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  Watson swallowed hard. “There was a teacher, his name was Watson.” He cleared his throat. “I fear he’s gone now.”

  “Ah.” Old sadness crossed the face. What Watson had taken for age was in fact, a very hard life and the weathering parchment of burn scars that a salve of goose grease and knitbone[3] had not been able to cure. “I allus wished I could thank him for his kindness to me. But I was ashamed for him to see his lessons had been wasted with the fall of a mast.”

  “Did you enjoy his lessons?” Watson made a stab in the dark.

  His applicant was startled. “Of course I did. I still remember the wee gemstones of his teaching. His numbers... Oh, yes, my life was the richer for it.”

  “You could have given him no higher compliment, sir.” Watson said softly. “I should know.”

  The doctor watched the man walk away, his step more confident whilst he himself was shaken. He had dreaded such a confrontation. It was a consequence of living in Edinburgh. And, of course, being so thoroughly a Watson.

  The weight of the satchel rested at his feet; he would go nowhere without it. The problem was the next step in all of this. The doctor frowned as he thought. Even though he knew he was doing it, he couldn’t seem to stop. The basic sense of unease was still there, but fainter for having a decent meal and a good night’s rest.

  Deceit was not Watson’s nature, though he was clever. Somewhere in his life he’d gotten the impression that the quality required a high craftiness he did not possess. Most people who met him had him pegged for intelligent at first line-up. But the sort of cleverness that could combust the air with lies... well, that was a different story.

  Why couldn’t life be more like the lessons of open warfare? There was a reason why Holmes called him a romantic. Watson responded to the intricate rules of behaviour fronted with forthright conduct on an emotional level. They made sense. He disliked the feudal method, but his personal beliefs in a meritocracy were part of his attraction for the Army.

  No matter how much he tried to puzzle out the problem, the solution never came. Shaking his head, he rose to his feet, placing his weight upon his walking-stick. His leg suddenly throbbed, like a dead thing forced to move reluctantly against his will and the young man set his teeth. The hard-won optimism was melting in the face of the old pain.

  He would have cursed... if only there was any good in it. Sadly, cursing did no more good than it did begging for water in the desert, or wishing for morphine as one woke up from the surgery-table.

  John Watson stood outside the raised porch-step of the small tavern, breathing quietly in the cool of the morning air. About him a soft grey fog swirled an undulating twist before his eyes, each dirty water-droplet heavy and pale.

  On the other side of the street, a mere yard to the left, he could see a beggar perched on another such step as the one he was using. The man was missing his left leg, and he was the colour of the fog. Watson could see the shine of war medals above the bowl he kept for begging. His clothing was falling apart to rags, and yet he was polishing his medals to a shine.

  God in his wisdom, have mercy on us...

  He was beginning to see how much he missed his life in sooty London, cesspool though it was... and... his life with his new friend. London is more home to me now than this place. In a way it feels strange. In another... In another way he could not quite define... London felt like the place he had been meant to live in all along.

  The newspaper-sellers were cantillating about a new art-show featuring the works of Britain’s favoured and controversial artists. Watson had no taste for such fare; the very thought made his insides lock up under his ribs and sting the water to his eyes.

  I will not stay here. He knew this to be true. I no longer belong here. Mourn me, but let me pass, he paraphrased the snatch of prayer from his childhood. The heavy satchel pulled his wrist all the way to his shoulder and neck. It added to the ache in his leg, made his step one-sided and awkward. Humiliation made him even more awkward: he stepped off the kerb and all but fell onto the street. His cane saved him.

  Embarrassed, Watson lifted his eyes by accident to the silent veteran begging on the other side. The old man’s pale brown eyes were calm and quiet... and knowing. In one moment, both men understood each other.

  Watson lowered his gaze, knowing the beggar would never accept money from the likes of him. He too, had served and given enough.

  Once on the street, Bradstreet horrified his best friend with the purchase of a hand-held pie stuffed with a ground meat that was no more identifiable than the accompanying vegetable. Lestrade devoutly hoped it wasn’t turnip, but the odds were...

