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  These facts and many more slipped through Lestrade’s head as he rested under the boxwoods.

  “Roger!”

  His best friend’s tenor hissed into his ear over the sound of a clot of ersatz street-performers.

  “Roger Thomas Bradstreet!”

  Breath reeking of peppermint floated down his neck and the big man struggled to sit upright, looking for the entire world like a man who had fallen asleep in quite another era.

  “We’ve got to head for shelter,” Lestrade was saying just as a low, underbelly growl of thunder thrummed across the city’s cloud-cover.

  “Oh, my... G-” Bradstreet scrubbed his face awake with both hands, his dark eyes thoughtful and worried. Over their heads a very un-seasonal blanket of fog was rolling off the coast. “How long has this been happening?” He demanded.

  “It hasn’t!” Lestrade snapped, angry that it might be implied he was remiss in his duties. “It just started boiling up, like soup from the bottom of a cook-pot, lessen five minutes ago!”

  Bradstreet rose up quickly, licked his finger and held it up. The result was less than encouraging. “This wasn’t in the weather report.” Even as he said it, he blushed to think of the sheer inanity of his observation.

  Lestrade only stitched his mouth shut and glared about the swiftly deserting city as if some intelligent deity had conspired against them, just to see what they would do. “Where do you think we should go? I smell rain.”

  “Cut across the greensward back to our tavern - It won’t be the best place to look out, but it’s mostly a straight-view and it is better than nothing.” Bradstreet nodded, lowering his head into his bowler and began walking.

  Lestrade followed behind, out of respect for his clearer wisdom on the layout. They did not quite make it before the rains.

  “I do miss your dear brother’s company. Is he adjusting to his new condition?”

  The question, to all appearances innocent and courteous - froze John Watson to the bone.

  Rain hammered against the window... or was it the blood in his ears? The doctor forced himself to swallow down the potatoes in parsley. “He was always a bit pragmatic,” he said at last. “I would daresay that is his aid in his trial.”

  Dr. Parker made a sound of agreement. His fork rested unemployed in his fingers. It was only the two of them in the small dining-room, but Watson had never before felt the presence of too many people. His brother hung between them, the ghost at the feast with his silent accusation.

  “He used to come up at times, you know. Adored those conversations of geology and geography. The science of soil was ever fascinating to him, which is all to his credit. There wasn’t so much soil at the Watson villa as there was rock, was there?”

  “What little soil we had, I guarantee you he had it all mapped and analyzed!” John laughed to himself at half the memories in his mind. Good memories. “He had so many different hobbies... that he could keep track of them all was a marvel.”

  “But you were the one who could always keep up with him.”

  “Well, if I couldn’t I assure you it was not for lack of trying.” He tried to make light of it.

  “You were always a good deal more intelligent than you let on, John.” The professor’s light eyes twinkled over the table. “Everyone took your brother for the genius, but I would say, ‘don’t forget John, he has depths.’” He poured a clear yellow wine out of a narrow carafe with a contented sound.

  Three drinks from that carafe had entered Parker before supper was even served, and that had been just as lush: smoked turkey, cloche salads and potatoes with parsley had led to a meal such as he had not had in a very long time. Watson wasn’t completely certain he could have eaten at this table a month ago; Mrs. Hudson’s cuisine had balanced out anything overly fatty in concession to her invalided lodger, and he owed her from moving past the thin soups and strengthening broths that were only a step above hospital fare.

  Watson hated being the topic of conversation, especially when the converser was imbibing. It made him uneasy, and that in turn made him a little prickly. “I can’t say I ever gave it much thought, Doctor.” he said gently, hoping this would be the end of it.

  “Oh, John, you do yourself a discredit.” Parker waved his hand. “You’re quite a person. Unique.” The blue-green eyes were just beginning to swim in the shine of alcohol. Watson thought of little buoys bobbing in the ocean. “Something anyone would be proud of - I mean someone.” He tittered. “Excuse me, I said you were something. That was a bit off, wasn’t it?”

  Watson’s skin prickled. The table between them had become a black chasm; its space loomed menacing and chill around Parker’s little bonfire of willpower and charm.

  Once, Watson had to pretend to the Afghani he did not know their language. They had been planning to kill him as he headed home from their village in retribution for a man his own army had shot. He was convinced it was their own inability to read the mannerisms of infidels that saved his life.

  “But, come. I’m keeping you from supper.” Parker waved. “When we’re both finished I should like to show you my Kunstkabinett[5] again.

  “After all,” he added. “With the weather being what it is, we shall have to make our own amusements.”

  “That would be most kind of you, Dr. Parker.” Watson lifted his water-glass in a softly-smiling toast.

  “Blast it all...”

  Lestrade emerged from his turn in the hasty bath to find Bradstreet all but sitting in the narrow window, peering sideways down the street. He had nicked Lestrade’s tiny field-glass and was trying hard to see anything with it in the glowering atmosphere.

  Bradstreet’s scowl reflected badly in the murky glass as the rain commenced.

  “Nothing?” He guessed.

