Edith delivers

In December of that year, the first telegraph cable was being laid between Britain and the United States, Dvorak was completing his fifth symphony, Tolstoy was publishing Anna Karinina, and Edith Baskin was legs up on a filthy mattress, fists full of bedclothes and teeth clenched, adding another illegitimate child to the surplus population.

The midwife was an ancient hag-for-hire by the name of Beatrice Scales who delivered babies — dead or alive, mother’s choice — for four shillings (six if you wanted her to keep quiet about it). She had no formal training, no particular skills. She just squatted at the foot of the bed and babbled non stop.

“So you’re the housemaid up to Ludgate Hill?” Beatrice asked. “The Topham’s, you said? Don’t know ‘em personally, but then I’ve been having trouble keeping up my social calendar.” She cackled and dipped a rag into a basin of water and wrung it out. “Try to breathe regular, love.”

Edith tried.

“How you kept this secret all these months is what I’d like to know, you being such a little slip of a thing.”

“Extra petticoats,” Edith said, grimacing.

Beatrice laughed. “You should’ve thought of that before. Throws off a young man’s resolve having to fight through a thicket of bloomers. Might’ve kept your virtue intact to begin with.”

Edith gasped at a renewed pain and glared at the old woman. “If I’d wanted a sermon, I would’ve gone to church.”

“Comes with the package, love.” Beatrice cackled and shook her head. Black flecks that may have been fleas fell onto the mattress from her stiff snarl of gray hair. “‘Virtue.’ It’s a mania these days, love. You hear it everywhere. In the pulpits, the newspapers. And ain’t that a laugh? Why, Atilla the bleedin’ Hun could clomp right up to 10 Downing Street, bury his battle axe in the Prime Minister’s breast and still expect a fair trial, I reckon. But heaven help the unwed mother.” She clucked. “Push for me, deary.”

Edith pushed.

“You may not know it, but they’re scared to death of the likes of you. William the Conquerer, the Great Fire, the bleedin’ bubonic plague. None of them can hold a candle to you, love. To hear them tell it, you’re to blame for the downfall of civilization as we know it or whatever.” She frowned and rearranged Edith’s legs. “Another push. There’s a good girl.”

Edith squirmed and pushed again.

“Judge Tobias Foss?” Beatrice said, mopping blood with a black rag. “He’s an associate of mine. The judge isn’t what you might call fond of young women in your position.” She leaned around Edith’s knee and winked. “Good thing you went for the six-shilling treatment, deary, or Judge Foss would’ve had you packed off to the asylum for sure.”

Edith screeched and Beatrice went back to the work at hand. “Here it comes, love. Now, don’t you worry your pretty little head about your baby. Nor Judge Foss, neither. Miss Beatrice will take care of both of them.”

“A sweet little girl!” Beatrice squealed, cutting the umbilical cord and bundling the infant in an old lace tablecloth. “Barnabas!” she bellowed, and a black mountain on legs came lumbering into the room. “I know he looks like something conjured with candles and incantations, love, but Barnabas wouldn’t hurt a fly, would you Barnabas?”

“No, ma’am,” the mountain rumbled.

“Maybe you heard of him?”

Edith didn’t respond.

“No?” Beatrice said. “I thought everybody knew Barnabas Stackhouse, the famous prize fighter.” Her tone was sticky with sarcasm. “Some prize. I found him drunk and eating garbage out back of the Hare and Billet.”

Stackhouse dipped his bald head like a preacher’s kid caught smoking.

“Here,” Beatrice said, holding the infant out to Barnabas. “Put this one in bed with the others.” The baby disappeared into the man’s huge forearms.

“No, wait,” Edith gasped, trying to lift herself to one elbow. Sweat pasted her hair to her forehead. “Changed. My mind.”

Beatrice sighed. “How many times have we heard that, Barnabas?”

The man smiled broadly, displaying the three teeth he had to his name. “I don’t know, Mizz Scales. How many babies you reckon you’ve brung into the world?”

Beatrice patted Edith on the arm. “All new mothers get dewy around the eyes when they see their offspring for the first time. It’ll pass, love.”

