"Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail." - John Donne

Watson

When we had returned to our flat, Holmes had retreated to his desk to study a pile of scrapbooks and I took the opportunity of the stilling of the hurricane to begin to tidy the flat. I finished making the place decent quite late and went to bed. Holmes spent the rest of the night undoing my work before doing the same.

I was up first and therefore had to face the rage of Mrs. Hudson when she brought our breakfast up. It was only by explaining the nature of the case that I extracted sympathy from her, and then I wished I had no told her for she looked so downtrodden at the providence of poor Eve. It had at least saved us from eviction...

Holmes joined me for breakfast on a table that had more paper than wood to it. While we ate (although for every bite he took, he seemed to down half a cup of coffee), he brought me up to level. He had found Hyde's name in some old articles. The man had been arrested less than a year ago for selling counterfeit opium and running a common betting house. He had operated out of a huge place that had once been grand but had fallen to ruin along with those around it, keeping an opium den on the ground floor, cards on the top floor, and a kennel and dog fighting ring in the cellar.

"This," Holmes explained, pointing out the articles to me as he all but twitched in his seat. "Is perfect. Miss Rose said Hyde had access to the dogs. She called them guard dogs, but they may not have been. Even if they were, the treatment towards the animals sounds similar. He was arrested with several other men. Obviously none of them were the second gunman, but they may be involved with this Sinclair and it was implied Hyde has had contact with him at some point."

My heart was heavy thinking of the poor wretched animals forced to fight to the death in that cold, damp cellar. "What do you propose we do, Holmes?"

"I propose we take the girl to the jail to see these men and see if she can recognize them. If she's seen them since Miss Rose did, Jackyl was most certainly still in cahoots with the villains."

Just as we were finishing, there came a knock on the door. When I answered it, I was met with a smiling Eve and a puffing, weary Mycroft. The former immediately found her old place attached to my leg when I let them in.

"You look a little tired, brother," Holmes remarked with his usual wryness as his brother gave his brow a quick wipe with his handkerchief. "And not only from the stairs."

"I spent the better part of the afternoon playing with crayons. Mrs. Burgess..." Seeing my puzzled look, he continued with "My housekeeper. Of sorts. Comes in the evening and morning to cook and cleans thoroughly every third day. Not the most talkative person, which I enjoy. In any case, she came afterwards, took one look at the little creature and started hollering that when she took the job she took me as a gentleman, that I had no business siring spawn left and right that wouldn't be taken care of... Scared the hell out of Eve, took me half an hour Mrs. Burgess calmed down and another hour to get Eve to come out of the blasted closet. The only thing I even accomplished last night was teaching her how to write her name. She wouldn't repeat it when I asked her to, but the next morning it was in sky blue crayon all over two of my ledgers!"

I sighed, exhorting great will power to keep a smile from my face (Holmes, unrestrained, was chortling), as I gently pried the child off my leg and lifted her up, noting Mycroft had not succeeded in separating her from her bunny. "Did she eat at all, Mycroft?"

"She had squash soup last night which she managed fine. She had a saltine and a half with orange juice this morning and she complained of stomach pain all the way here." He was not amused when Eve glared at him from my arms. "Don't look at me that way! It was Dr. Watson who suggested it!"

"You can't be mad at him, little one," I confirmed. She seemed much more eager to listen to me than Mycroft. "He was only following my instructions. We'll take it a little slower from now on, hmm?"

Her response was to tighten the arm around my neck slightly and rest her head on my shoulder.

"Have fun with her," grumbled the elder brother with a roll of his eyes. "I, meanwhile, have work to do. Do you have anything that will aid you so far?"

"We had a very enlightening night, brother," Holmes smiled, obviously quite amused with his sibling's experience in childrearing. "Have you ever heard of the name Michael Sinclair...?"

"Only in passing," he admitted, frowning slightly as he thought. "He's been flitting under surveillance for years, but no one has ever quite gotten enough to even obtain a warrant. He once owned several opium dens, three very successful, after reposing them on high-interest loans. He sold them a good ten years ago and presumably retired. His name pops up in confessions every now and then, but he's become such a vein of the underworld most of these claims are just scapegoat attempts."

I found myself marvelling at Mycroft's sharp memory; he was indispensable for good reason. The talk of Sinclair was affecting the child, and she clung ever closer to me. She knew the name.