  “Nothing I can pick out, but then, this is not the best view.” Bradstreet hammered his fingers against his thigh as he brooded. “I’m going back out,” he announced - not to Lestrade’s surprise, but Bradstreet looked astonished at himself for the loss of control. “I’m not about to let anything slip through us tonight.”

  “We’ll both go.” Lestrade said patiently. He’d rather be going back out in the thick of things, weather and all.

  “You just got clean.”

  “It’s not London, Roger. I might be able to stay clean more than an hour for once.”

  Bradstreet sniffed to cover his nerves. “Never saw your like, you know.” He complained as they made their way back down the stairs. “As fastidious as you are, you work in the filthiest city in all of Britain.”

  “Part of my charm, old fellow.” Lestrade sneered using his best imitation of Gregson’s arrogance. It was worth acting the fool for the result: Bradstreet snorted like a draft-horse and clapped him on the back. But Lestrade could tell through the brief contact that his old friend was trembling.

  Don’t do anything foolish, he thought hard to the other man. Don’t. Let me do it. Not you.

  “Incredible.”

  Watson was unable to keep the astonishment out of his voice. Beside him Dr. Parker beamed proudly with his back to the endless rows of books and papers in his library. He appeared almost avuncular to his former student.

  Watson finally turned the object in his hands back upright. “I’ve never seen a skull-drum in person before.”

  “They aren’t commonly found on this side of the globe, I assure you. But I was more interested in the cranium than its musical ability. Its owner was allegedly a monk of the Himalayas.”

  Watson nodded once, his fingers tingling at the contact of something that looked like ordinary bone... but felt like ivory. “I’ve never seen such an eburneous example of human bone.”

  “They’re quite rare,” Parker admitted. “Partly because we know so little about the disease itself. This was even more unique; I’m told none of the te
ndons hardened, it was all in the bone. Hence, the person never really noticed anything happening.”

  “It’s just like ivory - it is ivory!” Watson admitted. It was no simple thing to be absorbed in the thing in his hands, with unusual glass specimens and bones surrounded them on mounts and hooks... but it really was unusual.

  “Chemically, it is probably closer to ivory than it is ordinary cranium calcium.” Dr. Parker took the skullcap into his own hands. A thin membrane of goat-skin created the drum itself. “As I understand, this was a monk who was renowned for his poetic morning prayers.”

  Not seeing the face of the skull itself, Watson did not have a mental image of the man. He was glad. “I’d heard that they made drums out of their dead,” he admitted, uneasy and unashamed of it.

  “Part of their ability to remain unattached to the material world,” Parker stroked the shining substance fondly. “They measure their worth in the un-measurable; the ephemeral and intangible. Our logic is quite backwards to their thinking.”

  “I would imagine.” Watson could still recall the texture of the drum in his finger-whorls. It had felt just like elephant ivory, hard and dense and full of flint.

  “Here’s something.” Parker suddenly gave the drum back. “Tap it and listen.”

  Watson was confused, but did as he was told. The soft echo was akin to an instrument stretched over an ebony shell: a softly alto D4 sang against his teeth, slow to dissipate into the air.

  His unease growing, Watson suddenly could not return the drum to Parker quickly enough. The old man tilted his head to one side, blue eyes glittering with amusement and Watson flushed in sudden shame.

  “They can adjust their drums to a perfect pitch,” Parker chuckled as the drum went back to its shelf. “But they aren’t without their superstitions... the monks claim to have the only ability to play these drums; all others must do so at their own risk.”

  “R-risk?” Watson wiped his hands on his trousers whilst Parker busied himself with placing the artifact back on the shelf just so. “What risk would that be?” He felt as though the vibration of that single tap was settling within his vertebrae.

  “Oh, just one of their old-wives’ tales that a drum made of man can wake the dead when sounded.” Parker spoke casually, but it sent ice water across every inch of his guest’s skin.

  And he said only the monks could play this sort of drum... How then did he acquire it?

  “Oh, he heard himself saying. “That is an excellent specimen.”

  “Isn’t it?” Dr. Parker beamed fondly. He forgot his precious drum in favour of a new marvel: the jaw of a child resting on a carved base. The child had been in the process of forming adult teeth, and the bone had been carefully shaved back to show the teeth in various stages of development along the jaw-bone. “Sheer luck for this little beauty,” he said with evident pride. His fingers slid over the carefully-cleaned item with love.

  Watson was glad there was no more of the child than what he could see. “Those are difficult to find,” he observed, which was a polite way of noting it was a matter of expense as much as availability.

  “Ah, again it was pure luck. An unfortunate casualty of the streets. The parents hadn’t the money for a proper burial so I offered to do the honours.” With a casual sniff Parker proclaimed his benevolence and his dismissal of the poor, who never did enough for the Society that tolerated them.

  It was nothing Watson hadn’t heard before, but it was the first time he’d heard this so blatantly from his old teacher.

  But he hadn’t seen him in his cups before either...

  You just confessed to a theft of human remains, Watson thought in a slow-dawning creep of horror. You just confessed to me, to me as a witness...

