You Buy Bones Page 2

  Hopkins jumped. Lestrade didn’t.

  “Lestrade!” Hopkins groaned.

  “What did I tell you about Dr. Watson, Hopkins?”

  “W - He’s still in a hospital’s bed!”

  “You have a lot to learn about Dr. Watson, Stanley. It was only a glancing wound and that is one tough veteran.” Lestrade casually lit his pipe off a twig, eyes still on the coastline. “F-R-S-T-S-T... R... M... First Stream... that’s got to be the little freshet that drains into the Cove...”

  “He lied?” Transcribing Morse code whilst following an indubitably thrilling event in a Neolithic village across the field, and holding up his end of a strange conversation, Hopkins had never done so many different things at once.

  “Mr. Holmes is an amateur, Hopkins.” Lestrade was smiling around the stem of his pipe as he spoke. Hopkins could hear it. “Not a man who works well in teams, he. He still trusts Dr. Watson not to lie to him... and Dr. Watson’s pulled some whoppers to save his skinny neck in the past.” Lestrade was still smiling. “Not that that’s not the most interesting thing about those fellows. I could tell you some stories about them, Stanley... oh, I could tell you stories...”

  1 A garment worn to protect the outer clothing

  2 in disguise or not recognised

  3 Great Way Round was one of the affectionate nick-names for the Great Western Rail.

  4 Tin miners

  5 Mortimer of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

  6 Large stock beet

  Devil’s Milk

  Montague Street:

  It might have been the lateness of the hour, but the long rows of humble buildings and splintering ghost-stalls looked... faded. The more fanciful policemen walked this part of their twenty-mile quickly and without lingering. There was something about the presence of the fog (which always came with the night), that slid more-than-oily shapes and shadows over the old burial yards and the poor-houses.

  Crime was this street’s friend, but people did live here. It was just that two different species lived arm-and-arm in the poorer sections of the city. By day it was a clogged swarm of man, beasts, and vendors. At night most of these were gone to parts unknown, but their night-sighted cousins now wandered, plying their own trades, and like their daytime counterparts... tried to avoid the police.

  A small man paused just outside a muddy pool of light. His clothing was tailored to fit which set him apart from the majority of Montague’s nocturnal population. But he was not a customer nor a purveyor of the goods being offered; those tailored cuts of wool and linen were too sober and not likely to catch the eye. He most certainly did not wish to catch anyone’s eye. Not here, not at this staggeringly late hour.

  Still awkward in his new robes of office, Mr. Lestrade paused and tried to take in the view of a street he hadn’t felt under his feet in nearly a year.

  It looked much better in the light of day.

  ‘An expert in these things,’ Dr. Roanoke had told the policeman. ‘He lives close to the Mortuary... calls it convenient.’

  ‘And he’d be awake at this hour?’ Lestrade had blinked, baffled at the older man.

  The old surgeon chose to smile. ‘Awake? Man, I daresay he’s more likely to be awake than he is to be asleep.’

  Lestrade circled around the nimbus of the street-lamp’s watery glow and ignored the faint rumble of carts behind his back. The last to pass was a dead-cart, its driver clad in a chemical mask against fumes. Somewhere in these grey-green buildings, a couple screamed out their differences over something that had to do with Regent’s Canal - it was impressive that they could cut the thick fog with their lungs.

  The Inspector listened with half an ear. Were it a married dispute, he would be more concerned, but there was more Yiddish than English in the fussing, and everyone knew the Jewish population was rarely violent.[7]

  The topic of the shouting finally came clear to his ears, and the little man shook his head. Fighting over an open window? Someone out to be more grateful. An open window here was usually a window ventilated with a brick.

  Montague Street was full of moments like this - and considering the sheer unfashionable reputation of Camden... that was almost a compliment. Times had slipped to a poorer state even since A Christmas Carol - Lestrade couldn’t possibly imagine the Cratchit family being so cheerful and fearless in this day and age. Now one’s worries would be much worse than an ailing Tiny Tim and a daughter who couldn’t get home to spend a day with her parents. They’d be worried about that same daughter getting home at all, or what their children might be doing to bring home survival money. And fifteen bob a week? People killed for much less than that these days!

