Prompt: Wishing Well, from Winter Winks 221
My friend Sherlock Holmes was equally well-known for his prowess as a detective as he was for his eccentricities as a tenant, thanks in no small part for the stories that I began writing for my own amusement and his edification. That an interested public eagerly awaited each new installment so Holmes and I became the most famous private individuals in London was something I had hardly expected. Yet, there were things I kept from the official stories of our cases, some by Holmes's own wish, that remain little known to this day. One of these, I feel, may be best illustrated by the story I relay now for the first time.
It was a clear, sunny day in May, one of the first such in England that year when Holmes and I ventured out of our Baker Street rooms to take a walk in the nearby park. It being sunny, we were hardly alone in this idea, and the paths were full of young couples in love, old women feeding the birds and children running from those minding them. Holmes was engaged in a discourse about the various types of invisible ink and their histories and uses, a topic which had recently become of interest to him. I expected he would write a monograph soon.
Sometimes, I had found, it was best to simply allow Holmes to talk, especially on those occasions where he did not seem to require a response, merely someone to listen as he laid his thoughts out in an orderly fashion. This freed me to observe our fellow Londoners and attempt to follow his methods in deducing their occupations and life situations.
No sooner had I begun this than I was nearly bowled over by several boys running through the park. I remained annoyed only for a brief second, however, as I recognized them as several of Holmes little army of street boys who were his eyes and ears throughout the city. "Sorry, Dr. Watson, Mr. Holmes!" Wiggins called out.
"Slow down, now, boys!" I said, then amended myself as I noticed Melinda, the only girl allowed into Holmes's Baker Street Irregulars thus far, "And ladies, of course. Where are you going so quickly you cannot watch where you are going?"
"There's a wishing well, sir," little Sam, no more than five years old said, glancing up at Holmes. The stern look my friend gave him was the one known for making hardened criminals quail, and Sam gulped. "It's set up right the other end of the park."
"And we thought we'd make some wishes," Ronald, only a couple of years older, added, before clapping his hand over his mouth with a quick glance at Holmes.
"Come," I said, before Holmes could launch into an explanation about how wishing wells were irrational. I remembered making such wishes myself as a boy. "We shall go to the wishing well together." The well in question, when we arrived, had clearly been set up as a pleasant spot for courting couples to stop and wish for their future happiness together. But this was hardly on the minds of the Baker Street Irregulars, who ran toward it gleefully.
"I'm gonna wish for a big plate of biscuits!" Sam said.
"You're not supposed to say your wishes," Melinda said. "They won't come true if you do. Sides, Mrs. H'll give you biscuits next time we go see Mr. Holmes." Mrs. Hudson had become most fond of Holmes's little street army, making sure there were biscuits and cake when they came by to visit. On more than one occasion, she had sent one of them home with a basket of bread and cheese or a few meat pies, knowing it wasn't always certain they would have a meal that night.
I frowned as something occurred to me, watching. "This seems something of a crime," I said to Holmes in an undertone. "Those children have little enough to their name; even a pence goes a long way for them! And here they are, convinced they'll get wishes by throwing it away into a well." I wondered what wealthy fellow - Mr. Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge came to mind - had thought of such a thing.
"Why, Watson, you are learning!" Holmes said. "You surprise me. This sort of magical drivel seems to me to be the sort of thing you would ordinarily enjoy."
"Well, yes, usually," I said. "But come, Holmes, you cannot tell me you are unaware of the situation in which your Irregulars live." I had not thought of this when he had first explained his use of London's street children to me; there were many, many such children and I confess, to my shame, that one rather stopped seeing them after a time. But now I had come to know many of them. I had stitched Wiggins' arm on one occasion he had torn a gash in it climbing through a window, bought medicine with my own money for little Ronald when he'd had a cough, told them stories around the fire when it was cold out.
"I certainly am not," Holmes said. "You know the wages I pay are double what they would earn otherwise." I felt ashamed of myself for thinking it, for even in the days when Holmes and I had barely enough between us to make our monthly rent, he had paid his Irregulars considerably more than a boy could earn shining shoes or selling newspapers. It still seemed like little enough, I thought, as I watched them cluster around the wishing well.