  ...Because you think I am like you. Because you think I share your thoughts.

  Watson buried a moment’s more of nerve by dropping to his at-rest pose and looking around. The cozy library-study had once been a thing of awe for fellow students such as himself. A young man proved himself in his studies by an invitation to this room. Were it a matter of art alone, it would be a worthwhile goal for academic achievement: Parker possessed some of the rare anatomical folios of England and they were all wrapped in the luxury of fine paper or vellum with crisp ink and soft leather covers latched in brass. The mahogany walls hung bejeweled with fine oils and silver engravings; a skeleton each of the three major species depended from their wooden boxes propped upright, each with some unusual pathology. Against the main wall in rows of specially-purchased glass jars rested soft-tissue specimens, such as the usual unfinished infants or war-amputee’s limb. But there were things set above the pale: the most famous was the femur of a man swallowed by a shark; digestive properties within the beast had made the bone so small and flexible it could be bent like an India-rubber tube and twisted to a knot.

  As one of the eager young men, Watson had looked forward to the Sunday teas... but the memory was colourless and flat to him now. When he scrolled backwards in his mind the images were abnormally sunlit, like a child’s innocence. All was pure and clear learning amid the wonders of the human body, unvarnished with age and corruption and cynicism.

  Dr. Parker was prattling about his collection of eyes now. Watson let him. His own two eyes rested upon a fine Mexican bas-relief of a skeleton with a broad sombrero and serape and playing a guitar. The little skeleton grinned at him without guile or mischief or cynicism.

  The tiny Muerto was frozen in the moment of innocence and the celebration of life with death; it was a carving. It was a remembrance of the semi-permanence beneath the flesh and a reminder of the future.

  Watson was not a carving; he was a man, a representation of the clothing around the skeleton. He by nature had to change. And he had. With the war and the blood-sickness that followed, Watson had wanted nothing more than to return to some of his old joy in medicine, so a return to his roots had been logical. But the hope was ruined when Parker had pulled out his skeleton, and Watson had known it for murder by the score across the throat.

  And as for Dr. Parker...

  Watson braved another look at his genial host. The old man was showing him a string of curiously twisted vertebrae. Instead of cozy, the room’s walls were narrow and tight. The gaslights cast dull shadows and wraiths into the corners. The wisps of lace curtain caught inside the lights, throwing sullen grey threads across the wall.

  Holmes would call him fanciful. Watson would call himself a fly inside a web.

  “Not so bad.” Bradstreet decided.

  Lestrade didn’t dignify that with a response. They were huddled back into the scanty shelter of boxwood. It took the worst of the wind and rain off their shoulders but collected into their hatbrims like gutters and ran in thin streams down their fronts and backs in universally awkward times.

  “I’m just glad we can see the doors,” Lestrade admitted at last. “But I don’t know how Watson is going to signal us in this weather.”

  In the beginning, it had been simple enough: Watson would plead a moment to step to the porch with one last smoke of the evening. A pipe if all was well, his thin cigar if not. And if he needed more time...

  This sort of clime was against anyone stepping out. A host would insist on his remaining inside.

  “We can hope he’ll think of something.” Bradstreet grunted. “Perhaps the rain won’t last much longer.”

  “Just treat yourself to whatever you need, Major. I’m no further than the pull of the bell-cord.”

  “Mayn’t I step outside for a final smoke tonight?”

  “Certainly, sir. I shall leave the key in the door for your convenience; simply leave it as you found it, and I shall collect it the moment I have finished my rounds.”

  Watson nodded. “Thank you.” He watched as the old butler quietly made his exit; he wondered if the man had once served.

 
Alone for the first time in hours, relief crashed down. He sank to the edge of the bed, hands in his lap as he studied the face off the little eight-day clock on the dresser. The rain was slacking but the hour was late. For himself, his throbbing leg and shoulder made everything an... experience.

  Watson knew he was close to his personal tolerance for pain, but an anodyne was not permissible now. It was the main thing keeping him awake and alert.

  The minutes dragged, long and sharp as his aching limbs grew heavier. About him the sounds of the old house creaked and settled and muttered as slips of wind pressed against the boards one way, then another. It might well have been the aerial complaints of disturbed spirits. After such an experience Watson was willing to dwell on that possibility... guilt could take many forms, and he might have well held an object of murder with the skull-drum. If not murder, thievery. Even now the high, stretching vibration of the note seemed to rest in the bones of his memories.

  At last, he rose to his feet with a sigh of his decision. Bradstreet and Lestrade needed a signal.

  He donned his coat against the night air, and walked quietly down the carpeted hallway to the front door. About him the house was dead and still of human life. The only animation rested within the sounds of the house itself. He re-opened the door and very carefully shut it behind him with a soft snick of iron. His back leaned against the damp brick and he reached deep into his pockets, pulling out his tin of Bradley’s. The match scored light into his hand and he cupped it quickly, hoping the wind would not frustrate him. He needed the smoking to signal a detective he could not see. His nerves were over-ready for some sort of action to take place.