Holmes crouches outside the building for a while, not knowing what to do. But he can’t wait for long. He has to decide. He thinks of Sigerson Bell sitting alone and distraught in Soho Square, of the five hundred pounds that would change their lives.
Sherlock rises and approaches the door. It obviously had been locked, but then pried open and … left slightly ajar, just a crack, as if inviting him to follow.
He grasps the door with a trembling hand … and opens it. It creaks. He slides in and drops to the floor. The sound of the door closing echoes in the big rotunda. But it’s the only sound he hears.
There’s no one in here.
He’s heard stories about this place being haunted – many men died when it was being built, buried under collapsing soil or horribly drowned in an inescapable underwater underworld.
There are a few dim gaslights left on. The rotunda is impressive, at least fifty feet across, walls lined with deserted vendors’ stalls, a little ghost town of sorts. Across the round room sits a cage for the penny-ticket collector and a turnstile, abandoned too. Sherlock, with his long legs, steps over its iron spindles. In front of him is a set of steps leading downward. What awaits him in that hell below?
His legs feel like jelly. He approaches the stairs nervously and starts down. At the bottom of this first flight another flight descends the opposite way, then another, and another. He is dropping deep below the River Thames. The air is hot and thick down here.
Up above he hears a sound … like someone entering the building and walking across the rotunda!
What if they have him in a trap, one brute in front and the other behind? It would be a perfect maneuver. No one goes after the Brixton Gang and comes out alive. Another terrifying thought passes through his mind. Is this Malefactor’s doing? Is this why he had that strange look on his face – the evil expression? Has he been drawing his rival in these last few days, setting him up for this? Sherlock remembers how quickly Malefactor’s words had calmed Grimsby how the bloodthirsty lieutenant had laughed. Malefactor is not to be trusted … he could easily want Sherlock dead.
He turns to face whoever is coming down the stairs, but there are no footsteps anymore. Is it the ghost of the Thames Tunnel?
He stands still near the bottom of the last flight, holding his breath. Still, no one comes out of the dimly lit space above. He reminds himself of the prey he is pursuing. He turns and scurries toward the tunnel.
Before him is a dirty, gray-bricked archway about six or seven body lengths across with a high ceiling. In its heyday, its alcoves were filled with shops and other enticements, even ladies telling you your future by reading the palms of your hands. But today everything is dank and empty. Sherlock hesitates at the entrance – he can’t hear the dark-dressed boy anywhere, yet this must be where he went. It is pitch-black up ahead: Sherlock can’t see through to the other side. He takes a deep breath and starts to run, his footfalls echoing. The sounds reverberate and multiply. It seems to him that they are coming from up ahead too … and from behind. He stops suddenly, his chest heaving. The sounds continue to echo and then fade.
BOOM BOOM … Boom Boom … boom boom.
Silence.
He is near the middle of the tunnel now and there is nothing but curving dark walls in the gloom around him and the only sounds are his own breathing. When he begins running again he hears those footfalls once more. He stops again. They stop.
Is there someone up there? Behind?
Several strides later the gloom turns to utter darkness. Sherlock stops running and walks carefully, his hands stretched out in front of him, into black.
He feels something. A human face!
He screams.
It screams.
“Who are you!!!” it shouts. It’s an old woman’s voice. His hand has gone into her mouth and feels her toothless gums.
Sherlock pulls away and begins to run as hard as he can, his stomach burning, heart pounding, sprinting in complete darkness, not knowing if he will run face-forward into another vagrant human being, a wall, a ghost, or a murderer. But he doesn’t care; he has no choice but to move. It is a strange sensation, fleeing into nothing, as if there is no guidance in life, no God nor parents – nothing except blind fear. He wants there to be some form again, some idea of where he is going…. For some reason he prays for a sense of right and wrong.
Eventually, the tunnel lightens a little and before long, he can see the dim way out at the far end. He heads for it like a racehorse seeing the finishing line at The Derby. He doesn’t even think about the boy he is pursuing – he just wants to get to the light.
There is no one in the building at the other end, a near replica of the one on the north side. He climbs the marble steps carefully and quietly, his fear finally beginning to recede.
The grand doors in the big rotunda are locked from the outside but open easily from inside. He steps out into the humid July London air and hears the sounds of the river – steamers chugging gently, men’s voices shouting in the distance. This is an industrial area, filled with factories, warehouses, and dominated by the Grand Surrey Docks. There aren’t many gaslights. There are few people about and any that are, will be tough characters indeed. The black-looking Thames, punctured here and there by its many wharves and gray stone stairs, is still and ominous. The Surrey Gas Works are behind him, a flour mill down at the water. The many pools, timber yards, and offices of the Docks surround him.
Sherlock sees no one at first. Where has the dark figure with the knife gone? Does he really want to find him?
But then he spots the lad, a few hundred yards away stepping out from behind the corner of a big brown building topped with a crowd of chimney stacks and marked with a huge dirty sign reading BEELZEBUB’S BISCUIT FACTORY. It is curious. Again, Sherlock has the sense that his prey actually showed himself on purpose, that he glanced back to make sure he was observable before he slithered away.
Holmes follows. The boy heads up cobble-stoned Rotherhithe Street which runs next to the Thames, winding along the river’s Lower Pool in the direction of Lime House, before it turns down the peninsula toward the Isle of Dogs. The very sound of those names frightens Sherlock. It is a witheringly dangerous area, absolutely fit for the likes of the Brixton Gang. He is descending into London’s darkest place.
Sherlock can smell the big chemical works nearby, the filth and grease in the tanneries. He passes the Surrey Dock Tavern, and then the Queen’s Head Inn, containing the only signs of human life, with glowing windows in run-down wooden buildings, filled with drunken shrieks and laughter.
Somewhere near here, thinks Sherlock, brutal Bill Sikes had been pursued by the Force, accidentally hanging himself on a rooftop in front of a bloodthirsty mob in Mr. Dickens’ frightening novel, Oliver Twist. That chapter had always scared the liver out of the boy, but he had loved it too…. He doesn’t now. He has no desire to meet a real-life ruffian like that. The reality of confronting the members of the Brixton Gang is looming in his imagination.
The boy with the knife slows his pace. He is approaching the Whiting Asphalte Works, a grimy, sprawling factory with massive black smokestacks. Across from it sits a series of warehouses that look like they are falling down as they lean against one another, the whole lot about to crumble.
Sherlock hears a sound behind him and turns to see a shadowy figure, obviously a boy, moving swiftly toward him along a narrow lane. He is caught; just as he feared; between the two lads in the night. He looks at the one with the knife and sees him turn back as if making his mind up about something. He, too, is coming in Sherlock’s direction. They are closing in on him. He can’t see either face. There is but one option: flee! He can only get away if he runs as hard as he possibly can, back the way he came, on Rotherhithe Street. If he doesn’t fly this instant, the boy coming up that lane will get to the street first and intercept him. He is sure the Brixton Gang is nearby, but he can’t stay a second longer: he must scramble for his life.