Edith shook her head. “No, I mean it. Keep the money, just give me Grace.”

Beatrice looked down. “Now, there was your first mistake, love. Going and giving the child a name and all. Makes it all that much more...complicated, you might say.” She nodded at Elias, and he moved toward the door.

“No,” Edith said, struggling to sit up. “I want my baby.”

Beatrice pushed Edith back down onto the bed. “It’s all settled, deary. You signed the papers.”

“I know I signed the papers. I thought —”

Beatrice shoved her face into Edith’s. The old woman’s breath was like a sewer. “You thought? What were you thinking when you dropped your knickers for the father, is what I want to know? With the way things are these days? Did you think you could get yourself knocked up and then just go back to your fancy housemaid ways with a child on your hip? Mr. And Mrs. Topham of Ludgate Hill or wherever may be the finest Christian folk between Nod and Northumberland, but that won’t stop their neighbors’ tongues from wagging. Pretty soon Mr. and Mrs. start getting sidelong looks, find themselves uninvited to parties and whatever. How long do you think they’ll keep padding your pocketbook? You and your little one’d be out on your ear before you could say Bob’s your uncle. And dead within a fortnight, to boot.”

Beatrice straightened the bedclothes a bit and eased her tone. “I’ve seen it happen, I have. Pitiful stories, I could tell you. Tragic. That’s why Elias and me run this here nursery. It gives girls like you some hope. You go back to your job and, in the meantime, your little one gets a fresh start so to speak.”

Edith tore at the bedclothes, kicked her legs. “Give me my baby!”

Beatrice held her down. “Barnabas!”

The mountain calmly moved to the side of the bed and punched Edith square in the jaw. She was unconscious before her head hit the pillow.

Beatrice sighed and began gathering up the bloody rags and linens. “It’s a shame you never got the chance to fight an eighteen-year-old girl, Barnabas. You might’ve won you a championship.”

Version 3

Mycroft Holmes swept in the door of his boyhood home, stripped off his hat, coat and gloves and piled them in his mother’s arm. “How long this time?”

“Three days,” Violet said, turning to dump the hat, coat and gloves into the arms of Pansy, the housemaid. “Not so much as a sneeze.”

Mycroft headed for the stairs, Violet on his heels, chewing her lower lip. “Did you speak to Superintendent Midwinter, then?”

Mycroft nodded. “It’s a wonder he didn’t heave me into the bloody dungeon.” He cringed, remembering the awkward meeting which had ended with a shaky truce not a half-hour hence: Midwinter behind his desk, gripping the arms of his chair to keep himself from rocketing through the roof in rage, Mycroft hemming and hawing about how the Queen greatly appreciates the Superintendent’s position on the matter, et cetera, et cetera, but there are some things bigger than ourselves, extenuating circumstances, et cetera, et cetera, times when we must all subordinate our personal preferences for the good of the order, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It had been one of the most grueling hours of Mycroft’s life. And this was a man who had negotiated delicate treaties with some of the most notorious heads of state in the northern hemisphere.

Sherlock possessed an intelligence bordering on the unprecedented, and yet at times was as dense as dirt. Not once, but twice he had vanished from his post when its responsibilities inconvenienced him. It was unconscionable. The flaming idiot deserved to be sacked.

It was precisely this sort of interference the police did not need. How many lives had been lost throughout the ages, how many nations had fallen because of politics? Mycroft despised politics. He had taken the position with the crown partially because he had entertained fantasies of impressing his views on some of the more culpable practitioners of the craft. And yet, not five years in, there he was, oiling the old wheels himself.

“I’m so glad you’re here, love,” Violet panted, trying to keep pace. “You’re the only one he’ll listen to, and I’m at my wit’s end. I couldn’t just let him stay up there, could I? What with constables beating down the door at all hours, wondering where Sherlock’s got to. It’s such a strain on my nerves, you know, running this household.” She hesitated a moment, ruminating. “Of course, when I pass, the house will belong to you boys — lock, stock and barrel.”

