You Buy Bones Read online

  Another piece of London just died, he thought. He’d seen the old bookseller for years - even in his early days on the beat and he’d looked old even then. His white, wild hair bobbing like grass tufts as scuttled across the city with his cart and his books strapped to his shoulders. When a building was about to be demolished, he was there. When something crumbled and was thrown out into the rubbish... he was there too. He ignored the brass fixtures, the antique brick, anything else of value... it had been the books he wanted. It was the books he pulled out of the rubbish, lovingly dusted them off, and repaired their pages well as he could. He read every book he sold, and recited large bits from his memory when persuading a sot to buy. He took pricier volumes to antique and reliquary shops, persuaded them of the use of his time, and walked off (if temporary in his wealth), better than he’d been earlier.

  No different from the mudlarks and street-Arabs who knew a good deal in the tip when they saw it... and how many times did the respectable establishments rely on these bitterly poor people to find a crowning piece for their display?

  Lestrade once (in his salad days) took him for some sort of beggar trying to nick a few coins on the pretext of a book. But Old Leathersides, the wags off Lambeth said, Old Leathersides had loved his books too much. When he saw someone worthy of his wares, he pressed upon them and harried them with his good intentions until they crumbled to soggy sand and took up the book.

  “He’s blinkered Mr. Holmes a time or two,” Gregson had commented once. Years later his voice was still hushed in respect for one of the Modern Wonders of London. “Then again, maybe he didn’t. Holmes is a queer enough bird... could be he can find sense in spending money on a book written in a language England’s never seen, and bound in a country we can’t even spell.”

  Can’t even spell...

  Lestrade thought of that then, without knowing why. It seemed very wrong for someone to master more languages... and not be given honours... at least a soft bed and a good meal once a day. What use was education if it wasn’t respected? Old Leathersides had conversed to him in what he’d said was Hebrew, Greek, Latin... once he’d sputtered out a string of Guernsey-talk, the shock of which had nearly sent the little policeman into a gutter. Even more strangely, he spoke of books the Inspector hadn’t imagination to conjure by himself. He hadn’t belonged on the streets of the homeless any more than the rest. Who had taught him?

  Murcher was clearing his throat as Lestrade quietly went through his pockets. A pawn-ticket for a bottle of preservative oils. A silk handkerchief, given better care than the rest of his clothing. A broken watch with an ivory back and a deer leaping across a carved wood. A single piece of jewelry hung at his watch-chain: A finely carved cameo of polished sea-coal, of a young woman with eyes too large and haunting to be healthy.

  “A city of millions... millions... with millions of those dedicated to crime... and he manages to die of natural causes.”

  “Seems to me, sir... any death in London is a natural cause.” Murcher answered softly-and with not a small grain of truth to his observation.

  Lestrade looked up at that, and decades later, he still didn’t know what he was about to say to the man - something stern yet encouraging, something a superior would say to bolster up a man in a gruff, no-frills way... but all that went to pieces at the sight of a tall, thin man striding through the crowd with his walking-stick out like a third arm.

  One look at the look on Mr. Holmes’ thin face, and Lestrade felt his heart sink to a new depth below his ribs.

  “Lestrade,” Mr. Holmes began with a high, quick catch to his voice (usually so capable of slicing a man through with a single look, a single eyeball, or the lift of a nostril... even the way that starving amateur could put his pipe to his lips could be an insult or condemnation)...

  “Good-morning, Mr. Holmes.” Lestrade slowly rose to his feet; he’d stayed put for too long, and his left foot ached like a living thing was in his shoe... with teeth that wanted sharpening on the thick bone under his arch. “I’m afraid Mr. Leathersides passed away just now.”

  “I can see that, Lestrade.”

  Too late, Lestrade realised he had accidentally caused insult. Of course that man, who had loved books (especially books of every method of murder or suicide known), would be able to see at a glance the bookseller had died on his own.

  There was nothing for it now. An apology would mean little to Holmes, assuming he would even be paying attention.

