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  The door wobbled open; Watson was on his knees, breathing deeply as a wave of smoke curled about him and limped out the door into the hallway, clutching at a grubby handkerchief. Lestrade pulled his hand up with a grimace. The young man’s face was flushed but defiant and triumphant.

  “Good to see you,” he said through his teeth. And coughed.

  “Bradstreet’s upstairs with the butler,” Lestrade informed him. “How are you?”

  “I shall be fine enough when this is settled...” Watson was leaning on his good leg, and he shuddered once all over. “We have the proof we need, Lestrade. More than what we need.” His voice was hollow and heavy with no joy to it whatsoever.

  It was those words that did something to Parker’s obviously frail state of mind. Despite the handcuffs, the man staggered to his feet, and with a single impressive kick, aimed for the back of Lestrade’s legs. Before Watson could even finish opening his mouth in a shout the little detective turned to the side, and his own foot snapped out in a French-style kick. His toe caught Parker in the bottom of his chin as he flopped down to the floor on his own lopsided momentum; the man collapsed like a bag of sand.

  “He can’t hurt himself or others if he’s out.” Lestrade said grimly. He turned back to the reluctantly impressed Watson. “And I don’t want him to be conscious. Bradstreet will be better that way.”

  “I see.” Watson suddenly coughed. Black stuff came out in his handkerchief. “Perhaps you ought to see this... and not Mr. Bradstreet.”

  “Go easy on him,” Bradstreet pitched his voice very low, so only MacDonald could hear. In the wet streets, the old butler was being settled up to ride to the station. “I rather get the impression he was serving because he didn’t have much of a choice.”

  MacDonald set his lips tightly, his eyes bright with disapproval. “I should have thought of that,” he said obscurely.

  “Beg your pardon?” Bradstreet was startled.

  “It’s...” MacDonald sighed. “Well. It was a rumour. You hear so many that you just sort of decide which ones you want to believe in.”

  Bradstreet nodded.

  “And this rumour had it, all the people working for Dr. Parker was working off their debts to him. Surgeries. Heavy debts, you know. He’d give ‘em just enough pin money to live a bit, but the rest was their working off what they owed.” The blond man looked very awkward for a moment. “Spent some time bragging about the man, you know. Used to work for the old palace in his heyday, very respectable.”

  “A personal debtor’s prison?” Bradstreet stared as the other man nodded glumly. “Truly?”

  “If no one complains...” MacDonald shrugged helplessly. The men looked at each other wearily, both of a height. “I’d say he doesn’t have to worry about his debt to the man now.”

  “Small favours.”

  “Lestrade’s still inside, as is Watson. I’m taking my lads in.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No; you take that poor old wreck in. He looks like he could use a good cup of tea and something to eat - and he can keep the rest of the household staff calm. They’ll look up to him and do as he says...”

  Bradstreet made a crisp motion as MacDonald turned and barked a quick order to a slight man, about Lestrade’s size who was writing notes. The man stuffed his book in his pocket and trotted over.

  “Sir?”

  “McAlpin, whilst the PCs mind the ins and outs of the house, you go with Bradstreet.”

  “Sir.” The man touched his helmet-brim.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Lestrade asked again. Watson was at least fully back on his feet, but his face was chalky under the smudges.

  “I’ll be fine,” the bigger man repeated. He took a deep breath. “We have the proof.” He yanked a fresh cloth from inside his sleeve - military style - and pushed it over his face.

  “You had a close call,” Lestrade said in his sternest voice. “The Yard is grateful, doctor, but we don’t wish you to continue to risk yourself.”

  Anger flashed in those brown eyes, but Lestrade was well used to that, too. For a moment the two locked eyes and horns - literally - in the thick atmosphere.

  Lestrade is not military, Watson reminded himself. He follows his rules, as I must follow mine. His speech is no different than what I would have given to a civilian who wanted to help with an affair.

  But his pride hurt; to know that he was now a civilian only because of a Jezail and his choice of action.