  “Just because they make you ill doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to do without, Lestrade.” Bradstreet had enough attention to give him a halfhearted scowl.

  “It doesn’t exactly make me ill, Bradstreet. It just... I used to eat a great many turnips when I was younger.”

  “Crop-failure of the ‘70’s?” Bradstreet guessed. “Yes, as I recall, kitchens were a bit limited that season.” He chewed and swallowed peacefully. “At least we had a choice of turnips, turnip greens, mustard, cabbage-turnips,[4] Swede-turnips and parsnips.”

  Lestrade made a sound that managed to combine agreement with digestive opinion. “Yes, Bradstreet... I vividly remember.”

  “At least there were a few beetroots. I rather liked the yellow ones... and the mangel-wurzel...” Bradstreet propped his feet up against a chunk of broken street-rubble that the road-workers had not yet noticed. In the tiny slip of park it was possible for two men in clean but battered clothing to enjoy an early cup of tea as a clustre of children attempted a complicated-looking game that appeared to be a combination of road bowling, palle-malle, hurley, and ‘dodge-the-traffic’. Lestrade, who had no children of his own (much less the intention to marry), was flinching at every third or fourth movement. Bradstreet, well accustomed to such things, only paused from his eating long enough to bellow well-meaning advice to the poorer players. Lestrade thought by turns that his best friend was making it worse.

  “Are you trying for manslaughter?” Lestrade finally asked.

  “Scotland doesn’t have manslaughter.” Bradstreet said with infuriating calm. He took another bite of awful pie.

  Anyone who didn’t know Bradstreet would be worrying about his mental state; he appeared too calm and casual for the subject at hand. Lestrade knew better. The man simply reined in his emotions until the conclusion of a case. No matter how exhaustive or horrible, he remained coolly remote and professional. It wasn’t until after the last report was written, stamped, and approved that he would blare up like a foghorn.

  Lestrade had been around his friend before and after these events... and he honestly dreaded the conclusion of this one. For now he was relishing the quiet before the storm.

  And he was studying the house in question.

  Parker’s address was... impressive; a three storey example of foggy stone and taut architecture with a ropework of vines climbing up the facing. Lestrade supposed it was a change from the usual ivy carpets...

  Despite the clear age of the old relic it was well tended and money - lots of it - had been spent to keep it with the quality of its neighbors. MacDonald had given them a battered old booklet of Edinburgh’s distinguished houses, and they knew it had served its time as a school twice, a hospital once, a mortuary, and, until Parker the Elder had gotten it as part of his wedding dowry, a place for the rebellious elites to mingle so they could discuss politics and art at the same time with the same officious tones.

  That bit about serving as a mortuary, even briefly to meet the noble needs of the city during a Regency cholera epidemic, had Lestrade particularly interested.

  “Mphm.” Lestrade tapped him on the arm. Both men studied the world from the top of suddenly-elevated newspapers. “Here he comes.” The little man whispered.


  “He doesn’t look like he’s even looking for us.” Bradstreet muttered under his breath.

  “Look at the way he’s walking, Roger. This weather does nothing for those wounds.”

  “I would say not. It’s hard enough on my joints.”

  The Yarders waited quietly. The doctor was dressed with a mind to the ways of Edinburgh, and they had never seen him look so anonymous in the crowd. His head hung down and his eyes barely looked up from the placing of his heavy feet on the sidewalk. Even from down the street, it was easy to see his tight, painful set of the jawline.

  “Man’s going to age before his time if he keeps that up,” Bradstreet murmured, almost too softly to be heard.

  “Least he doesn’t have far to walk,” Lestrade answered in the same voice. A moment later Watson was nearly abreast of their bench, separated by a sudden knot of cab-drivers who objected strongly to the rough game. The doctor stopped; his eyes barely flickered, and the Yarders knew he had seen them.

  They saw him tighten as his wounds reasserted in his nerves, and he braced himself yet again, turned his back to his audience, and painfully plodded his way up the freshly-washed concrete steps to the carved door on the top.