  With a single swoop (birdlike, he could be, and bloodhoundish at a puzzle), Holmes dropped to his knees with far less concern for his trousers than Lestrade... but to be fair, Holmes didn’t have to worry about his superior’s censure... Holmes acknowledged no superiors.

  The horses were pulling up the dead-cart now. Lestrade knew he was being old-fashioned, but he still couldn’t call it anything but that. Carts for the dead; carriages were for the living.

  “He had some books for me...”

  Lestrade didn’t like seeing Mr. Holmes shaken up and taken aback. He far preferred the man to be what he was supposed to be: annoying, arrogant, and smug and vague and everything a policeman wasn’t supposed to be. Not a man who had a foundation shaken before he was ready.

  “If you can recognize them in the stack, Mr. Holmes, I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded...”

  Those unsettling grey eyes. Lestrade has never gotten used to them.

  “And to whom the payment, Inspector?”

  The voice is cutting as always. Thank God. Holmes wanted things back to normal as much as he.

  “He was a mate of the old rag-man Brucie under the Bridge... He had no kin that I was aware of, Mr. Holmes...”

  “Nor did he. I’m quite certain of the fact.”

  Holmes straightened by inches, his tall, skinny form like a lost lighthouse in the swarm of the street. “Again, to whom should the payment go? I can give Bruce something easily enough, but what of Mr. McDaniel? He never wanted a burial. Not even in a potter’s field.”

  Lestrade didn’t bother asking how Holmes knew his real name or his desires. Book-lovers were their own breed; they spoke in their own private tongue.

  “I can’t say, Mr. Holmes. Except perhaps that if you truly knew him, you’ll be able to think of some way to commemorate him.”

  Again, Lestrade struck a nerve without meaning it, but this time it didn’t seem to be painful.

  Lestrade and Murcher waited, respectfully silent, as Mr. Holmes slowly and quietly paged through the meagre supply of battered books and just as silently... pulled three out.

  “What will happen to his personal effects, Inspector?”

  “They’ll be put up if no heirs respond in the usual matter of time.” Lestrade assured him. Holmes had to be upset if he’d forgotten one of the most basic of London’s laws with the poor and deceased.

  Holmes nodded at that... and pulled out a handful of coin that his Montague-Street-dragon would prefer to see in her own apron. There was a sadness to the way the young man put the money down, as if he was trying to say how heavy it was and how light was life... but before Lestrade could ponder the oddness of his own thoughts, Holmes had turned his back and left them to the business of putting up the husk of a quiet, meek, and harmless man of books.

  Lestrade let events slip from his mind - a necessary quality for an Inspector who must carry many tasks at once. Standing fast was one thing; standing fast in a current would drown a man quick.

  But not long after, he stepped to the sausage-cart on his way to work and nearly spat out the mouthful of breakfast into the cold London air.

  Old Leathersides was scuttling across the kerb.

  The Inspector stared shamelessly, almost horrified at his own paralysis. But the vision failed to vanish. It flitted like a bat throughout the crowd, the pile of books belted to one stooped shoulder, a satchel at his waist.

&nbs
p; “Dante!” The high, piping and cracked voice exults like the priest on Sundays. “The fine Italian of the Empire! Dear Sir, you cannot say your collection of the classics is complete without The Divine Comedy!”

  Lestrade stared until his eye hurt, but Mr. Holmes was already gone, and his target was struggling to say no.

  He would give in. The Inspector knew that.

  Mr. Holmes would grind him down as surely as Old Leathersides. Would inveigle his way to the man’s house and there he would find... what? Proof of what crime? Or confirmation of what innocence? The old Bookseller would go off, and whoever had hired Mr. Holmes (perhaps someone even in the Yard, like Gregson)... would get a note on their desk.

  He shook his head, admiring and unable to truly disapprove.

  Mr. Holmes had been good to his word. He had found a way to remember the old man.

  And it was a fitting form of tribute, too.

  Mr. Holmes had discovered the perfect disguise.