“I have a house, Mother,” Mycroft said, slowing his pace up the steep staircase. Unlike Sherlock, who had to stoop to get through doors and would be gaunt as a ghost the rest of his days, Mycroft had inherited his father’s tendency to spread from the middle outward. Not too many years ago these stairs had been his playground --- stalking Huns by day, jungle cats by night, for hours on end. And now he was huffing and puffing like a Liverpool & Manchester locomotive.

“Yes, I know you have your own house,” Violet said. “And I’m happy for your brother to have this one. It’s just that–”

She stopped halfway up the staircase and Mycroft, grateful for the breather, turned to face her. “What is it?”

She ran a finger along the banister. “If Sherlock ends up with the house, that’s fine with me. Really, it is. It’s just that, well, your brother isn’t exactly what one might call ‘tidy.’”

Mycroft grunted. “What tipped you to it, Mother, the half-dissected crocodile in the WC or the fag ends under his pillow?”

“That’s what I mean. He’s not at all like you, love. Do you remember how you had your special spot for each of your playthings and always had your bed made before school?” She drew a dreamy expression from her catalog. “Those were precious times, love.”

She sighed. “Your brother will have the house in ruins before I’m cold. My beautiful roses gone to seed, wild animals nesting in the eaves. She frowned. “He wouldn’t care a fig. As long as there’s a door to lock and drapes to draw, your brother’s as contented as a cat by the fire.”

Mycroft patted her on the head. “Not to worry, Mother. I’ll just have the Secretary of War pop round from time to time to see to your roses.”

Violet’s face fell. “Begging your pardon, Mr. Highly Placed Government Official. I didn’t know you’d got too important for your dying mother.”

Mycroft resumed his ascent on Mount Staircase, Violet prattling along behind. “You were always the one eager to please, the one at my elbow — stirring the cake batter in one of my old aprons, brushing my hair with that angelic smile of yours like something out of a nursery rhyme.” She threatened the dreamy bit again.

“Sherlock!” Mycroft boomed, gaining the top step and accosting the bedroom door.

Violet persisted. “How about we bake a lovely cake, dear? Like old times?”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft roared, “open this door before I strangle Mother!”

“Working!” Sherlock bellowed from inside.

“Superintendent Midwinter will be overjoyed to hear it, I’m sure,” Mycroft bellowed back, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and mopping at his forehead. “Perhaps he’ll take that into account when he straps you to the rack.”

The bedsprings creaked and a moment later the door cracked an inch. “My talents are wasted in that comedy of errors, Mycroft,” Sherlock said, one eye visible. Clove-scented cigarette smoke seeped out into the hallway. “Mycroft, are you ill?”

“Why can’t you take a more convenient room, for heaven’s sake?” Mycroft asked, loosening his collar. “I feel like I’ve scaled the Matterhorn.”

Sherlock swung the door open and blew a nimbus of smoke down the hall. “Mother rules the ground floor like a martinet,” he said.

“Ashes!” Violet hissed.

Sherlock brought a dirty saucer from the pocket of his robe, which seemed to be the only article of clothing he worn for the whole of his self-imposed exile. He tapped his ash into the dish. “I rest my case.”

Mycroft waved at the smoke and maneuvered his bulk into the bedroom. No matter how many times he entered the place, it was always a shock. Clothes lay everywhere, wadded and stomped. Glasses, teacups, soup bowls and saucers were stacked upon the bureau, the bookcase and the windowsill, their molded remains unrecognizable. An antique side table that had been in the family for two-hundred years was shoved against the wall, groaning beneath the weight of a bubbling tangle of beakers, flasks and glass tubing which was leaking a black stringy substance which gave off a stink that would have driven Dante from his inferno. And the papers — newspapers, nautical maps, coffee-stained letters in foreign languages, half-finished sketches he couldn’t have begun to identify.

“You’ve wasted your time,” Sherlock said. “I cannot possibly return to the CID.” He tapped another ash. “My last assignment was to go about knocking on doors in order to wake people without clocks.”