  In the darkness, a huddled man was coughing the last of his days out with emphysema. The sounds were clarion-clear. The fog was still rolling slowly in... the night would be another battle for this man in the open night, against the dampness of the stinking puddles.

  Lestrade picked his way across the gleaming black pot-holes and scraps of garbage too far gone for vermin. Rheumy red and blue eyes stared back at him, defiant and silent. Lestrade courteously avoided eye contact. It would not be appreciated or wanted. The wind blew up a reek: rotting garbage and offal and human filth... they both moved quickly: Lestrade to the other side of the street, and the homeless man to the dubious shelter of the snicket between a small shop and the very building Lestrade was about to enter.

  Fruit, the policeman realised. There must be a fruit-monger’s stall and he threw the spoilt parts in the street... Perhaps the poverty was not so dire here, for in some parts of the city, even a stinking-rotten cabbage would be ripped apart and eaten by a beggar. He’d seen it too many times. He’d seen two men nearly kill themselves with their knives over that rotten cabbage. And yet they had fought the policeman, for better starve than gaol...

  A small black shape flitted across his path; its mate ran directly over his shoe. He swallowed an oath. Rats were a part of London... more so the closer to the water. He didn’t miss that part of his early days along the banks, where the feel of those tiny paws over his heavy shoes was a regular occurrence.

  He was never partial to animals... and rats least of all.

  High time he got this over with.

  He took a deep breath. The door-knocker was of the old-fashioned, solid sort, a conglomeration of iron and brass and it was of such an unpleasant mien he doubted even a starving man would nick it for the scrap. Jacob Marley’s ghost over the ring wouldn’t have been as bad as this contraption meant to resemble a Chinese dog with an African lion in its ancestry.

  I haven’t read Dickens in years... something must be the matter with me...

  And in the meantime, the fog was rolling its way to him. Lestrade grimaced at the enemy’s latest approach and lifted the knocker, glad for his gloves. Through the thin leather he felt the clammy bite of weeping metal.

  The landlady who answered was of the frightening stamp of womanhood that sought control as a right of birth, not merit. The hard, small eyes scoured him like carbolic acid once, twice, even three times before it paused to think that he might desire admittance. His badge, Lestrade was amused to note, took no more than a moment’s consideration.

  “He’s inside tonight.” The old dragon said of the hand-drawn image in his hand. “Has he done something, then?”

  Lestrade caught the underlying eagerness in the dirty woman, and something contrary and obstinate rose to the challenge. “Not at all. An assistant to a case, if you get my meaning.”

  Oh, she loved the implication that one of her lodgers in this dirty town and filthy street might have seen something. With a grin shy of three teeth (all on the bottom), she paid a kick to one of the doors in the hallway, and stood aside when that same door was torn open with enough force to send its hinge shrieking.

 
“Mrs. Wexler?” The high voice belonged to a man who was either upset beyond all comprehension, or had not finished settling his vocal gifts. Lestrade’s hopes sank as he watched the drama unfold: a dismayingly young-looking man bent over the landlady like a serpent over a bird. “I trust you have a reason for this interruption?”

  “Not I, Mr. Holmes!” Her sniff was fantastic. “Your guest.”

  “Guest?”

  Lestrade’s heart had still been in the process of sinking at the proof of youth upon that lean face. Then the head with black hair turned, and eyes grey as a spring cloud fastened upon him. Not so very young, then. Just moves like a young manl...

  “Mr. Lestrade,” a voice rolled forth. That swiftly, the impression of youth and inexperience had rolled away like a holed carpet. “You have not yet recovered from your duties upon the London Particular[8] that struck us in ‘77.”

  Something about that voice - or perhaps the way he was being looked at up and down like something that was on the other side of the zoo-bars... hackled.