  Men see what they want to see.

  No one wants to see a ghost.

  You Buy Bones:

  A Novella

  You buy land, you buy stones; you buy meat, you buy bones.

  -17th-century English proverb

  1: You Buy Bones

  February, 1882:

  Despite opinions to the contrary, Scotland Yard did pay attention to minutiae:

  Time of death

  Coroner’s reports

  Factors in weather

  Annoyances of one’s co-workers

  Social events

  Annual fluctuations in murder

  Statistics

  Etc.

  The problem with all of them was that the minutiae never-ended and there was precious little chance for rest and reflection.

  Despite the usual depression that came with this daily remainder, Lestrade was feeling good that morning. Mrs. Collins had suffered one of her wild hares in the kitchen and her long-standing gratitude for having an Inspector as a boarder (guaranteeing a shield from all but the worst kinds of interference on Paddington Street), had led her to stuff a large parcel in his hands as he made for the door, umbrella in hand.

  A typical February day in London is soggy with snow, slimy with the addition of the soot-soaked fog, and made raucous with the special kinds of traffic disasters that result from poor brakes, invisible ice, and people rushing far too quickly to get from a warm and dry place to the next warm and dry place. A steaming hot bundle in one’s icy hands can only be an improvement.

  On his way out, Inspector Bradstreet opened the door for Lestrade. He sniffed and stepped back inside. “Package from Mrs. Collins!”

  Before Lestrade could say or do anything, the big man ducked his head directly over the cloth and inhaled loudly.

  “Hah!” He said smugly. “Beef tongue with potato and leek!” A puzzled look crossed his face and he sniffed again. “Hang about. Why are you bringing in cooking from your landlady, Geoffrey? The future Mrs. Lestrade should be doing this.”

  Lestrade simply looked at the other man. His old friend was overdoing the good cheer, but with the mourning-black on, Bradstreet was in deep need of something to make merry with. “There is no ‘future Mrs. Lestrade,’ and remind me again why you and your nose weren’t placed on the Bakery case, Bradstreet?”

  Bradstreet grinned as he straightened; Lestrade tried to ignore how the jet tiepin at his throat glittered back like a single beady eye. “I love my food, Lestrade... I don’t take it to work with me. If I started investigating into what I ate, I’d be skinnier than Watson.”

  “God forbid.” Lestrade commented. “But I think he’s starting to look a bit more natural. Ran into him at the Tavern the other day.” Lestrade struggled to manoeuvre the obstacle of eager detectives. “All right!” He lifted his voice. “Didn’t any of you eat breakfast?!”

  “I didn’t.” Barnes popped in.

  “Barnes, you never eat breakfast. And if you did, I’d worry about you.”

  Barnes’ walk was in one of the worst digs of London during the cat-eye shift. He seemed to have more than his fair share of lounging corpses as a result. Dumping one’s murder victim into the middle of the train tracks might be a fundamentally bad idea in the light of day, but in the gin soaked moonlit nights, it was almost a reasonable notion to the criminal mind. Barnes hadn’t eaten red meat in a year.

  Lestrade struggled to his office with a full burden, aware that Bradstreet was ploughing through with his own brand of assistance. He set the basket down with a gasp of relief once he was in his office. “All right, then. Now what?” He stared at the stack of papers on his desk. “And people say spontaneous creation is rot.” He muttered under his breath. “I’ll show them spontaneous - here now, what are you doing with that? My caseload’s full up!”

  Bradstreet held up a folder. “You asked for this last week.”

  “That was six cases ago!” Lestrade blustered. “Where was it then?”

  “First ordered, first served.” Bradstreet said pitilessly as he set the papers down. “It takes time to interview madmen. Pass it on to Jones if you’re feeling a bit spread thin.”

  Lestrade’s annoyance threatened to metastasize. “Why Jones?”

  “Oh, he’s still working with Holmes here and there, you know. Those loose ends about the pick-pocketing gang off Court Street.”