Mycroft toed at a particularly unrecognizable mound of questionable material that looked ready to germinate. “Are there people without clocks?”

Sherlock collapsed onto his unmade bed, sending detritus hurtling up and off the mattress like panicked passengers abandoning a sinking ship. “Evidently they are legion.”

“I have a mind to set Pansy loose in here with a match,” Violet said, standing outside the doorway as if she were afraid of exposing herself to a contagion.

“Out of the question!” Sherlock rumbled face down into his pillow. He rolled onto his back and snatched papers into each hand. “The value of any one of these may someday exceed that of the Magna Carta.”

“Close your robe, Sherlock,” Mycroft hissed.

Sherlock tied the sash and sat up on the edge of the bed. “There. Decency is restored.”

Violet braced herself, entered and began picking through the clothes. “You have to get dressed.” She inspected a shirt that seemed a bit less wrinkled than the rest and tossed it to Sherlock.

“Superintendent Midwinter has agreed to speak to you. Isn’t that right, Mycroft?”

Sherlock let the shirt drop to the floor and turned to his brother. “I don’t know what Midwinter told you, but I would be very surprised if it at all resembled what actually transpired.”

“Sherlock, I realize the man is an ass,” Mycroft said. “But he’s hardly a liar. Liars do not end up promoted to Chief Superintendent of the CID.”

Sherlock snorted. “No? Did he tell you I vanished from my post?”

“Yes.”

“Did he say that it has now been–” he consulted the mantle clock atop a teetering minaret of books in the corner of the room “–sixty-two hours since he last heard from me?”

“He did.”

Sherlock crossed his arms and trumpeted, “Lies!”

Mycroft gave his brother a long look. “You’ve been mucking around with your infernal disguises again, haven’t you?”

Sherlock grinned and rushed to his closet where he plunged in up to his chin and began hurling what looked to be the better part of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane costume shop over his right shoulder. Capes, pirate swords, turbans, wigs, beards. “Eureka!” he bellowed, fiddled with his face a moment, then turned round.

Mycroft shrugged. “You could be any old, eccentric gentleman in London.”

“Exactly.”

Mycroft sneered. “And it was as this–”

“Clement Entwhistle.”

“It was as this ‘Clement Entwhistle’ that you took your post and subsequently visited Superintendent Midwinter.”

Sherlock flashed a sly grin. “Naturally, I intended to reveal myself after a moment or two, but the old horse was so taken in. And how would it look if word got round that a lowly PC got the better of the chief superintendent?” He paused. “I think I may have been too successful, Mycroft. I’m afraid that I have yet to devise an end to the masquerade.”

Mycroft moved closer, simmering. “I have overextended myself, Sherlock. At this moment, Midwinter is in his office, believing you were weaned at the royal breast. We can only thank providence that he hasn’t the stones to actually investigate the tales I told him, else we would both be hanged by St. Swithun’s Day.”

Sherlock sulked.

“End it,” Mycroft said. “Tonight.”

Sherlock removed his nose. “I cannot.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Because Mr. Entwhistle has an appointment with a certain young lady and would hate to disappoint her.”

This brought a yelp of joy from Violet. “You don’t mean it! A young lady, Sherlock.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “It’s not what you think, Mother. There is no romantic involvement.”
Violet wasn’t to be denied so easily. Not after all these years on her knees at St. Paul’s begging the good Lord to put a nice girl in Sherlock’s path. A church wedding appeared before her eyes. A thousand twinkling candles illuminating a flower-gilded sanctuary, ten handsome groomsmen standing witness in tie and tails across from a matching ten porcelain bridesmaids. Rows and rows of family, friends and well-wishers sending Violet Holmes’s youngest off into bliss and self-sufficiency.
“Who is she, dear?” Violet asked, taking Sherlock’s hands in hers. “What’s she like?”

“Her name is Edith Baskin,” Sherlock answered and then leveled Violet with one, well-aimed verbal blow. “And she is recently a mother. Though not by me.”

Mycroft muttered, “As if there were any doubt.”