  “If someone’s been telling stories about my competency, sir, I would like to know about it!”

  The young man chuckled. “Not at all,” he responded with a swiftness that made the other’s head spin. “You are slightly underweight - else your clothing is cut slightly too large for your form, and with your eye to dress that would be most unlikely. A man who spends his limited pay on the better footwear would hardly ignore the cut of his coat when a tailor charges by how much cloth he must cut.” A long, nearly skeletal finger dipped in the air between them, and before Lestrade could finish enduring the unpleasantness of his face warming under embarrassment-

  “You are an unhealthy colour, even for someone who serves his life among the streets of London. A yellowish tinge such as that would suggest a blow to the liver, but you are obviously not of that sort. Nor do you reek of the noxious chemicals that labour in a factory would bring...” With complete unconsciousness, the other hand waved at the startled detective - it still had a tarry pipe between the fingers. “You may have a jaundiced view, Inspector, but you are certainly not jaundiced of the liver.”

  “I-I beg your pardon?”

  “So. We have a man that for some reason, has been putting his health at risk by spending far too much time in London when he should be resting in the countryside away from the fogs. Why is he not? Smoke is a common cause - possibly the leading such cause - for such a dry, sallow complexion... but he can hardly separate himself from the cause of his illness if he leaves the city, for that is his livelihood.”

  The stem of the awful pipe went to those thin lips; smoke poured out. “Poor diet, exhaustion, stress, and one’s blood are the leading causes of sallow skin.

  “Despite your efforts to be discreet, Inspector, you have a truncheon at your waist underneath your coat. However, it is not of the usual and more common-place oaken colour model the average Constable clips to his belt. It is a much older style, unique to the Special Constables appointed to deal with the many regrettable riots during the early portion of the Queen’s reign - which, if I may, was before you were even born. Your truncheon is smoothed down and painted black. A crude crown is scratched into the paint along with two interesting initials: CID which might in itself mean Criminal Investigations Department, but for the GL beneath. There was a rather famous example of the Metropolitan Police by the title of Chief Constable Davids, “the Wonderful Welshman” who personally appointed a Constable G. Lestrade from his walk along the Thames to the offices of Scotland Yard. He died without heirs, I am told, but there must have been some warmth to you for he passed along his truncheon.”

  The air seemed thin... or his lungs had shrunk in the hallway.

  The man was standing there, smoking, and that damned smile was still hovering over his face. Lestrade struggled to breathe in a way that wouldn’t be any worse than it was now.

  “Really, Hiatt needs to rethink the pattern of the single-locking handcuffs.” He wasn’t finished. “The non-adjustable grips can cause more problems than they solve.”

  Lestrade had one of the least-proudest moments in his life: He’d forgotten why he’d come to see this lunatic.

  “Have a drink.”

  That quickly, Holmes turned his back and went inside his room. Lestrade took a step inside, not being told otherwise.

  Books littered the walls and floor in stacks, piles, and almost-neat shelving construed of whatever furniture would do the service. Lestrade had the feeling that were it only possible, Mr. Holmes would have put his books on the ceiling in a similar fashion and then completely ignored the danger to his head.

  Books weren’t the half of it in the dirty-looking light. Glass chemistry bits speckled here and there like discarded Christmas ornaments. A few of them Lestrade was positive he had never seen before, and he’d been haunting the laboratories of late. The largest piece was a glass cone with the tip missing... he was almost certain it was some sort of condensing extractor, but he’d never before seen one that size.

  A stack of odd-sized papers teetered in a corner, and only the boldness of the hand made it legible in the gloom: A time-table for the Mortuary.

  There were bullet holes in the wall.

  Bullet holes spelling out... V-I-C–(cluster of holes)-R.

  The little man felt positively dwarfed in the face of so much disaster. A flicker of unexpected sympathy for the man’s landlady showed itself.

