Holmes reached as far down as he could into his reserves of energy, pushing himself to run faster after the boy weaving in and out of pedestrian traffic before him.
His breath was already burning his throat, his arms pistons at his sides as he followed Davey Tilby. They went past Hanover Street, feet crunching and slipping in the gravel as they crossed the railway tracks and shot into the Crescent at the end of Hammet Street.
To Holmes it seemed that no matter how hard he pushed, he could not close the distance between himself and the younger man. He dodged around a flower seller (born somewhere in Ratcliff – most probably around Rose Lane, a costermonger's daughter whose husband had recently died and left her with at least three small children), and then jumped to avoid a legless man slithering across his path, intent on making it to the gutter (former soldier, workhouse casualty, spent a great deal of time begging around Stonehouse Wharf, if the mud on his torn pants was anything to go by).
Tilby raced across Trinity Mews, and then into the square, throwing the occasional glance back over his shoulder to see if Holmes was still pacing him. He hopped the wrought-iron fence surrounding the park, and Holmes kept to the outside, feet pounding loudly on the sidewalk, jarring his knees and spine. He could feel the muscles of his lower back tighten with each step, jerking in pain.
Davey turned left down Great Tower Hill and then left again at the water, towards the Queen's Stairs and Traitor's Gate.
The sounds and bustle of the river suddenly surrounded them, open fires and the cries of waterside beggars and sellers and children and mothers. Davey bobbed through the crowds, shoving himself down an alley barely large enough to admit his shoulders. Holmes followed, tripping on a pile of discarded rope.
Wilted cabbage leaves, rotten apples and dripping tomatoes rained down on their heads, and Holmes realized that the dwellers in the rooms overlooking the alley where pelting him with last week's garbage. Someone tossed a boot, and it grazed the detective's shoulder and bounced against the alley wall, nearly becoming entangled in his feet.
Ahead of him, Davey slipped and crashed into a pile of wooden crates leaned precariously against the opposite wall. He righted himself and ran on. Holmes turned sideways to squeeze past the boxes, sweat stinging in his eyes. The stench of the river was overwhelming.
They came out of the alley, and Davey veered down another street bringing them even closer to the water. They ran across several rickety jetties, all housing a collection of river shacks and boats moored four and five abreast, creating a bobbing bridge.
Barges choked the waterway, belching thick black smoke. Tugs and row boats darted in an out between the larger vessels.
Between the coal smoke, loud-voiced cries, open sewage, rotting food, tar, and the stench of river rats and dog and cats, the whole scene was a dark fetid hellish circus, and Holmes ran on, seeing bright spots, fighting the terrible cramps in his legs and sides. Even Davey was slowing, his footsteps becoming sloppy and unsure.
He turned suddenly onto a jetty, high off the water, resting half-cocked on tall spindly wooden stilts that disappeared down into the sucking mud of the river bank.
Holmes breathed a prayer of thanks. Finally, a dead end. A tug boat plowed through the water close by, the men all coming to the railing to see the termination of the chase.
Holmes allowed himself to slow, not trusting his footing on the spongy wood boards. But Davey's speed increased, and Holmes groaned out loud when he realized what was about to happen.
"Tilby, this is my last clean shirt!" he yelled. Too late, the younger man had reached the end of the jetty and without a moments pause, launched himself into the air, aiming for the tug boat that was coming abreast of him. Homes held his breath, watching the bent bow of the younger man's body sail through the air, arms flared out behind him as if trying to catch the air and glide.
Tilby landed with a thud on the deck of the tug, losing his footing and tumbling over and over until he collided with the base of the smoke stack, finally coming to a rest flat on his face, gasping for breath.
Holmes did not let himself pause to think, he increased his speed. The tug was already clawing its way dangerously far from the jetty. Homes pushed every other thought from his mind, focused on his lungs, his feet, his knees pumping as fast as he could as he flung himself over the end into nothing, trying to gain as much height as possible with his final jump.
For a split second he was suspended, black chopping water roared beneath him, the air steeped in smoke.
His feet connected with the water, jarring all the way up his body, and then he was submerged in the cold dark broth of the Thames. Black sludge invaded his ears and nose. His lungs screamed, and he clawed upwards, finding no purchase. His head broke the surface of the water with an uncontrolled yell.
