Disclaimer: I should have said for the last chapter that I do not own Varden Street and the church there, or the people in the church. To add to that, I do not own Holmes, Watson, Wiggins, Simpson, or Harry.

Chapter Three: Clues and Shoes.

The game refused to be afoot, or exciting, for several days. Mostly, we - Wiggins, Rat, me, and the others - went looking in the scummiest, dirtiest, lowest parts of London that we could find. We teemed up with Li, and together we looked in opium dens and run-down theatres; grimy public houses and crowded music halls. We peered into butcher's shops, their counters decorated from above with limp rabbit carcases hanging upside down; bakeries, steamy and warm inside with the smells of fresh bread; we even went to Covent Garden, and gazed at the faces of the people there selling fruit and flowers. Wiggins disregarded the flower-girls at first sight: "Them? 'sall they can do to worry 'bout payin' their rent, never mind a murder."

"Maybe they've got a lot of spare time," I suggested.

Li giggled, then said, "No, I think Wiggins' right. We oughta 'ave a butcher's round the grottier places."

"Have a butcher's round the butcher's." I said; and the others laughed.

- - - - -

We had our butcher's, but nothing came to light. Along with hunting for any foreigners, we all had to eat. Many was the time that I inwardly cursed my promise to stay honest, but if any of the others dared mention it, I flared up immediately, and refused to hear a word against it. It was for my own good, I insisted. Mr Holmes knew that, and that was why he had asked me to forgo a life of crime. I repeated this often, kept my nose in the air, a virtuous expression on my face, and tried to ignore my empty stomach.

Caught up in my own tumult, I did not see that Rat was getting quieter, more withdrawn into himself. He had always been quiet, confiding only in the people he really trusted, but now he did not talk at all - even to me. Afterwards, I was furious at myself: I, who tried to notice things and had begun to quite preen myself on my sharpness, completely ignored Rat's reserved behaviour until it had become almost a habit with him. I only noticed it one evening, when I met up with the others by my railings. I was in a thoroughly bad mood, having spent that whole day running errands, fetching and carrying, only to be given tuppence at the end of it all. Wiggins saw my thunderous expression, and unwisely inquired, "You all right, Kit?"

"No! I am not alright! I am hungry, I am tired, I've been working all day, running here, running there, saying, 'yes sir', 'no sir' until I'm ready to scream, and what do I get for it all? Tuppence. Tuppence!"

"Tuppence is better than nothin'," Rat said comfortingly.

"Oh, yes, it's easy for you to say that, but then it ain - isn't your legs what are about to collapse, are they?"

Rat recoiled as though I'd hit him. I sat down hard on the ground, and took off my old pair of cracked boots I had managed to scrounge from the rubbish heap outside the theatre. Massaging my aching feet, I glowered at a growing blister, already feeling ashamed of my outburst. I knew that Rat was only trying to help, and I had just made everything worse.

Tentatively, Li said, "'ave you found anythin', Kit?"

"No," I sighed. I wanted to find something badly, something that would get me the promised guinea, and also something that would . . . that would what? That would get you admiration, I answered myself scornfully. You want Mr Holmes to pat you on the back, and say "Well done, Kit!" Get over it. Waiting, hoping for praise, showing my . . . dependance on something. You are independant! You live by your wits, and get money by any way - any honest way - you can. And yet, it was more than that. Hero-worship. There's nothing wrong with that! I argued. And yet, I could not help feeling that I had lost something, or perhaps that I had not yet got it. I felt all mixed up inside, and I let it out in another sigh.

"Kit?"

"Mmm?"

"'dju want a bit?" Wiggins offered me a chunk of something grey and speckled with black from his pocket. Too hungry to care, I accepted it with a brief, "Ta, Wiggins," and shoved it in my mouth, barely tasting it before it sank down into my stomach and tamed my raging hunger. I didn't think to ask what it was, which was probally just as well.

After that, I felt a bit better, and tugging at Rat's sleeve, I hissed quietly, "Hey,"

When he looked at me, I mouthed, Sorry at him, and he smiled his slow smile, nodding slightly. Then he moved his arm out of my reach. Something about his action made me curious, and I reached for his sleeve again. He tucked his good arm behind his bad one, and stared at me flatly.

"Rat? Can I see your arm?"

"No,"

"But - "

"No."

I frowned, got up and grabbing his shoulders, pulled his sleeve up in spite of his efforts to stop me. There was a string of livid bruises reaching up his arm, and an oozing cut with jagged edges in the crook of his elbow. I was no stranger to violence, and should have thought it odd indeed if Rat had not had some bruises, but these were not normal, and that cut had been done by a knife.

Rat yanked his arm away. "Leggo,"

"Rat, how did that happen?"