  Lestrade shuddered. “There’s a story or five,” was his verdict. “I prefer to stick with the ordinary, wholesome London criminal - once they cross the Thames or Hadrian’s Wall I’d just as soon as leave them to my betters.”

  “What about the Forty Elephants? Wouldn’t you rather deal with foreign criminals than the Forty Elephants?”

  “When it comes down to it, Bradstreet, most of us will never see that particular elephant.”[19]

  “Amen.” Bradstreet made a face at his friend’s scorching wit. Lestrade sank down in his chair and began fishing for a moderately-long pencil. “Ugh. Save me some of that tongue, would you? I’ve got to deal with a missing husband case this morning.”

  “Good luck with that one, Bradstreet.” Lestrade said with feeling.

  “Is that all you can say?” Bradstreet sniffed.

  Lestrade tilted his head, considering. “Missing husband?” He repeated.

  “Aye.”

  “Was he philandering?”

  “Most definitely.”

  “Check under the floorboards.”

  “Aren’t you the wag today?” Bradstreet walked away, shaking his head and muttering dire Border imprecations under his beard. The little Inspector grinned at his retreating (and very broad) back. He reached for the top paper on his desk purely by default. It was a request for a summary on a recent rash of stabbings involving... coney butchers? Lestrade groaned out loud.

  Three hours later he had completely lost his appetite - not to the sorrow of his cohorts, who were willing to do his landlady’s cooking justice. Sadly, they added to his distraction by their long-running speculations on how the marvellous (and mythical) Mrs. Lestrade would be cooking once Lestrade saw fit to let her make an honest man of him. Gregson had been particularly ungrateful for his free meal with discussing a large Euclidian algorithm that he swore would calculate Lestrade’s geometric shape from “rectangle” to “square” with a fortnight of decent cooking. By the time the door to his office opened again to show one of the clerks, Lestrade was ready to crumple his papers until they were promoted from a two to a three-dimensional form, and file them into the dustbin. “What is it, Matt?”

  “Message for you, Inspector.” The boy produced a yellow square. “Dr. Watson inquires if you can meet him for an early supper at your favourite tavern.”

  Lestrade realised Watson meant the ‘Keg. “Hang about, lad...” Lestrade scrawled a hasty answer on the
cheap paper. “Send it right back to him, I can break free early today, seeing as how I’m missing a...” He caught the boy’s eye to the desk. “Go on, help yourself.” He sighed.

  Montague Street:

  Watson was in the process of passing coin to a street urchin Lestrade recognised from Baker Street. “And tell her there isn’t a bit of horse in this!” The inspector heard the doctor’s parting shot as the boy took off with a rope of sausage.

  “Do I want to know what that was about?” Lestrade asked as he came up behind the other man.

  Watson started slightly, but quickly relaxed. “I assume you have a strong constitution.” He retorted. “The usual rumours of horse in the pork sausage. Mrs. Hudson insists I give her order an inspection if I’m to have any peace at the breakfast table tomorrow.”

  Lestrade folded his arms and roared. “And surprised she didn’t ask Mr. Holmes? Wouldn’t it be just like him to be on something like the Epping Sausage Forgery?”[20]

  Watson looked skyward to the sooty clouds. “I’m afraid I accidentally let slip to Mrs. Hudson that I ate a cavalry mount during the War.” He said grimly. “If Holmes has experience with horsemeat, it isn’t on a culinary level.”

  “Goodness. Did you like it?” They fell into step. Lestrade’s shorter stride could match Watson’s limp easily, but the little detective remembered when he had to slow down for the doctor’s pace. If his strength grew back in those long legs, Watson would be the one slowing for his stride someday.

  “Not at all disagreeable.” Watson was honest. “Sweeter than one would be accustomed to in a red meat. Very lean, but tough. The camp-cook made a passing cake out of the fat as well.” He lifted the tip of his walking-stick to gently push a wandering dog out of the way. Only long experience restrained Lestrade from blowing his whistle to report the stray; it wasn’t his responsibility to do the job for the beat Constable.[21]