He thrashed, feeling the weight of his soaking clothes draw him back down. His arms pin wheeled, and his wrist came in contact with something hard, causing the bone to ache and numb. He tried to turn to get a look at the object, but a second later a calloused hand closed on his collar and he was jerked upward and dumped unceremoniously into the reeking bow of a small row boat.
He coughed, rolling over onto his back and spitting out a mouthful of river water. It took a second before he was able to focus on the shape of the man in the boat with him.
He was a burley middle-aged man with gnarled hands and a crooked bulbous nose. His face and worn oils skins were streaked in soot and tar.
"Sherlock Homes." The detective managed to splutter.
"No," the man tapped his chest. "Bart Adams. The boat is the Magpie. I collects the river jetsam and sells it on to the rag and bone shops. You're my first live man I've ever pulled out." He seemed rather pleased.
"After the tug." Holmes gasped, gesturing wildly at the retreating boat.
"Are you mad?" The man (born and raised around Dock Head, unless Sherlock was very much mistaken) shook his head in disbelief. "We'll not catch her in the Maggie."
Another tug was cresting alongside them. Holmes coughed and spat, desperate to dislodge the vile mixture of slime and sewage in his mouth and throat. "Give me the rope."
The owner of the row boat paused, and Holmes gestured desperately. "Hurry up!"
The tug was beside them now, and several sailors stood along the side, looking down at the night-black madman just pulled out of the water.
Adams kicked the coil over to him. Holmes grabbed the end and flung it over the side towards the sailors.
"Catch."
One of them did, more from reflex than anything else.
"Make it fast." Holmes commanded. The sailor must have realized what was going to happen, because his eyes widened and a smile broke out on his face, revealing a mouthful of stained and broken teeth. He ran the rope to the stern of the boat and tied it around a cleat.
The coil at the bottom of the rowboat hissed out, suddenly snapping taught and flinging the rowboat around in the water, dragging her after the tug boat stern-first. Holmes and Adams were jerked off their feet, landing in a messy pile on top of each other on the floor of the small boat.
Kit's cab pulled to a slithering stop at the wharf, the cabbie stood to view the spectacle taking place on the river.
They both watched as Tilby jumped, a pale flash against the dark of the river. A moment later and Kit saw the now familiar figure of the detective follow him, legs still running even as he sailed through the air, hitting the water with a sickeningly distant splash.
What an unbelievably stupid, obnoxious, egocentric, stubborn, thick-headed, dim-witted man!
She watched the rowboat approach, and heaved a breath of relief when she saw the body of the detective hauled from the water. A moment later the rope flew out, and the boat spun like a top, bobbing after the steam powered tug like a piece of flotsam caught in a net.
"Take St. Kathrine Street," she yelled up at the cabbie. "Stay as close to the water as you can."
The cabbie whipped the horses back into movement, and Kit fell off her feet back into her seat.
Holmes fought to get his bearings in the dark. They were heading towards Wapping Basin. He could make out the wharfs as they went past. Harrison's, South Devon, Hare's, Watson's, Browns Quay.
He had regained his feet and was standing in the stern, leaning forward with his fist in the air, yelling up to the sailors "Can't this tub go any faster?!" The tug chugged on indifferently.
He cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled, but it seemed he was being ignored. That or the crew members honestly couldn't hear him.
The captain of their little boat sat himself in the bow, leaning on the oars nestled in their oarlocks. "Hold your horses, you mad bricky man." His eyes flicked up at Holmes, and then he reached into his oilskins to pull out his pipe. "I'm downright ashamed of myself for not thinking of this years ago. I'll never have to pull an oar again."
The man puffed on his pipe for a moment, the foul smoke from the damp tobacco streaming out behind him in the breeze. "We'll get 'em, you'll see. They have the head start, but we're hitched to a faster ride." Adams coughed and spat over the side.
The older man was right. The space between the two boats was disappearing at a noticeable rate.
Tilby must have seen the same thing, because as they passed Globe Wharf there was a splash, accompanied with the sound of distant cheering from the first tug. Holmes strained his eyes in the dark.