  If I was not half a man, I would still be a Major... perhaps higher. Watson whirled away, his teeth clenched against the truth he had no choice but to recognise.

  “The proof is here,” he said tightly. “I discovered it just before Dr. Parker tried to entomb me alive.”

  Lestrade spared a look of cold contempt to the limp form against the wall. “He’s mild enough now,” he said with a false sweetness. In perfect timing PC Sibthorp rattled up; the Inspector waved him over to stand guard over the prisoner.

  “You don’t know him.” The younger doctor said heavily. “He can’t endure direct death. I believe it was his plan to come back several days later, when I no longer lived.”

  Lestrade’s look upon Parker was terrible. “Passive murder is still willful murder.” He said coldly. “It is up to the jury to decide, but I doubt they’ll see differently.” He cocked his head, listening. “Ah, that would be Bradstreet,” he added in satisfaction.

  Watson was about to ask him how in the world he knew that, but the big man appeared in the smoky doorway, a PC just behind.

  “Gentlemen,” Bradstreet rumbled deep in his chest. His dark eyes flashed over his companions, and then settled, slow as leaf-litter, onto the senseless Parker against the wall. “I take it this is the man in question.”

  “Yes.” Watson breathed in. “Inspector, might I trouble you to take him to the station?”

  “Did you find the proof then?” Bradstreet asked, so softly they only saw his lips move.

  Watson nodded. “We’ve found her.” He spoke as a soldier, calm and direct and respectful.

  Bradstreet nodded his permission.

  Watson turned and stepped back inside the slowly-thinning room.

  Bradstreet stepped after him, his stride long and determined. The doctor was stepping to the small skeleton hanging in the case.

  Bradstreet stopped.

  The big man took the sight of his baby sister’s remains better than one might think.

  Lestrade moved to his side without a word and made his face still against the pain as that big hand wrenched into his shoulder for support.

  Bradstreet swayed slightly. His eyes glassed over for a moment and Watson studied the pattern of stone upon the wall.

  “Proof of murder,” Watson said as if under his breath. He held up his finger to the neck vertebrae. “Scarring upon the bone.”

  Throat-cutting. A doctor would know how to murder clean; this would have been a contract. Parker’s inability to deal death personally was as obvious as the spectacle he made, an empty shell inside himself, all life burned out of him. The bonfire Watson had seen at dinner was gone and it was unlikely to return.

  Bradstreet paused, and slowly turned his head from side to side looking about the tiny room. There were, Lestrade thought, far too many bottles and glass cases and cabinets.

  “What’s wrong here?” The Runner asked suddenly.

  Lestrade followed his gaze to a headless skeleton hanging inside a highly polished chamber of thick glass framed with ebony. It was an appallingly outrageous display of money and death.

  “What do you mean?” He wondered.

  “All of these are... different.” Bradstreet vaguely waved his hand around the room. “But that looks like a... well... I don’t see anything different about that skeleton... and why have a
skeleton without a head?”

  “Damn, you’re right.” Lestrade flushed bright red to have missed something Bradstreet had not. He was too distracted - not a good showing as a policeman or a friend!

  “You are right.” Watson sighed. “And I confess I don’t know about it just yet.”

  “No... because Watson needed a skull to see the face before it.

  “Oh, dear.”

  Had he said that out loud? They were looking at him oddly.

  Sweat broke out of the little professional’s face as for one of the few times in his life, his brain leapt from thought to thought and finally a cringe-worthy conclusion.

  “Bradstreet...” Lestrade cleared his throat. “MacDonald’s report.” He swallowed. “He said... when the senior Parker died... his body was sent to science... and that all but the skull was lost.”

  Bradstreet and Watson went as pale as Lestrade felt.

  “You are certain?” Watson asked, quietly formal.

  “It would seem,” Watson voiced what they could not, “That he found his father in England and... brought him back.”

  “What he could find of him.” Lestrade made himself breathe deep.