"I fell,"

"On your bike, Rat! Which, as you don't have one, is quite impossible. Who did that to you?"

"Did wot?" Wiggins and Li had suddenly awoken to our conversation. For answer, I pointed to Rat, whose breathing had quickened, his eyes darting from my face to the ground and back again.

"Rat's been beaten up," I stated flatly.

Wiggins' head jerked up, and he stared at Rat in amazement, demading finally, "Why didn't you tell us? Tell me?"

"Because there's nothin' to tell! I tripped and cut myself,"

"You're barmy to think we're believin' you, Rat." Li said, his squint becoming more pronounced in his distress. "Bet it was the lot in Pall Mall. Or Jem's boys."

"No it weren't Jem, it were - " he bit off the rest of the sentance. I pounced on the trailing end:

"Yes? It were who?"

"No one. Don' ask me, they said, they said that if I told . . ."

"It were Todd's!" Li burst out. "That's what Todd's gang always says. It were Todd's!"

"'ow true," said a voice behind us. I had forgotten that my railings were in a cut-off space, and that nearby was an alley, full of rubbish that was starting to smell. I had forgotten that when one warns someone not to tell what happened to them, one generally places a watchdog to make sure the victim does not peach.

All these things flashed through my mind as I turned to face the boy who had spoken. He, and two others behind him were all grinning. "Little Rattie was gonna squeal, then, were 'e?" the first boy leered.

When in situations like this, it is handy to have been in a similar tight spot some time before. I was aware of the first blow being launched, and ducked to avoid it. Quickly sidestepping, I punched the first boy hard in his gut; he doubled over, then someone knocked me from behind, and I rolled on the hard ground, struggling to keep another boy at arm's length. His fist smashed into my shoulder, and mentally, and quite cooly, I thought, Ah, so they don't touch the face. That keeps it secret. . . I had no such qualms, and hit him under his chin, and felt his grip weaken. I shuffled, got my legs up and kicked him in the chest so he went flying over my head. I heard the soft thump as he landed, heard Rat's shrill scream: "Kit! Watch it! 'e's gotta knife!"

The situation abruptly shifted from being something close to welcome exercise to something a lot more worrying. The other boy was squirming underneath Wiggins and Li, but the first boy that I had hit was feeling in his pocket, his breath wheezing in and out in an airy whistle. Rat jumped on him, pulling him down, and as he threw Rat off easily, I got hold of his ears and banged his head a few times on the cobbles.

Dimly, I heard someone shouting, "Oi, you boys, get out of it! Break it up!" and I was yanked off him by a man in - I blinked, and scrambled to my feet - by a man in a blue uniform, which immediately set every little alarm bell in my mind ringing a warning, Copper! Run! It didn't matter if I was honest, a copper was a copper, and whenever there was a copper around, you beat it in a hurry. I grabbed Rat's collar, yelled, "Wiggins!" - and aside - "Sorry, guv, but they started it!" and ran pell-mell for the safety of the alley way, with the other boys following, rivalry forgotten in the common fear of every street arab.

Once out of view of the copper, I swung round and pushed the other boy against the wall of the alley. It was the one Wiggins and Li had been sitting on. He had a swelling black eye, and a bleeding nose. The leader - and his knife - had vanished down the street, leaving the winded one to the mercy of the police. Wiggins, rubbing his bruised forehead with the back of one hand, glared at the other boy. "Nah, y'see what 'appens when you get mixed up wi' Todd an' 'is lot? You ain't gonna be beatin' Rat up again with 'em are you?"

The other boy wriggled as I pushed his head back against the wall. I could feel a headache coming on from where my head had connected with the ground, I had scraped the skin off the back of my knuckles, and now they were starting to sting. Plus, I had left my boots behind.

"No!" The boy squeaked, feeling my baleful stare at him. "No, I won't!"

"Good," I growled. "Now, you . . . " I was suddenly struck by a thought, and I asked him, "You haven't seen any foreigners round about, have you? Brown skinned people?"

He gawked at the change in subject, and stammered, "N-no, I don't think . . ."

"Better start thinkin'," Wiggins warned ominously.

"H'i yam! Um, th-there's a, um . . . a chink in . . . "

"Brown! Not yeller!"

"And a b-brown-skinned man in Leicester Square!" With a sudden movement, the boy eeled out of my grasp, and darted down the alley to the safety of the street. I let him go, and went back myself to the railings and picked up my boots. Slinging them around my kneck by the laces, I went back to the others. We had not suffered badly in the fight, and I said to Rat, "How's your arm? Did they do anything else to you?"

Rat shook his head. "Nah, they didn't do much anyway."

Raising a skeptical eyebrow, I asked, "How long did they do it for?"

"Oh, not long. Few weeks. We goin' to tell Mister 'olmes about this brown bloke?"