“Do not make the mistake of judging my worth as a suitor on your...prurient criteria,” Sherlock snapped. “Retaining one’s purity until marriage — despite your example, Mycroft — is still the prudent course. Isn’t that right, Mother?”

The friends and flowers vanished. “If you say so, dear.”

“Miss Baskin–”

“‘Miss?’” Mycroft interrupted.

“There is no husband,” Sherlock said. “If there were, she would not have found herself taking the drastic measures that have now forced her to seek my assistance.”

Mycroft grunted, “Mr. Entwhistle’s assistance, you mean.”

“Correct.”

Mycroft plopped down on the foot of the bed. It never seemed to matter how carefully Mycroft planned his route, no matter how resolved he was to stick to the path, Sherlock somehow always managed to pull him into the briar patch. He sighed. “You might as get all of it out.”

Edith

Chapter One
Edith returns to Scales'

It’s the only way.

Edith repeated the phrase to herself over and over as she splashed through the streets, her three-month-old daughter in her arms, bundled against the frigid rain and sleet that fell like a judgment. In Edith’s pocket was a scrap of newsprint torn from the Daily Telegraph:

NURSE CHILD WANTED, OR TO ADOPT -- The Advertiser, Beatrice Scales of 29 Beckford Row, Bethnal Green — a Widow with a little family of her own, and moderate allowance from her late husband’s friends — would be glad to accept the charge of a young child. Age no object. If sickly would receive a parent’s care. Terms, Fifteen Shillings a month; or would adopt entirely if under two months for the small sum of Twelve pounds.

The fifteen shillings jingled in Edith’s purse, accusing her with every step, and she imagined that every person she passed knew where she was going, what she was up to. How could they not? Scurrying through the streets in the dead of night, no umbrella, half-frozen child in her arms. She might as well have been wearing a sign around her neck: Fallen Woman.

The baby pulled the blanket back from her face and instantly began to wail. Ice pellets struck her cheeks, collected in her eyes. Edith ducked beneath a narrow overhang, brushed the ice from the baby’s face and replaced the blanket, cooing and singing a lullaby her own mother had sung to her when she was a child. The song was threaded with love, warmth, security — rocking chair by the fire, something delicious on the stove and her father coming in from work at the end of the day, stomping snow from his boots and calling for his welcome home kisses from his little angel.

No rocking Edith’s child. No fire, no father. Only a face full of rain and a mother about to leave her in the care of a stranger.

God forgive me.

The baby began to shiver. Edith looked up at the looming stone buildings along the street; she needed to get the baby out of the rain for a moment or two, dry her off, bundle her tighter. All the windows were dark, everything closed for the evening. Not that any one of them would have been open to her were it high noon on St. Swithun’s Day.

There were no doors open to the likes of her, nor to her child. Virtue was a national mania, and the only way to deal with the epidemic of illegitimates was to punish the offenders, make examples of them. Unwed mothers were universally spurned — by family and friends, alike. And finding employment was impossible with a bastard on your hip. Even if the odd shopkeeper found himself sympathetic to the plight of the young, destitute mother desperate to feed her offspring and fancied paying her a few pence to keep the place tidy, he couldn’t afford the wrath of his customers should they discover the shameful secret.

Edith was fortunate: she had a job — housemaid to the Tophams of Ludgate Hill, a well-off young family living literally in the shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Mr. Topham showed Edith nothing but kindness and Mrs. Topham — not very much older than Edith, herself — was more sister than employer, often asking Edith to come into her bedroom and give her opinion of this dress or that hat, the two of them talking and laughing sometimes for hours.

Edith’s room was far enough removed from the rest of the house that keeping Grace secret had so far been easy enough: her crib in the closet and a well-rehearsed fib about a stray cat crying for a saucer of milk should anyone ask.

But how long could that go on? A few more months at most? Better to make arrangements now, before she was found out and lost all hope of income. The Tophams were fair, to be sure, but word would get out. No one would hire her. And then how would she feed her child?

No, her daughter’s only hope was far from this prosperous district, in the care of Beatrice Scales. Edith would save her money, ask for more responsibilities. And when she had saved enough, she would find a home of her own, perhaps open a boarding house. And then things would be different.