  “What hath Thy death for sinners gain’d?” Bradstreet murmured in that sing-song way he did when he was quoting Wesley. “What hath Thy life to sinners given?”[7]

  “If I may, Mr. Bradstreet,” Watson cleared his throat. “I could use Lestrade’s assistance in cataloguing this room. There may yet be something else in here.”

  Bradstreet nodded his agreement. He stared back at the unconscious Parker beneath the Constable’s eyes one last time, not quite seeing him. His brown eyes kept sliding over that little mound and elsewhere. “Constable,” He cleared his throat as the young man stepped forward. “If you would be so kind as to place him in your custody. I will speak to Macdonald.”

  Lestrade and Watson waited until they were alone. Quite alone. Lestrade blew out his breath, trembling inside his oversized coat. He reached up and rubbed at the bruise Bradstreet had left on his shoulder. “There’s something else in here, isn’t there.” He said flatly. “Something you didn’t want him to see.”

  “Not now.” Watson agreed. His eyes were shining; small wonder. Lestrade’s eyes were watering too. It wasn’t from the smoke. “One moment, please.” Watson slumped slightly inward, and stepped deeper into the room where a long waterproofed cabinet rested against a padded board on the wall. Lestrade hesitated to join him. Whatever Watson would have to show him, would have to be worse than the skeleton.

  But the doctor stopped, his back to the Inspector, and his rested his hands on the table for a moment, head hanging down. “He wouldn’t have kept just the skeleton,” he said in a muffled voice. “A skeleton only tells part of the story.”

  Lestrade felt his heart freeze.

  “Most bones are anonymous. There were enough questions about Elspeth Bradstreet’s disappearance that he couldn’t have the bones on permanent exhibit. It was a prized specimen; he only took it out once a year, like many researchers do.” Watson snorted to himself in a display of self-directed contempt that Lestrade didn’t recognise. “But at least he could show it. Show it off. That was important. A researcher is worthless unless he has some proof of his work.” His throat moved over his collar in a swallow. “A Selkie has webbed fingers and toes.” He said slowly, as if each word hurt him as it came out.

  Horror climbed up Lestrade’s chest and he gulped; the air left the room. The detective had walked among the dead by the hundreds and never so much as faltered; he’d seen his own brother swing for murder; he’d pulled bodies by the score out of frozen gutters in his Constable beats, and he’d had to tell the wife of his best friend that her husband would never come home.

  But he’d never before seen an act of murder lovingly preserved in a jar of alcohol for eternity.

  Watson set the two jars down carefully, one after the other.

  Lestrade swallowed again. And again. “How...” He managed faintly. “How did...”

  “He took the flesh from the bone, in a horizontal cut,” Watson said in a dead voice. “And he stitched them back up together. I suspect he inserted pins inside to keep the shape of the extremities... the toes were particularly delicate... and then he preserved them in alcohol.”

  Now the pieces fit. “That’s why you asked Bradstreet for the use of her hand-casts!” He breathed. “The casts were made before she disappeared; Parker would be able to show them off if he had those in his collection!”

  Watson almost smiled; he was pleased the little man had figured it out. “I wasn’t about to give him the originals,” he admitted. “I gave him these instead.” He picked up two small white objects from behind the jars and gently cradled them. Lestrade tilted his head to one side, puzzled. They looked exactly like the plaster casts the priest had made of Elspeth in life... but much, much smaller. “What did you do?”

  “I made a cast of a cast,” Watson nodded. “I had the cast of fine ceramic, and when it fired it shrank. Then I re-plastered the cast. The result was a smaller copy of the original. Parker thought the hands were of a five or six year old child, and he recognised the hands. It was... a bit of a long gamble, but... I had a suspicion.”

  Lestrade was a moment collecting his voice. “You were right not to show him.” He said at last. “Bradstreet is a professional, Doctor. But no one should ever see such a thing.”

  “No.” Watson agreed.

