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to his feet.
    “Sherlock, it’s just me,” Rose laughs. “Don’t be surprised. I knew I’d find you on this very spot. Remember, I was giving lessons in Mayfair today? It’s not far from here.” She motions to the west. She is wearing one of her best muslin dresses trimmed with lace, preserved as well as possible from her other life. It had once been ivory white.
    “Mother … I …”
    “This is your last day away from school, correct?”
    The boy nods.
    “I want us to walk out together tonight,” says Rose.
    She sits down beside him and takes one of his long white hands in hers.
    He knows what she means. She wants to go to the opera. They’ve gone many times before. She’s been taking him for as long as he can remember. He is sure she brought him there in her arms, around to the back of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, just a short walk from Trafalgar. They slip into the shadows and go to her spot, a place where a coal grate opens on to the street and they can crouch and hear the music as if they are right in the seats. As he listens, she tells him the story of each opera, slowly and clearly, with tears in her eyes.
    They sit in the Square that late afternoon, talking. He can smell the beer on her breath.
    His mother’s conversation is never about the past: always about what has happened that very day. Today, she begins with the big homes that she’s just been in.
    “The first was in Belgravia and it belongs to a duke.”
    She knows it will interest him and describes every inch of the ornate dwelling: its glittering front door, its glowing chandeliers, and the well-born lady who lives there … and never once deigned to say “Hello.”
    “The other house was in Mayfair,” she continues.
    The gentleman was home. He had a ruddy, red face, a long red goatee, and a rough way of talking. Everything he said was addressed to the servants. He never once spoke to his wife. He was so rude and ill-mannered, especially for a man whose spouse is related to the queen.
    “He kept staring at me. Or at least I thought he did. He had the most peculiar eyes. One seemed so different from the other: some eyes are like that. Examine them, Sherlock, and you’ll see. One eye was alive … and the other looked dead.”
    The sun is setting by the time they make their way up the Strand and then north toward Covent Garden. The market has closed for the day. Flower petals lie on the muddy ground, big torn baskets are scattered about, the shouts of costermongers and piemen have faded away. They cross the open area toward the back of the big opera house, a magnificent, white stone building.
    Rose Holmes has a routine. She goes round to the front entrance, the part with the tall pillars that look out on Bow Street, then crosses the road and stands on the foot pavement, just south near the dim blue lights of the police station. She always takes Sherlock’s hand, even now when he is thirteen, and squeezes it unconsciously while she watches.
    The carriages pull up, one after the other. The famous people, the rich folk, step down, top hats shining, diamond stickpins glittering, silk dresses flowing. The boy performs his mental exercise as he watches; he observes and deciphers the life stories of each gentleman and lady.
    Bobbies stand by, observing too, but they never watch the upper classes. It’s the others who gain their attention. Sherlock catches their eyes several times and each time looks away.
    Before the big doors are closed on the last grand couple, Rose yanks her son across the street. They stealdown the north side of the Opera House and dart under a little wrought-iron staircase at the back of the massive building. It leads to a secret entrance, used by the singing stars. The little dark door is camouflaged with ivy, and the coal grate, hidden under the stairs, provides an opening into the building. They might as well be in the front row.
    They huddle on the ground, Rose’s dress in the mud, but she doesn’t care.