  “Whisky and soda,” Holmes was saying, “on the shelf. I did have cigars but I fear they did not survive my latest guest.” He gave a sniff that somehow made Lestrade completely forget about the mess. “Aesthetics who smoke to curb their appetite are an unscientific lot.” He turned swift as a dancer, bent over a glass bowl, and struck the bottom of his pipe so the unused dottles popped out like a cork upon an impressive collection. The tiny red light of a last gleed expired on the spot. “One ought to smoke for better reasons,” the last was said under his breath.

  Lestrade was wondering what madhouse - and who could he blame for this sort of joke? Someone must have set Dr. Roanoke up to this.

  “Why Lestrade?”

  Lestrade nearly jumped out of his skin, caught guilty in having a thought. Holmes was standing up against the undersized and pitifully small fireplace, a freshly-loaded pipe for disaster already lighting in his fingers.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Why Lestrade?”

  “I... that is... my name is Lestrade.” Lestrade stammered. At least his back was to the door if this turned into a case for the Black Maria. The possibility of this being a joke was swelling like dough on a warm day.

  “No, no.” Holmes waved his hand so quickly the smoke went flying in all directions. He really is lean as a scarecrow, the detective realised. “You failed to react when I mis-pronounced your surname, my good fellow. Thus you are either so used to the common pronunciation, or you chose that form deliberately. I was merely curious as to its motive.” He paused and added swiftly: “Although I have encountered a family of Basques and a single Occitan rootling who place the emphasis on the second syllable, you have not the look of that particular branch of Iberian bloodstock. Western Peninsula for you, with your small stature, dark hair and round eyes, in which case one might argue you merely returned to the land of your forefathers. Still, the matter of the surname is only for my personal curiosity.”

  Lestrade grimaced. This man appeared to take all forms of curiosity as personal! “How someone uses my name is not a thing I can control.”

  “You could correct someone as soon as they made their error.”

  “Harming a person’s pride is not a good idea.”

  “So you allow them to attack yours? There is a price in that form of courtesy.”

  Had he just been scolded? Lestrade fought for control again. Want to ensure a short, scandalous and ugly career in the Met?
Tell your Chief he’s got your name wrong. “My name is mis-pronounced, perhaps, to you. It is not to me.”

  “Hah!” The bark of laughter was short and sharp... and loud as a gunpowder snapper. “Better the Cockney form than the French? You are in a large company. The drinks are below the glasses.”

  “Thank you, but no. I am not here to drink.” At least, he wasn’t before he came here... Being French has nothing to do with this, sir...

  Mr. Holmes tilted his head to one side like a curious bird of prey. The nose only helped that impression.

  “Dr. Roanoke, of Scotland Yard, requested me to detain you what he called a “pretty problem.”

  The reaction was so extreme Lestrade nearly took a step backwards. The grey eyes went silver as mercury, and a flush traveled up that bony face. Lestrade was shocked that this took some illusion of years off the man - he was in well grown, surely, but his sheer thinness and the impression that his brow was overgrowing his head made one think he was much taller and older than he really was.

  Just how old is this madman? Does his mother know he’s spending his education on squalid rooms in Montague Street?

  “By all means, present the problem to me, and I shall assist.”

  Relieved that this much was over, Lestrade pulled out the tiny money-bag and placed it on the table. Neither man looked at it for the move would have given offense. Consultants were always jealous of their value.

  “A dead man under Dr. Roanoke’s attention was a suspected poisoner. When the investigation grew too close, it would appear that he took his own wares to prevent the hands of British Law.”

  “Ah, so you’ve finally caught up with the good Mr. Frogge.” Holmes responded with a touch of sarcasm. “I warned the Yard some time ago that his life was drawing to the end of the thread.”

  “That may be, but I was not made aware of that, Mr. Holmes.”

  “Continue.”

  “Very well.” Lestrade ignored the slight slur against his profession. “Dr. Roanoke is stumped at a piece of paper found in his pockets. It would appear to be from a diary, but the wording is peculiar. Three words in particular are puzzling him: “Milk,” goes the first word, and then beneath it, under an indentation, are two more words separated by a comma: “Devil’s and Wolf’s.”