The other story that Matty tells Sherlock – later, when they are coming out of the tenements where they have been questioned by Bryce Scobell – is not true, although it is widely believed.
I ’eard a rumour, last time I was ’ere, that the local authorities was tryin’ to move people out of the tenements. ’Parently they wanted to sell the land off to build factories on, or posh mansions, or somethin’. People I talked to told me that the authorities would start a rumour that some illness, like consumption or the plague, had broken out in a tenement. They’d move everybody out to the workhouse, then they’d knock the tenement down an’ build on the land. Make a lot of money that way, they could. I ’eard that sometimes, if there weren’t any places left in the workhouse, they’d brick up the alleyways in an’ out of the tenements an’ leave the people inside to starve, but I don’t believe that.’
The tenement in question is called Mary King’s Close (a ‘close’ being the local name for the alleyway between two tenement blocks). It’s been built on, over the years, to the point where what were alleys are now underground tunnels. You can visit the place today, and hear the stories about the people who were walled up there to starve, and about the ghosts that still appear in the rooms at night, but the truth is rather more prosaic. People falling ill with the plague often voluntarily quarantined themselves in their own houses to avoid passing the disease on, indicating their status by placing white flags in the windows. Friends and neighbours passed food and supplies to them until they either got better (unlikely) or died (much more likely). There were even special places set up outside the city where plague victims could go to be segregated from everyone else.
Interestingly (or perhaps not) Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859 and studied medicine there from 1876 to 1881. One of his teachers was a man named Joseph Bell, and it is widely accepted that Doyle based the character of Sherlock Holmes on Bell (who, it was said, could diagnose not only a patient’s illness but also their occupation merely by looking at them). I did briefly consider including an appearance by Joseph Bell in this book, but I quickly decided not to. It would have been too much like an in-joke, and there was no real reason for him to be there.
It would be wrong of me not to mention, by the way, the Sherlock Holmes novel written by American author Caleb Carr entitled The Italian Secretary: A Further Adventure of Sherlock Holmes (Little, Brown, 2005). It takes place largely around Edinburgh. Carr is an excellent writer, and his version of Sherlock Holmes is perhaps as close to Arthur Conan Doyle’s as anyone has managed since Doyle’s death in 1931.
The story that Amyus Crowe tells about Colonel John Chivington and the appalling attack he mounted on the Native American tribe led by Chief Black Kettle is, tragically, true. I grew up watching Western movies in which the Native Americans (or Red Indians as they were known then) were the bad guys and the noble white soldiers were the good guys. Those movies were lies, and I still feel a sense of betrayal that Hollywood convinced so many people otherwise. There is, of course, no record of Chivington having a second in command named Bryce Scobell, but there is no record that he didn’t either.
The bizarre fact that rabbits are immune to the poisons contained in the stalk and leaves of the foxglove is something I first discovered in The Wordsworth Guide to Poisons and Antidotes by Carol Turkington (Wordsworth Editions, 1997). Having done some checking around I have since found that opinion is divided on the subject. Maybe they are; maybe they aren’t. At any rate, Sherlock Holmes believes it to be true.
Bear-baiting was a well-known ‘sport’ in England for hundreds of years, until it was made illegal in 1835. It usually took the form of a bear being tied to a stake and dogs set on it. Either the bear would kill the dogs or the dogs would kill the bear. It was rare that a bear and a man were set to fight, although not unknown. For some reason (possibly a surplus of bears) Russia was better known for its bear-versus-man contests. I had originally intended to have Amyus Crowe face off against a bear in Black Ice, but I couldn’t find a place where it made sense to slot that scene in. For some reason it made more sense in this one – probably because Crowe didn’t have a lot to do in Black Ice, but in Fire Storm he pretty much finds himself pushed to the limit.
The material concerning the Mormon Church’s belief that the word of God was handed down to their prophet Joseph Smith Jr in 1823 on golden plates is also true (by which I mean that the story as I describe it is more or less what the Mormon Church claim – not that the story is actually true. That’s not for me to say).
So, Sherlock has finally confronted the evil Mrs Eglantine and had her banished from the Holmes household. He has also grown up now to the point where he can stand on his own two feet and rescue his brother and his surrogate fathers (Amyus Crowe and Rufus Stone) from trouble, rather than rely on them to rescue him. What next for Sherlock? Well, according to Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the original fifty-six short stories and four novels about a grown-up Sherlock Holmes, his character was an expert at martial arts. Where, I wondered, would he learn those martial arts? China perhaps, or Japan. Time, and the prevailing winds and currents, will tell.
Also by Andrew Lane
Young Sherlock Holmes: Death Cloud
Young Sherlock Holmes: Red Leech
Young Sherlock Holmes: Black Ice
First published 2011 by Macmillan Children’s Books