  Bradstreet hadn’t realised he was holding his breath until Watson’s patient knock was answered; the door parted to show a black gloom and a pale butler. The two consulted with each other a moment, and then Watson was stepping inside the large door. It shut with a mahogany tone.

  Lestrade hissed next to him. “All right, he’s gotten this far. Now we have the difficult part. Staying here and waiting for the signal.” ‘Staying put’ meant ‘torture’ for Lestrade.

  “Or,” Bradstreet reminded him, “waiting until he’s failed to come back out.”

  “Let’s just hope that doesn’t happen.”

  “Someone will notice if we don’t. Surely?”

  “This isn’t like London, gentlemen. Anything going on in Edinburgh may be noticed... or it may not.”

  The bearer of this cool advice from behind, Inspector Alec Macdonald had made his morning appointment.

  Lestrade pretended to read a garrulous newspaper whilst eyeing the innocent-looking Brownstone that had swallowed up Dr. Watson. Bradstreet had all but abducted a tea-cart and enforced a promise of frequent returns for cups of the strongest brew the little detective had drunk outside a Gipsy caravan.

  The tea-vendor had the look of one of those mixed-blooded Tinkers. Lestrade was tempted to patter at him just to see if there would be a reaction, but he wasn’t certain of MacDonald’s possible reaction. Local police didn’t like it when outsiders talked with ‘their’ people so much... it was like poaching. Or bigamy.

  “Don’t try what they’re selling as coffee.” MacDonald warned softly.

  “Why? What is it really?”

  “There might be a few spoonfuls of the real stuff in it... but the rest is roasted dandelion and chicory.” MacDonald sipped blissfully. “A great favourite of our oldsters, who canna’ have the stimulant. Not sayin’ it’s not good, but it doesn’t wake a man up in the morn.”

  “Anything on this bird at all?” Bradstreet wanted to know past the pleasantries. He didn’t want to sound desperate, but last night was a courtesy for MacDonald; it was now their turn to get data, and he didn’t like not having it.

  Macdonald pursed his lips and shook his head from side to side. “Not officially.” He said quite carefully.

  Bradstreet’s eyes sharpened. “Unofficially?”

  Macdonald shrugged. “That’s the snorter,” he explained. “His father was suspected for extensive body-thieving. And he was friends what was some gentlemen caught up in the case over in Forest Hill - some snatchers wanted some money in a hurry, so they started turning fresh corpses over to sell to some of the doctors.”

  That was a snorter. Lestrade shivered. Next to him, Bradstreet had stopped breathing. “Just how fresh were the corpses?”

  “Let’s just say one of the specimens was insufficiently dead when they got him. That was one of the reasons why the laws overturned the mandates against supplying schools with bodies.”

  Bradstreet rubbed at his forehead. He was holding himself in as tightly as a piano-string. “But there’s nothing on the son.”

  “No. He pays his taxes, he goes to chapel, lives alone, lives simply in that dusty old house of antiques and everything his father handed down to him. Family investments keep him cozy - he doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to. Mostly retired from teaching, but he does a two-day lecture once a term for the students on pathology. It’s a lively topic, for all that his slides are a bit on the disturbing slant.” MacDonald sighed. “I take tutorin’ when I can gentlemen, but one o’ that man’s seminars was all I could take.”

  Lestrade took another drink of brew. He was going to keep his mouth shut on that as much as possible. “What’s your reading of these particular tea-leaves, Mac?”

  Macdonald scratched his new winter whiskers. “On or off the record?”

  “Yes.” Lestrade speared him with an eyebrow.

  MacDonald grinned, but quickly sobered. “There’s something wrong with a man who is so... so sterile, gents. Nothing we’ve noticed outright. But I’ll warn you now, that’s how his father was. It was just luck and a tip and a policeman who wasn’t too footsore and cold to answer up on that tip one night at the graveyard.” He rubbed at his new beard again. “You think of growing up in that house. He’d be seein’ his father break the law to suit his own ends... would he think anything less of it?”

