect.

The sweat beaded across his forehead and trickled in rivulets from his neck down the gully that was his spine. Not long to go now, he thought. He rubbed his eyes, which were running as much as his nose, and he swayed a little, trembling with fever. As he lingered on Margaret Street trying to garner fortitude for the last half-mile, raised voices seemed to ricochet past his aching ears. At first he thought he had experienced some sort of hallucination. He cupped an ear and listened. Yes, he had definitely heard some level of discord, and the point of origin of the fracas appeared to be the upper floor of one of the three-story terraced houses that flanked his route. He shook his head to clear a mind befuddled by blocked sinuses. The voices, coming from somewhere above and to the left of him, were raised again, and now, as he looked up, squinting in an endeavor to ascertain the source of the row, he saw the shadows of a man and a woman silhouetted at the window of an adjacent house. One of them had raised a hand, but as the fever made everything around him seem disjointed, he was not sure if the hand belonged to the man or the woman, or whether it was simply something that floated in the air. Then the voices reached a crescendo.

“You are nothing but a philanderer, a thief, and a … a … a thoroughly nasty piece of work. I wish I had never met you.”

“And that, madam, is a sure case of the pot calling the kettle black!”

“Don’t you ‘madam’ me, you lout!”

The boy crinkled his eyes and pushed back his woollen school cap. It itched across his forehead. Silly, these English school caps—and at his age. Tiredness seeped through his being like waves at the seashore, and it made him think of the ocean; cool, cool water lapping over him, and how it might feel as it washed across his hot, sticky skin. Itch-itch-itch, scratch-scratch-scratch. Then there was a scream. A scream so loud, he thought everyone must hear. But there was no one else on the street to be alarmed, though at that very moment a brand-new shining motorcar bumped and blasted its way toward him, barely allowing margin for a costermonger’s horse and cart. That’s when he thought he heard a gunshot. Crack! Crack! it went, into the air. Then it was gone, and there was no more screaming and yelling. And no more shadows.

“Fell down right in front of me, he did, missus. Luck’ly, he knew where he lived, told me the address right off when I asked him—mind you, I had to shake him a bit. Looks like he’s got a touch of the measles. Nasty, them measles. Had ’em when I was a lad.”

The coster helped the boy across the threshold, whereupon the mother took charge, her manner of speaking causing the man to look up as she pressed a few pennies into his hand.

“Long way from home, aren’t you, missus?”

“This is our home now, sir. Thank you for assisting my son—now I must get him to bed.”