"'Course we are. C'mon, you lot."

- - - - -

"Brown-skinned man in Leicester Square," Mr Holmes repeated thoughtfully. We three sat on the couch as he sat at the table in front of us. He pressed his index finger against his lips in concentration, then said abruptly, "Well, we must go to Leicester Square. Watson, your hat. I am afraid, Kit, that you cannot come with us."

"What? But I want to! I want to find out if he's the right man!"

"If he is who we are looking for, then the situation may turn out to be violent. Haven't you had enough contention for one day? The state of your clothes tells me that much. And your presence may be more of a hindrance than a help. He will not be prone to a confession if he sees a crowd of street children at my coat-tails."

I lifted my chin obstinately; and Mr Holmes shook his head, but smiling slightly, reminiscently. The next minute he was serious and on his feet. "Seeing dead corpses is one thing. Being present at a possibly violent confrontation is another. I am sorry, Kit, but this time I insist."

"You don't know that I can't help. I won't be an imped-impedi-impedimantle."

"Impediment."

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

"Not exactly," Watson's dark moustache twitched. He and we followed Holmes out the door, down the flight of seventeen stairs, and out into the street, where Mr Holmes waved for a cab. As one pulled up, he said apologetically, "I'll tell you what happens when we get back. And don't even think of following us."

I sighed, abandoning the idea which had begun to blossom in the last few minutes. "Oh, alright. I suppose."

"Good boy- girl." Holmes grinned at me as he got into the hansom, and Watson climbed in after him. The cabbie flicked his horse, told it to: "Get 'long, you ol' bag o' bones," and it obeyed, rattling away over the streets.

- - - - -

I tried not to mind being left behind, but waited impatiently at the corner of Baker Street, keeping a lookout for their return. They did not come back for some time, however, and my stomach started growling long before that. Eventually, as the sun set, I deserted my post, and retired to my railings. The nights were getting warmer now, and the Winter season was on the way out. I curled up on my side, and gazed up at the stars, sharp, piercing pin-pricks of light in the dark, velvet blue of the night sky. Dreamily, I started counting, and before long, I fell asleep.

The next morning, my first thought was of the brown-skinned man in Leicester Square. Apart from the prospect of getting the promised guinea, I wanted to know what he had said. I met up with Wiggins, Rat and Li that morning, as we had got into the habit of doing these last few days. As we hung around the hotels and shops, hoping for a chance to earn something, we ran into Simpson and Harry - two more of the Irregulars who had done work for Mr Holmes before. Together, we attracted the attention of a group of gentlemen and ladies emerging from a hotel doorway, and we were kept busy for the next few minutes, fetching and carrying their various boxes and bundles of luggage into a waiting cab. By the time the morning rush was over, I felt that it was late enough to call on Mr Holmes without interupting anything important. Wiggins and Li were keen to hang around for a bit longer, so only Rat came with me to Baker Street. I knocked on the door of 221B, and was ushered upstairs by Mrs Hudson, who had become familiar now with the Irregulars barging in at all hours and in all fashions, and only raised a token resistance.

Dr Watson was busy writing in a brown covered notebook as we came in, and Mr Holmes was not in the sitting room, but in the room next, fiddling with some glass tubes and looking through a thick encyclopedia with gilt edges. Watson greeted us cheerfully. "Good morning, you two."

"Good morning, Dr Watson, Mr Holmes. Was he the right man? What did he say?"

"He said a lot, which was not a little helpful. However," Mr Holmes called from the other room. "he - Mr Daniel Lane - is a perfectly innocent African, with past experience as a cow-herder, and who has now taken to writing. He was not the right man."

"He wasn't?" I echoed in dismay.

"No. He had a perfect alibi which was corroborated by several reliable witnesses. He could not have gone to Mr Somerset's house and murdered his lodger. But, he told us some very interesting facts. The sandals which I found in Stone's room are made of cow hide. He identified them as the sort worn by Chigogo tribes in Tanganyika, in Africa."

"Then," I said, trying to think through this. "Mr Stone was murdered by an African tribesman?"

"If you'll let me finish, Kit," Holmes said tartly. "Mr Lane said that sandals such as these have more than one use. Aside from wearing them, the witchdoctor of the tribe uses them to foretell a person's future. They throw the sandals into the air, and interpret the future from the way they land."

I raised my eyebrows in astonishment. "Fortune-telling? Who would be telling the future in a man's room before they murdered him?"

Holmes chuckled, and although I could not see him, I knew that he was enjoying the puzzle with every fibre of his being. "That, Kit, is the problem that presents itself for examination, diagnosis, and cure."

A/N: Sorry for the delay in this chapter, I've been rather busy revising. Anyway, hope you like this. Not many people reviewed for the last chapter - please review for this one, even to tell me you hated it.