  The smaller man ran his hand through his hair; a particular mannerism that fascinated Watson, for it went against the other’s cat-like sense of neatness. “Is there some way we can put the rest of her up in a casket? Something that can be buried with the rest of her?”

  “There is.” Watson nodded. “Bradstreet needn’t look.”

  “Good.”

  They set to work. The Murder Room - Lestrade couldn’t think of it any other way - was not very large, but it had many objects. Watson’s concentration was jolted when he heard Lestrade pull in his breath.

  By this point, Watson would have to wonder what would startle the little man. He looked up from the act of opening a thin cabinet. Lestrade was yanking thin gloves out of his coat-pocket in a fever and pulling them over his fingers. That done, he reached into a black-lacquered box and gently pulled out a withered-up hand. The skin was black from preservatives and moved like dry leather. Inside its gnarled, grotesquely swollen fingers, a fat candle of an unwholesome sallow tinge collected dust.

  “Lestrade?” Watson hesitated.

  Lestrade did not speak or look at him at first. “Carney Ambisinister’s missing hand,” he said in a thin voice.

  “Ambisinister the murderer?” Watson stepped over to take a look. “Are you certain?”

  “I was on the case.” Lestrade was still staring at the thing, what had once been a living hand, between his own two. “I’d know that moon-scar on the wrist anywhere.” He was silent from the weight of his thoughts for a long moment. “I remember when they hung him, and I thought, ‘now it’s over,’ for it’s really quite a simple thing to take a life. It only takes a moment.” The detective was pale as candle-wax. “But it never is over, not really. All you do is just take a life that’s taken a life.” He swallowed hard. “All the people he’d killed had been the work of a moment. No more. But the next day, when they called to tell me the body had been desecrated, all I could think was, ‘it was supposed to be over.’”

  Lestrade couldn’t speak further than that. He was not as imaginative as Dr. Watson or Mr. Holmes; imagination was a pitfall in his career. But he could still see the facts in his mind. Rumours had circulated almost instantly despite the efforts of the Yard; that the hand had been turned into a Hand of Glory, a mark of witchcraft for who knew what sort of purpose?

  “We need to bury him with his hand.” He said at last. “So long as we kee
p mum. If one ghoulish collector knows, another will know...” Bitterness was thick as sea-salt in his voice. “We found it the first time... it was being sold on the market with sorts of things you’d never want to look at, doctor... and we put it in the Archives thinking it would be safe, whilst we pondered what to do. And there it was stolen again. The reporters had their fun with us.” Something made him look down past the withered palm and his face changed, hot and swift as summer lightning. “He left the ticket on!” Lestrade hissed. “I don’t believe it! He left the crime ticket, still tied on to the arm-bone!”

  Watson shook his head. “This will take years.” He said dully. “Only discreet inquiries will do, and they aren’t as swift as the other methods.”

  Lestrade swallowed. He drew filthy air into his lungs until he calmed. “I’ll be taking this back with me.” He said softly. “Return it... under better guard.”

  “If Holmes were here,” Watson murmured, “he would suggest a discreet burial posthaste with no one the wiser.” A mixture of understanding and disappointment rested inside his normally pleasant voice.

  Lestrade was too exhausted to fumble with words. “Mr. Holmes is not the law, Doctor Watson. I am as long as I wear the Guelphic Badge. And I must make my decisions within the law.” He would ensure Holyrood was correct about the permission to bury this sad relic, but until then would keep quiet.

  Watson’s lips tightened fractionally under his trimmed military mustache. “And I am a soldier, Mr. Lestrade. I understand duties. We each have our own.”

  Yes. But Watson, though a soldier, was turning into something else.

  He would have been a perfect addition to the Yard... if his life hadn’t turned to Baker Street first. He wasn’t aware of it, but his character was already more than what it had been when Lestrade first met him. Holmes’ influence was all well and good, but the two waters didn’t mix. Holmes had never struck him as someone who would obey the law if it didn’t suit him. No. He would go to his own higher power every time. And from such mistakes, anarchy and corruption began in the Yard. It was inevitable.