Now, as I’m sitting getting my bearings, I can hear footsteps from up ahead of me. I’m about to panic, but then I realise it’s not big stompy footsteps, it’s little tappy ones. More like a lady’s boots. And I look up and I see this woman walking towards me all slow. She’s dressed nice, with flowers on her hat, and she looks sort of pretty and gentle. I don’t know what a lady dressed this nice would be doing walking around a back alleyway, though.
She sees me, and she looks sort of taken by surprise and goes, “Oh, dear! Are you all right, young man?”
No one’s ever called me a man before, so that’s a bit nice. I jump up and I straighten my suit and I tell her I’m just fine, miss. Always call them “miss”, not “ma’am”, no matter how old they are. They like thinking you’ve mistaken them for really young, even if they’re not. This lady’s maybe my mum’s age, so not really young, but enough that she’ll still care if she’s a miss or a ma’am.
She gives me this really warm, sweet smile, and she pats me on the head and asks what happened. I’m careful, obviously. I don’t tell her what actually happened. Just that there’d been this terrifying sort after me and I had to get away from him.
The lady, she puts on this sad, shocked face, and she puts a hand to her heart like I’ve told her my dog’s died. “Oh, you poor darling! I’m ever so sorry you had to go through that!” But I tell her that’s all in a day’s work for me, and I give my buttons a polish with one sleeve.
“Honestly, though, what would someone like you be doing running about in back alleys? There’s no call for that.”
“Someone like me?”
“Yes, you’re Sherlock Holmes’s boy, aren’t you?”
Seriously? Am I this easy to spot? I really am regretting not wearing a different jacket. But I say, “If you mean am I Mr Holmes’s page, then yes, miss.”
“That’s what I thought. You’ll want to be more careful, you know. Especially considering what you’re carrying.”
“What am I carrying?”
“Well, I don’t know. Why don’t you show me?” And she holds out her hand, still smiling like there’s not a single thing strange about what she’s doing.
I’m about to put a hand on my jacket to cover the letter, but I shove my hands in my pockets instead. No sense giving away where it’s hidden. “I don’t think I ought, miss.”
She laughs. It’s sort of a pretty laugh, like Christmas bells, but there’s also something a bit strange about it. Like I ought to be afraid of it a little. “Why not? It’s almost certainly to do with me, so I should have a look, don’t you think?”
“You seem pretty sure of what I’m carrying, miss. What if you’re wrong?”
“Well, we can find out, surely. Is it a letter?”
I flinch. “Miss?”
That laugh again. “I suppose that’s a yes. Is the name Angelina Pritchard in it anywhere?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I snap back, and then I add, “assuming it even is a letter, which I haven’t said it is, miss.”
That pretty smile is still there, but it doesn’t look quite as nice anymore. It’s like it went all frigid, but her face hasn’t actually moved at all. “Is that so? Well, I can keep making some fairly educated guesses. I do love guessing games, don’t you?”
“Not really, miss, no.”
“Well, then.” She puts a finger to her lips and looks up, like a little girl pretending to think hard. “Well, then. I can hazard a guess where you’re taking it. The Houses of Parliament, I presume?”
…what?!
“Miss, I think you’ve got the wrong person entirely. I haven’t got a clue what you’re even on about.”
That nice smile, even the frosty version, is gone now, and she’s glaring at me like she’s about to gut me. Here I’m starting to wonder if that’s the only way anyone’s ever going to look at me ever again. She sort of leans in really close, and I can smell her perfume, violet and something else that’s giving me a headache.
“Oh, Sherlock Holmes has trained you very well, indeed, hasn’t he? You’re tight as a steel trap, aren’t you? Well, I know better. I know he’s on to me, and I know he means to stop me from doing what I intend to do.”
“I don’t even know what you intend to do, miss.” And I’m really not keen to find out.
The lady steps back and she’s still fixing me with that angry glare. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you haven’t heard about me. I don’t believe for one moment you haven’t overheard Lord Wainwright in Mr Holmes’s rooms talking about me, telling him he’s afraid of me, of what I could do to him. And I most certainly do not believe the letter you’re delivering isn’t a warning.”
Well, it doesn’t much matter what she believes, does it? Lord Wainwright’s a new one on me, so if he’d been over talking about being scared of anything, I certainly didn’t know.
“What… could you do to him, miss?”
She makes a grab for me. “Give me the letter, you little whelp!”
She’s awfully quick in those clicky heels, but I’m quicker, and I’m off like a shot again, running down the way she came as she takes off after me, shrieking all sorts of awful things. Worst part is, she gets a lot farther than the fella from before, and by the time I’ve lost her and can stop running for a few minutes, I’m well off track. I’ve gone in the complete opposite direction I should be going, and now I have to turn back and retrace my steps. Or rather, find some new steps. No way am I going back the same route I came. Not when I’ve got two people willing to come after me over this letter.
I know Mr Holmes said to keep to the back alleys, but as you can sort of tell, I’m not having the best of luck with those. I’m starting to think I’ll hide better in plain view. Because they’re all looking for me back where no one’s ever looking. I know he said don’t take the main roads, and I’m all about following orders to the letter… but I’m thinking maybe surviving long enough to get the letter where it’s going is more important than how I do it at this point.
So I take a few turns and eventually make my way back out to the main road, keeping my head low and my hands in my pockets, just sort of doing my best to blend in, right? That’s not too hard. There’s people everywhere. And it’s going to look really suspicious if anyone tries to manhandle a boy in public in broad daylight.
Ah, but you’ve probably already suspected that someone’s going to try anyway. And you’re right. Someone else walks right up to me, in the middle of everything… and he just sort of stands there. I’d try to step around him, but he’s tall and wide so I know I won’t be getting far unless I shoo him off somehow.
I look up at him – have to tip my head all the way back to do it. He’s huge and fat, balding on top, and his face and bald pate are pinkish and gleaming with sweat, even in the cold. He’s got a massive scraggly ginger beard, and this strange sort of panicked grin on his face like he’s afraid his heart’s about to give out at any moment but he doesn’t want anyone else to know. Really, there’s something so unsettling about him, I’m ready to scream for help even though he’s not said anything yet.
“Hello there.” His voice is a lot reedier than I would’ve expected it to be. And he’s still smiling, fussing with his hands while he talks to me.
I give him a “Hello there” back. And he just stands there. Smiling. Smiling like I ought to know what to say next. I think at this point I’ve caught that terrified smile of his, because I can feel my face cramping up.