It’s the only way.

She peered down the dark street, tucked the blanket snug around the baby’s face and stepped back out into the downpour.

Edith arrives at Scales's

Sherlock

Sherlock

I didn't think it possible, but the reception was even worse than the lecture. Tycoons and magnates were packed in shoulder to shank, shouting and smoking, their empty-headed wives determined to out-babble each other. I bellowed toward Mother's ear, "Whomever is in charge of enforcing London's occupancy statutes is no doubt at this moment either bound and gagged at some undisclosed location or cackling behind a raft of citations!"

Mother was inching her way in the unmistakable direction of the magnificent Mr. Sloan, and I was tugging her sleeve in the opposite direction. Alas, the way was plugged. The only hope I could see of moving from point A to point B was to shuffle along with the flow, as if we all were involved in some avant garde theatrical dramatization of the solar system.

"The heat is unbearable, Mother," I tried, but she was into her fixation. "Mother, I really am roasting," I said. "I must get some air."

The perpetual round and round forced the guests to greet each other over and over with each orbit, everyone tugging at tuxedo collars and prickly petticoats, sweat trickling down backs and betweens bosoms, perfumes and pomades commingling with odors that would have driven Dante from his Inferno.

Accompaniment for our wheeling gavotte was provided by a brass quintet of dubious heritage which careened through one Sousa march after another as if it's members were in fear of having actually rehearsed a number they might not have opportunity to perform. An army of tightlipped waiters threaded through the whole business holding teetering silver trays high overhead. "All in all, a thoroughly depraved affair, wouldn't you say, Mother? Faust might fly through the room on his magical beer barrel at any moment."

The allusion passed her by. "Mother, my head is spinning like a top." I swooned toward the floor. "I am losing consciousness."

She yanked me to my feet and glared from under the brim of her ridiculous hat. "Not tonight, Sherlock."

I pouted, smoothed my jacket and refused the handshakes of the entire London board of commissioners, who at that moment were passing us by and flailing their well wishes like figures at the rail of a departing excursion ship. I sighed. "Maybe I ought to invent something. Heaven knows my Adonis figure isn't working."

Mother grimaced. "Spare me your filthy habits."

"Ah!" I exclaimed on tip-toe, pointing through a part in the sea. "The object of our search! Nathan Eliot Wilcox Sloan, himself. Holding court."

Mother hurried before the seas could close again. "Don't embarrass me."

We closed in on our quarry who was loudly annotating his previous hour of drivel for a dozen or so business speculators. Any time Sloan stopped for a breath, the investors began shoving checkbooks under his nose and stuffing his pockets with wads of banknotes like in-laws at a wedding reception.

"Excuse me," I bellowed and the toadies peeled away from their prince. "I am afraid my mother will urinate all over herself if you do not spare her a moment."

Mother slapped me wth her fan and curtsied. "Mr. Sloan," she said, extending her hand, "Your lecture was just brilliant."

"I couldn't make heads nor tails out of it, myself," I said. "Quadratic negative harmonics? Etheric disintegration? Unadulterated bullshit is what it was."

"You aren't an adherent of my methods?" Sloan said.

"I am many things. Gullible is not one of them."

He merely smiled and sipped his champagne.

"It is my mother who is ensnared in your web. She can't be blamed for her infatuation with you, I suppose. There is no denying it: I have been a disappointment. Still am. Every day an embarrassment, a thorn in Mother's corset. She doesn't understand my opinions, despises my affectations, absolutely detests the dictionary of vulgar expressions I am hoping to publish."

"Vulgar expressions?" Sloan grunted, and the toadies guffawed into their sleeves.

"Excuse me," I said, extracting my tablet and pencil. "Just being in your proximity brings several novel ones to mind." I scribbled the entries and replaced the tablet. "My study of cripples and streetwalkers and the like she pronounces a psychological defect. Never mind I have earned my master's degree in sociology and am a candidate for admission into a renowned doctoral program just as soon as there is an opening. In Mother's eyes, I have already failed."