"He's jumped." He waved his arms at the men on their lead tug, pointing at the dark churning water. "He's jumped!" None of them seemed interested in lending a hand. One waved back. Holmes bellowed in frustration.
"Knife." He yelled at his companion.
"Now, hold on, just because some might be inclined to call me a waterside character, doesn't mean I go armed, I'm a peaceable-"
"Knife!" Holmes roared again.
Adams drew a long filleting knife out of his boot, handing it over handle first, a pout in his craggy face.
Holmes slashed at the rope, which parted and unfurled, snapping with a loud hiss of flying hemp. The row boat slowed with such alacrity that both men were thrown off their feet again, landing in a heap on top of each other.
"The stairs" Holmes was able to splutter from the ground. "Pull! Pull! Pull!"
The man grabbed his oars and pulled, using the ripples of the passing barges to propel them in towards shore. Holmes clung to the bow of the boat, leaning out over the water like some preposterous figurehead, as if he could speed the dingy by will alone. His clothes were stiff with cold and sludge, blackened from head to toe. His slim figure bunched ready to spring the second he was in range of the stairs.
Tilby floundered onto the stairs first, smacking his hands against the slimy stone of the steps. He scrambled up, crawling up the flight on all fours, gasping as he did.
A moment later the rowboat crashed against the stairs, and Holmes leapt out, slipped, righted himself, took them two at a time.
"Oy," Adams called after him, "who's going to replace my rope?"
Kit's cab raced along St. Kathrine until it had to hook back around to join onto Lower Smithfield, thundering across the Hermitage Basin. They could still make out the boats in the river. There was a pale flash in the air again, and then the row boat seemed to stop, spin in the water, and head towards the bank.
"High Street," she instructed. "I think they're somewhere around Union Stairs."
The cabbie complied without hesitation, and as they came abreast of Plough Alley he jerked them to a sudden stop.
Kit jumped out, landing a little unsteadily, and called back over her shoulder as she hurried towards the stairs. "Please wait."
The boy from John Street was just coming up over the top of the stairs, and Kit felt a sick feeling in her already churning stomach when she realized that it was indeed Davey Tilby, Lucy's younger brother. How many times had the three of them walked home from the theatre together?
He was slipping and panting, wobbly on his feet. Holmes was coming, but he would never make it up the steps in time to catch Davey before he disappeared into the maze of streets that made up the London Docks.
She cast her eyes around franticly, looking for anything that might help, not even sure what she needed help with. He eyes came to rest on a pile of loose stone against a nearby piling. She picked up a few of the rocks, and hurled the first without letting herself stop to consider that it was her friend's only family that she was trying to hit.
Her first rock missed, as did her second, but the third clipped the young man in the shoulder, just as he was about to enter the mouth of Globe Street. He lost his balance, teetering into the wall beside him. Her next rock grazed his cheek, ricocheting into his left eye and then bouncing off the same brick wall. He fell with a scream, hands covering his face.
"Davey?" She ran over to where he lay, flapping against the dirty pavement like a fish pulled from the river. She could hear his whimpers and cries of pain.
"Davey? It's Kit." He put out his hand, clawing in the air for the body connected with that voice. Kit took a step back. He grabbed the hem of her dress with a snarl and dragged himself to his knees, blood running down the side of his face from a small cut below his eye.
He surged to his feet, grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her back into the brick wall behind them.
"Bitch," he wheezed, still heaving for breath from his recent swim. "Why do you always have to ruin everything?!" His hand rose in a blur above them, and Kit squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself for the hit.
In the dark behind her eyelids she heard pounding feet, and then felt something jar against her, a huff of breath, and the weight of Davey Tilby against her was gone. Her eyes snapped open.
Tilby was flat on the ground, Holmes standing over him, streaming with water and filth, locomotive breath puffing great smoke clouds in the cold air. "Are you all right?" he gasped.
"What?" she said.
Tilby tried to squirm up, but Holmes took hold of the boy's wet jacket front and hoisted him in one tug off the ground and tossed him against the same brick wall. All the air rushed out of Tilby's lungs, rendering him docile as a lamb. "If you've hurt her," Homes snarled, "I'll make it my business to personally see that you never can again!"
