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She puts an arm around Sherlock.
    The music begins.
    A cry escapes from her lips. It’s
The Thieving Magpie.
Now he knows why she wanted to come tonight.
    First the overture thunders, commencing with rolling drums, the sounds of an execution: the execution of a young girl. But his mother says nothing. She is waiting. Then she sighs.
    Violins.
    “They tell us,” she often says, “of the tragedies of life.”
    She calls it violin land. It is the place she goes when she hears them. Her son knows what she means. He can feel it too. There are no instruments like them. Violins are sad; they are strong; they tell the truth. When they are slow, they make you cry. When they are fast, they press you forward, push you into the struggle of life.
    “Bah a bah, pa pa pa … Bah a bah, pa pa pa
…” She sings gently, to the sound of the swirling strings, the sound of the magpie darting through the air, heading toward its treasure.
    Rose tells the story, her voice musical and gentle over the beautiful strains. In his mind, Sherlock can see thebrilliant hall inside: the lit stage, the tiers of balconies, the rich red velvet seats, the magnificent silver chandeliers. And he can see the story.
    “A magpie flies innocently through the air on its merry way at the opening of another day. It sees something shining through a window in an elegant home. It darts down. It’s a spoon, a sparkling silver spoon worth more than its little brain can imagine. It lights on the sill. It looks around. It steals the spoon and flies away. The next day, the lady of the house is inconsolable. Someone has stolen one of her pure silver spoons. It must be one of the servants! A beautiful young girl, poor as a field mouse, happened to be working in the room when the spoon was taken. The lady accuses her. She is arrested. It is an open-and-shut case. She is sentenced to die. Her day of execution approaches …”
    Rose Holmes never gives away the ending. Her son knows what will happen, but she never breathes a word of it, no matter how many times they listen. They huddle in the darkness until the last note is played. Then they leave like thieves, moving through the shadows back out to Bow Street, down to the river, and home.
    Wilber is waiting. He knows where they’ve been. He takes his wife in his arms and holds her while she sobs. Then he puts her to bed.
    The boy sits at the table. Sherlock Holmes doesn’t cry not about anything, ever.
    “
The Thieving Magpie,”
says his father, shaking his head, as he comes out and sits down. They are both quiet for a moment.
    “What family do magpies belong to?” asks the boy suddenly.
    Wilber smiles at him: “They’re corvidae. The corvid family. There are jays, nutcrackers, ravens, and of course, your friends the crows.”
    The instant his father mentions the crows, an idea bursts into his head – Sherlock wonders why he hasn’t thought of it before. He sits, dead silent, his mind far away.
    His father is used to this sort of behavior. Sherlock is a strange lad. Most boys his age have herds of friends – he doesn’t have one. Every now and then, right in the middle of a conversation, he’ll slip into these silent stretches and float away. The boy will sit back, his lids nearly closed, and drift off. Wilber stands up, ruffles his son’s hair, and slips off to bed in the side room.
    Sherlock fixes his hair and rises to his feet. He moves to the back door, opens and closes it silently, and flies down the wooden stairs.
    On the dark streets, he starts to run.
    He is headed back over the bridge to the part of the city where the narrow streets wind through the fog like snakes … to that little lane with the bloodstain.

FIRST CLUE
    T he crows had been looking for something. He is sure of it.
    Something shiny!
    He is all the way to London Bridge before fear catches up with him. What in the world is he doing? It will soon be past midnight. He’s never been out of doors in the city at this hour. The bridge is