  Anyone else would be asking why the police weren’t keeping a tighter eye on the man. The Yarders knew better. Overworked and understaffed, a lowly constable was responsible for hundreds of citizens, or sometimes the entire population of a small town. The Inspectors had it no better, being responsible for the Constables and working liaison for victim, victim’s family, criminal and criminal’s family.

  “Dr. Watson is dead certain this skeleton is an illegal possession.” Lestrade said carefully. “I haven’t known the man long, but he doesn’t make things up. He’s as painfully honest as a tooth-ache.

  “How queer,” he added in afterthought, “that this Dr. Parker would be so reluctant to talk about something he’s so proud of.”

  “There were accusations at Dr. Parker’s father,” MacDonald cleared his throat, “I’m not trying tae taint the evidence in the case, mind you, but nothing was ever found.”

  “His family seems awfully clean, doesn’t it?” Bradstreet shook his head. “Wouldn’t we all like to believe that families like that really exist.”

  “We’re in the wrong profession to say that.” Lestrade grouched. “Keep going, Mac. He was clean, but not so clean to the eye of the public, was he?”

  “Several families were convinced he was behind the opened graves of their loved ones... but... no proof .” He sighed and pulled out a thin, sealed filing envelope from inside his coat. “This might help add to some illumination.” A blunt finger tapped the paper meaningfully. “The men will be patrolling about same as usual, but as soon as Auld Reekie goes dark, we’ll have a few more on post in the shadows. When do you get your signal?”

  “Tonight at dark.” Bradstreet answered.

  MacDonald leaned forward on his knees. “This case you’re on, you shouldn’t have trouble getting your bird back to London. Dr. Parker claims English citizenry, especially when s’more convenient fra him to be English than Scottish - so that’s a bit more in your favour. Also: Least little bit of a breath of a scandal and the school will beg you to pack up the cause of the trouble and trot him out of the city, fast. They don’t want to be the site of an outraged scandal.” He cleared his throat. “And the fastest you do it, the better.”

  That was an unexpected spot of luck. The two Londoners traded looks with each other. “We rather didn�
�t expect that,” Lestrade confessed. “What about extradition?”

  “Man, you’re a Runner aren’t you?” Macdonald grinned at Bradstreet. “Bow Street’s still the only office in charge of extradition. And believe me, when it comes to avoiding the kind of screaming Edinburgh can raise, we will overlook procedure. Just this once. Until, that is, the next time Edinburgh threatens to scream.”

  “That’s odd.” Lestrade scowled. “I never heard so much as a dust-up over the way Edinburgh handles things.”

  “Oh, you never were on the other side before.” MacDonald spoke so seriously they knew this was no light matter. “This is one of the largest cities on the island; it’s the most eemportant city in Scotland. The most, gentlemen. One of the Seven Cities of Enlightenment; one of best places to live and all that... People come from all over the world to live here or visit here because they want the advantages of London without the disadvantages. It’s not as crowded as London because there simply aren’t enough chances to work up here.

  “And you know, the University rather likes it all that way. It likes the reputation for learning and science and architecture; the literature and fine arts - and they operate under the very strong fear that if something makes the city look bad enough at the wrong moment, the Home Secretary might renege on his intention to work into the Scottish office; they say it might even be enacted as soon as ‘85.

  “Anyway, if we lose status as the Jewel of Scotland, then Parliament, should-it-ever-be-restored-God-Willing, could go to Dunfermline!”

  Lestrade exploded with laughter and just as quickly clapped his hand over his mouth at the glares from his companions. “I don’t think that’s all that likely,” he strangled. Tears were forming in his eyes. “Really.”

  “Some people believe it, though.” Bradstreet pointed out.

  “Some people also believe that England and the United States will reunite someday!” Lestrade pointed out. “It’s still rubbish. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a person as smart as Mr. Holmes believing in it; that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. Canada is as far as we’re going to get, except for possibly that land Senator Webster gave back on the New England border in a drunken stupor. Why can’t we have politicians like that anymore?”