"Our source, who Inspector Lestrade was kind enough to point us towards, claims Jackyl and another man named Fred Hyde once worked for Sinclair and that Eve here came from his sources," the detective, gesturing lightly towards the girl's arm. "We assumed the word on her arm was in relation to her namesake, the perpetrator of original sin in the biblical sense. Now, however, chances are it's an abbreviation."

The pair of watery grey eyes flashed, angry but also disbelieving. "He put his brand on her... Like you'd identify cattle..."

"I want you to have some of your underlings look through the missing children records from three years ago, Mycroft," Holmes spoke before any of us could dwell too deeply on the cruelty. "We'll be paying this Mr. Fred Haynes a visit."

This name triggered something as well, and Eve's eyes grew wide. She struggled enough to nearly make me drop her.

"Eve, hold still! He'll be behind bars, he won't be able to touch you." Rubbing her back and attempting to calm her before she began to cry again, I looked towards my companion. "Holmes, do you really think she's up to this? She's been through so much..."

"Doctor, do remember that the sooner this case is over with, the sooner she can forget about it," Mycroft spoke, his unspoken words made clear by his expression. And the sooner my apartment will be rid of the little mouse.

"I mean it, hold still or I'm bound to drop you and that's something neither of us want. You have a good point, but she's so young..."

"Which means she'll likely forget most of it when she grows up," dismissed Holmes. "Happy hunting, brother. I hope you find someone looking for this child; Lord knows it would be pleasant to see her home after this mess has been mopped up."

Mycroft looked as if he could not wait for the moment the girl was released to someone who wanted her presence and gave a slight nod towards her (met with a small hesitant wave), before heading back down the stairs, wheezing slightly again by the time he made it out.

"Now, little miss," Holmes began, his brisk tone implying he was talking to someone much older and much more comfortable in his presence. "Are you up for a little work?"

Those wild eyes of hers darkened and her small hands came to cover her face as she shook her head frantically.

My friend took a step back, coming to the obvious conclusion; she thought of work in the context Jackyl had given it to her, entertaining idiots in that glass mask. Even now I could see the small welts it had made just beside her ears.

"Oh, not that," the man continued as quick as he could. "Nothing quite so crude. Just a little identification."

Eve tilted her head, a physical equivalency of a question mark.

"This Hyde fellow had some friends that were tossed into cells along with him and we want you to tell us if you've seen them before with Hyde. One of them might have information. I take it you've met Mr. Hyde?"

She shrank back against me as she gave a timid nod, shivering at some distant memory. Her rabbit in the crook of her bad arm, her fully able hand was free to grasp as my lapel with as much firmness as her limited strength would allow.

I gave Holmes a glare I hope he would take as a sign not to begin interrogating the child again. "You will be perfectly safe the entire time, Eve. I promise you that." I marvelled at her trust in me when I felt her nod against my shoulder.

Every case with my companion was unique, but this one was especially vital for so many reasons. It was obvious that if Gladstone was blamed, even in slander, for the murder of his opponent, based on what Mycroft had told us our country might be flung into a depression. The second reason was purely the pursuit of justice; no man should walk free after treating an innocent child like an animal.

We left the flat, Eve eventually consenting to being let down once we were inside a carriage, although she did not let me get more than a foot away from her on the seat. It was as if she were afraid I would leave her in a split second.

Holmes

Although I am not normally a fellow who "adores" children, watching the girl gape out the hansom window was rather amusing. She had no doubt travelled much more than a girl her age usually did, but I wondered what dark little place she had been kept in while they were on the move.

In any case, she appeared rather ignorant to the world, and not thirty seconds passed without her pointing to something or other on the outside, either an orange stand or a gaggle of ladies in their brightly coloured dresses, and then looked to Watson with a perpetual expression of questioning on her thin face.

My friend has rarely failed to find something he liked in every civil person and had a soft spot a country mile deep, and his patience was not even tested by the silent inquisition on everything that a Londoner never looked twice at. When the tapping on he glass began to irk me, he was smiling and telling her as much about the indicated item as he could before she saw something else.

Both smiles faded once we exited the carriage outside of the foreboding grey building where some of the most dangerous men in London were housed. The lifeless stone of the squat, ugly place was enough to make a grown man shudder, especially if he had spent time within it, and I noted that while the girl had enough bravery to walk, one arm kept the stuffed toy she cherished pressed to her side and her other hand gripped Watson's sleeve just as tightly.

"We won't be going into the more gruesome wings," I spoke, my voice echoing in the tall but empty entry hall as I held the door for my friend and his parasite. "Hyde and his lot were not condemned to death. The condemned wing is where the truly frightening things happen... They once placed the intended coffins in the cells with them a month before their executions, you know. Just to rattle them."