"Mr. Holmes?" Kit called, aghast.
Holmes rounded on her, eyes wild. "Are you all right? Did he hurt you?"
"No – no, I'm fine."
Sherlock tuned with a growl on Tilby again, driving a hard fist into the younger man's stomach. Tilby groaned and doubled over, clutching himself. Holmes drew back his arm, but Kit managed to get to him in time, laying her hand on the back of his neck, craning around to catch his attention again. "Mr. Holmes, stop. I'm fine." She took a step between he and Tilby, maintaining the calming touch on his neck. "I'm well. He has not hurt me."
Holmes cupped her cheeks in both hands, eyes searching her face for any hint of a lie. "When I saw him throw you so roughly, and the blood…"
"The blood is not mine. It is all from Davey. He was simply angry and frightened. You arrived in time."
His shoulders rose and fell for a moment as he considered, adrenaline slowly ebbing away. Kit felt the tension between them again. The crack of something electric that seemed to exist whenever they touched. Butterflies fluttered to life in her stomach, and she tentatively slid her fingers from his neck to his cheek, shivering at the rasp of his stubble against her wrist. "Promise me?" he said.
She took a deep breath. "Yes. I promise."
He dropped his hand then and turned back to Tilby. Whatever violence had possessed him was gone. He took a few steps away from the boy, braced his hands against his knees, and concentrated on regaining his breath.
"Whatever compelled you to do something so stupid?!"
It took Kit a moment to realize he was still talking to her. "Me?!" She was so taken aback that she forgot to be angry for a moment. Thankfully, that passed quickly. "You just nearly drowned yourself in the Thames, you stupid man. What in God's name did you think you were doing?!"
"What did I think I was doing?! I was following a lead."
"Harassing an innocent man, you mean," Davey puffed out.
"Wait your turn, Tilby." Holmes snapped at him. "I'll get to you in a moment."
"It's Davey," Kit shot back. "I could have just told you where to find him. I know where he lives. There was no need to disrupt half of London from Blackfriars to Rotherhithe and nearly kill yourself in the process."
"Woman! For once try to think analytically. He owes a huge amount of money that he obviously can't pay. His only sister is being threatened. His very life is in danger. He's not going home. He's never going home again. He's already decided to go straight to Victoria Station with just the clothes on his back."
"You suppose."
"I deduce! Have you learned nothing in the last few days?"
"Davey?" Kit turned on the younger man, who kept his eyes cast down.
Holmes straightened up and snapped his fingers under Davey's nose.
"It's true," Davey started. "Although I don't know how you figured it."
"I know it's cold, Tilby, but you're wearing three sweaters under that coat and two pairs of pants. You're also wearing a St. Christopher's medallion that you weren't wearing the first time I saw you. You've obviously decided to take a trip in some hurry, without wanting anyone to be alerted by the presence of a bag. Add that to your gambling debts, and well, it's elementary, really."
Holmes leaned his back against the brick wall beside Davey, and the two of them seemed content to stay still and rest for a moment.
"Listen," Holmes said finally, trying to get his hair back into some kind of order. "Be a good sport and tell me who you owe the money to. I'll find out anyway, but it would save me so much time if you would just tell me."
Davey sighed. "His name is Harry Wilcox."
"Harry The Tash Wilcox? He's a confidence man from Soho, isn't he? What is he doing this far east?"
"Harry were wrapped up in the resurrection business for a while with the cove who runs the John Street warehouses. He introduced The Tash to the gambling floors there a few months back. He's hired Harry and his Soho crew to help do collections and the like."
"The resurrection business?" Kit already knew she wouldn't like the answer.
Holmes hummed. "Procuring dead bodies for those in the medical profession that might want them, for…various reasons." He turned his attention back to Davey. "What did you take? What were you going to use to try and pay Harry back?"
"What makes you think I'm gonna tell you?" The young man set his shoulders resolutely, ready to dig in and get stubborn. To his surprise Sherlock gave a dismissive wave of his long hand and said "Fine. I'll figure it out soon enough. I have four different theories. One of them will prove correct. I just need one more piece of information, which I can get elsewhere."