"Well, look at yourself," Sloan said. "Thirty-five and still refusing to budge from your childhood bedroom. Your mother dreads friends dropping by, you know, forced as she is to endure the tales and exploits of their offspring --- captains of industry and Pulitzer winners, all, celebrated luminaries scattered like diamonds from sea to shining sea, building railroads, discovering cures, rescuing children from utter poverty armloads at a time. And then it's And what of Sherlock?, knowing good and well you are puttering around the house in your housecoat somewhere, scribbling dirty words in your tablet."

More guffaws.

"You are a great disappointment, Sherlock. And though she might not admit it, I happen to know that your dear mother wishes that I were were her son instead. I am handsome, sport a smartly clipped beard and perfectly round gold spectacles. And so well-spoken. Not at all like you. Why, you jabber from dawn to dusk about absolutely nothing and dress like a trader's cart at a Moroccan bazaar."

"Precisely," Mother chimed.

Sloan tapped his glass with his fountain pen and the brass band broke off their wheezing and blowing. The waiters froze mid-stride and the room fell under a hush. "Violet Holmes has decided to throw the full benefit of her pocketbook behind me and my work. I'm sure you all know, my friends, that Mrs. Hennipin has never been shy about sharing her wealth. The Custodial Asylum for Feebleminded Women, the House of Refuge, the Union Temperance Home for Children --- these and others all enjoy Clara's support. She is happy to do what she can for the unfortunate, of course, but she is excited about the notion of being a part of something bright and hopeful for a change. About me. Nathan Eliot Wilcox Sloan. Even my name sounds promising. Violet doesn't pretend to understand the science, but she knows instinctively that I could very well change the world. Something Sherlock here couldn't do if he were Ceasar with all the armies of Rome at his back."

The crowd roared.

******************

"Sherlock, dear?"

Violet Holmes bustled up the broad staircase of her expansive home, hatted and gloved. "Sherlock?" she repeated and rapped on her son's bedroom door. "Are you in there?"

"Working!" Sherlock bellowed from inside.

"Let me in, dear. I have something to tell you."

"Whatever it is, I am certain to be entirely disinterested."

"It's about you, dear."

Violet heard the bedsprings creak and a moment later the door cracked an inch. "I hope you haven't volunteered my services at that horrible relief kitchen again," Sherlock said, one eye visible. "The stench from that rabble made me retch. I was forced to burn my suit coat the moment I returned home."

Violet shook her head and nosed her way into the bedroom. "No, nothing like that."

She looked around the room. No matter how many times she entered the place, it was always a shock. Clothes lay everywhere, wadded and stomped. Glasses, teacups, soupbowls and saucers, their molded remains reeking, were stacked upon bureau, bookcase and windowsill. A worktable against the wall, a'bloom with a bubbling and smoky tangle of beakers flasks and glass tubing, could have served as convincing stage dressing for a theatrical company specializing in penny dreadfuls. Sherlock, in his bathrobe and nothing else, collapsed onto his unmade bed, sending detritus hurtling up and off the mattress like passengers abandoning ship en masse.

"I wish you would let Pansy tidy up in here," Violet said, searching for a place to sit, then thinking better of it.

"Out of the question!" Sherlock rumbled face down into his pillow. He rolled onto his back and snatched papers into each hand. "The value of any one of these may someday exceed that of the Magna Carta."

"Close your robe, Sherlock," his mother hissed, turning away.

"Mother, you bathed me as a child. I wouldn't think ---"

"That was thirty years ago, dear."

Sherlock tied the sash and sat up on the edge of the bed. "There. Decency is restored. Now, what world-shaking event has forced you to invade?"

Violet drew a handkerchief from her sleeve and touched it to her nose. "I want you to go with me to Mr. Sloan's lecture."

"Fraud!" Sherlock barked and rose like a shot.

Violet closed her eyes, breathed deeply and began again. "I want you to go with me to Mr. Sloan's lecture. I have made some inquiries and have every reason to believe he may be interested in employing you."

"In what capacity? Unless Mr. Sloan finds himself in need of