"Holmes!" Watson hissed, his glare obvious and furious. "Stop scaring her like that!"

"I am not attempting to scare her, old chap. I merely thought she would find it interesting."

Eve gave me a very pointed look that informed me she most certainly did not think of it as such and cinched her grip ever the more firmly on her defender's coat sleeve as we made our way towards the black desk where a uniformed officer was making busy with a stack of paperwork.

When the man, a fresh-faced lad likely no more than six weeks on the job, looked up and saw his, his eyes brightened with recognition. "Sir... Sir, I'm sorry, but you're Sherlock Holmes, aren't you!" It was not a question so much as an upsurge.

I gave a nod, outwardly unimpressed but inwardly a smidge proud to be recognized. "I am indeed, and this is my faithful Boswell Dr. Watson. I take it you read his stories?"

I could almost hear the protest of his vertebrae as he nodded vigorously. "Oh, yes, every one of them! I've never missed an issue of 'The Strand' since you started publishing in them, Dr. Watson!" He looked down, only just noticing the tiny child hiding herself behind the acclaimed author. "Oh... Oh! I didn't think either of you have a child! Perhaps I missed an issue..." The possibility of such a thing made him darken.

"Oh, no, this little one is not ours. She is a witness to our latest case."

Youthful excitement radiated from him. "A case? You're working on a case? Oh, sirs, can I be of any help to you? Any help at all?"

Now this was how officers of the peace should behave when I ask for their assistance. This one did not even need to be asked. This would be much more convenient than resorting to bribery or blackmail. "As a matter of fact, officer, we came here to see a particular group of prisoners we know to have been involved with our current suspect. If we could let Miss Eve here see them, perhaps ask them a question or two, we would be on the right trail."

His aura of admiration dimmed a scant degree. "Oh, I'm not entirely sure... I mean, we're not exactly supposed to..."

"If your lips are sealed, ours are doubly so," I smiled, attempting to look every bit the rouge gentleman vigilante Watson painted me as. "Who will believe a criminal who claims to have been visited by Sherlock Holmes?"

His faith in my reputation restored, our pet officer smiled again and rose so quickly that he knocked over an ink bottle (thankfully capped) without even noticing it. "Tops, sir! I mean... I mean I would be pleased to help you gentlemen." He fumbled the first two times he grasped for his ring of keys and rooster of inmates, and I was dreadfully sore Watson would never be able to publish such a high profile case; this lad would make such wonderful comic relief.

When the massive steel doors were opened (our new friend nodding amiably to the gatekeepers of the kingdom), we were met with a long row of cages that no decent person would ever put an animal in. Hollow eyes glanced out at us from behind solid bars and I avoided the gazes. I did not want the ruckus making eye contact with someone I put there would cause.

The officer (I did not know his name but I did know he was hopeless with a pistol and courting a young woman fond of light yellow stationary) was chattering on about a former case; "The Noble Bachelor" from what little I was listening to. I was too busy watching Eve's reactions to care much, but she would not recognize anyone just yet with her little eyes fixed firmly on the floor.

"Here we are, gentlemen, Freddy Hyde, entering his eighth month."

Slowly but with reined movement, the head shaved many times in eight months to ward off lice raised to display two green eyes, big and enveloping, took in all four of us at once in a single shift from top to bottom. It was Eve he saw last and it was here his gaze stayed.

"Last time I saw you," he rasped, his gravely voice telling not only long-time use of a hard, hard tobacco but of numerous respiratory illnesses in a very short span time. "You were 'bout to get your face ripped off by a mastiff."

The girl glared out at him, trying to look intimidating but her entire form trembling. She jumped when Watson placed his hands on her shoulder to steady her.

Hyde looked up to me now, giving a yellowed grin and a bark of a laugh. "She looks half human now in her little dress and shoes and with that little toy Mason gave her... But you should have seen her in the dirt. It was funny, you know. So funny to watch her cry and quiver even though she knew the chain was too strong to ever break."

Mycroft has described my dart as the movement of a smelt fish; rapid, fluid and unexpected. It was not flattering, but it was accurate. In less than a heartbeat I had grabbed the bright prison garb Hyde was clothed in and yanked him forward against the bars.

"You'll tell us what we need to know, Hyde, to find Jackyl and whoever he is associated with."

His grin did not even waver. "It was funny."