"Someone really should do something," I said to Holmes. "That children should live like this." I watched Ronald start to chase Melinda around the well, laughing as they scandalized the courting couples. They would seem to be utterly carefree, except for the obviously poor quality of their clothes. I saw several passing gentlemen look at them harshly and deliberately move farther away. Ignorant fools, I thought with some vitriol.
"Do not think I have not mentioned it to Mycroft," Holmes said. "It is a larger problem than it seems, according to him. I do not see why it should be, but then I am not the British government."
This surprised me utterly, for Holmes had no interest in politics and I had half believed he had no idea who the Prime Minister was at any given time. "You have?" I asked.
"Well, it is certainly in my interest to have a more stable little police force," Holmes said. "One where I do not have to constantly search out its members when they are forced to move, or teach to read myself."
"You taught them to read?" I asked in even more shock. That did explain how they had learned, for certainly none of them had attended school.
"I engaged a teacher for the first boys I took on," Holmes said. "With the understanding that they would teach those that followed. It has worked admirably."
"Yes, but that is hardly enough," I said. "You do know Melinda's family has been forced to move out of the last two flats they held? They live in dreadful fear of the workhouse, she has told me."
"Of course I know," Holmes said. "It was I who found them their latest flat, and guaranteed their payments."
"You, Holmes?" I asked. I could not have been more shocked had he said he had suddenly acquired a wife.
"Certainly, Watson. I am well aware of the impoverished standards of my Irregulars, and I need their services more than I need what my wealthiest clients pay me," he answered.
I suddenly remembered that every year after Christmas, the Irregulars almost managed to acquire new shoes and garments. I had never given much thought to where they had come from, but now I saw with total clarity that it was Holmes's gift to them every year. "You are the one who gives them new clothes every Christmas," I said.
"Where the deuce else would they get them, Watson?" Holmes asked, peeved, no doubt, that it had taken me several years to deduce and infer this simple fact. It was only that his cold exterior made him the last man anyone would think would be capable of such charity. I was hardly fooled by his acting as if it was the only way to ensure he had his little spies, though undoubtedly he was correct that it was.
"What did you wish for, Wiggins?" Sam asked their leader, a lanky boy of about ten.
"Not supposed to say," Wiggins said.
"Please? Please, please, please?" Sam begged, until Wiggins finally rolled his eyes upwards.
"Fine, if you must know. I wished I could be a detective when I grow up, like Mr. Holmes." The boy's face turned bright red as he said it and he glanced down at his shoes. "Let's go, Sam, Ronald. Got to get home 'fore dark, don't we?"
"Well," Holmes remarked to me. "That is a remarkable chain of events, and I daresay one wish that will actually come true. I've had it in mind to send Wiggins to the police academy when he comes of age."
"You have?" I asked.
"I am always certain to find positions for my Irregulars when they grow too old to assist me in that way anymore," Holmes said. "It is a benefit to have friendly contacts in as many places as possible. For instance, Watson, the fellow who I buy my chemicals from was once a Baker Street Irregular. Well, a Montague Street Irregular, I suppose. Before your time. The leader of the Irregulars before Wiggins is now a secretary in a counting house, and I have found his knowledge of the industry very useful."
I suspect I could know Sherlock Holmes for fifty years and he would continue to surprise me, yet I have found no surprise as gratifying as knowing what he had done for London's poor and lower classes. By my estimation, some hundred families were kept from the workhouse simply because Holmes paid their children to keep their eyes open for him, and in turn lent his assistance when needed. Those children later found themselves with a valuable advantage in life, for every one of them found a valuable position thanks to his assistance. Holmes disliked credit and accolades in all instances, refusing to be named even in his most successful cases, and no record exists at all of the substantial charity he gave to his little army of street urchins, save for this account. It is my hope that Sherlock Holmes may one day be known not only as a great detective, but as good a man as one could hope to be.