Davey's eyes widened in disbelief, then anger. "So what did you bother chasing me over Hell's half-acre for? I'm a sodding mess!"
"You can't guess? How tiresome. I felt you owed Miss Rushford an apology."
Kit and Davey shot a look at each other, but neither seemed any more enlightened than the other.
"You got yourself into this mess, Tilby," Holmes continued. "So, you stole something worth enough to get you back out, planted it on Miss Rushford, someone completely innocent of any of your wrongdoing, and then sent these bloody thugs after her to collect payment. Is that why they took the trouble of bringing her all the way back to the theatre to dump her on your very doorstep? Goods not received?"
Davey's eyes slid over to Holmes, an unmistakable pleading look there.
"Is it normal, do you suppose, for these run of the mill head-bashing apes to guess that the most effective way to hurt Miss Rushford personally would be the destruction of her hands? Do you think that's something they just figured out on their own? Perhaps it's a regular habit of theirs to exert such keen judgement?"
"What do you mean?" Kit took a few steps closer.
Holmes indicated her with his head, not taking his eyes from Davey's face. "Tell her, Tilby. Tell her why I would be willing to ruin the entirety of my remaining wardrobe just for the satisfaction of wringing your scrawny little neck."
"I don't know what you mean." He returned, trying to keep his chin from trembling.
"Davey…" she said.
Holmes slapped Tilby across the mouth, the sharp sound startling all three of them.
Davey grabbed his cheek, a strange expression spread over his face, as if he couldn't decide if he was more hurt or offended. Holmes raised his hand again.
"Stop," Davey ducked his head in defeat. "It was for Lucy." He darted an angry look at Kit, and she was surprised at the sheen of hatred she suddenly saw there. "She would have been lead violin at that place if it hadn't been for you," he continued. "Ruining her chances. Always making her come second."
Kit felt the whole world slow and settle on her shoulders. "What do you mean?" She didn't know why she was whispering. "Davey-" Kit took a few steps closer to him. "Are you telling me that this," she looked down at her bandaged hand, "was something you asked these men to do?"
Davey refused to meet her eye. "And now you've ruined Lucy again," he continued. "If I can't pay, they'll do for her as well."
"Davey look me in the eye," she demanded. "You told them to do this?"
A movement caught Holmes' eye. Two policemen had rounded the corner at the other end of Globe Street and were ambling towards the small group.
"Miss Rushford-" Holmes tried to cut in. Kit ignored him. She closed the distance between herself and Davey, making it impossible for him to avoid eye contact with her. His shoulders slumped further before he admitted "I told them that if your hands where broken in the mess, then a few people would have reason to be grateful." He looked sheepishly up at her.
"Miss Rushford-" Holmes tried again.
"I just wanted to help Lucy," Davy said.
With one swift sure kick to the groin Kit emptied Davey's lungs of air. He collapsed to the ground, moaning in pain. Holmes stared at the wailing heap with wide-eyed surprise.
A police whistle blared, and Holmes could hear the two officers break into a run towards them. He seized Kit by the shoulders and spun her back towards where the cab was still waiting by Plough Alley. "We need to go."
Tilby reached out from where he was still crumpled in a heap and grabbed Holmes' leg, pulling his foot out from under him. The detective stumbled and sprawled onto the ground. Tilbey grabbed his other foot, latching onto the taller man like a limpet. Holmes tried to kick himself free, but realized that there was no time.
"Leave at once," he commanded Kit.
"Not without you."
"Miss Rushford, disobey me one more time tonight, and I swear I will personally break your other hand myself."
The police were almost there, whistles blared loudly, Holmes kicked hard, connecting with Davey's shoulder, but not hard enough to dislodge him. His energy was spent, his body ached, and he could tell Davey was insensible to reason or pain at this point, desperate that someone should fall with him.
Kit took a few steps, turned back.
"Kit," Holmes managed to get to his knees. "Please go."
She ran back to the cab, only looking back when she had seated herself inside.
By that time Sherlock was face down on the pavement, a billy-wielding Bobbie kneeling on his back. Davey was in the same position.
She knocked on the roof of the cab. "The Diogenes club," she instructed.
The cab rattled off into the night, leaving her friend's brother and her detective nose down in the cold street.