You Buy Bones (19 page)

Bradstreet slowly turned the numbers over in his head. His eyes widened a little. “It would make sense.” He blinked. “Perfect sense.”

Lestrade poured himself another drink. “Well, there's no proof...”

“Huh. That circumstantial evidence is strong enough to hang the Brothers Grimm!” Bradstreet huffed. “The polydactyl trait must hail from a Greenlander with that trait; probably a poor woman who was kidnapped by someone who wanted a hard-working wife who didn't speak enough of his language to ask for help.” Bradstreet snorted. “No fashing wonder the explanation is all about seals.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Geoffrey, have you ever had to deal with a missionary or three moving in? The first thing he does is pull out a pen and start “transcribing the quaint customs of the area.” Bradstreet pulled a long face.

Lestrade copied him. “Yes. It seems like the Church recruits an awful lot of would-be scientists.”

“And have you ever seen anyone play the game for their own amusement?”

“Many times. The old people would tell those priests all sorts of things - outrageous things you couldn't possibly believe, and they'd dutifully write them down as if it were Gospel - pardon the accidental pun.”

“Not at all. It's a perfect pun. I'm just thinking that a fairy tale about a fairy wife can be overlooked. Kidnapping a bride can't be.”

Lestrade flinched as if a bolt had hit him. “It happens.” He snapped.

A moment later, Bradstreet remembered who he was talking to and could have kicked himself.
Damn.
It might be a blessing to have extensive family records... but bad stories were inevitably with the good ones.

The Runner fervently kept talking to move things along. “I'm thinking I need to start looking at Garrett's reading.” He said aloud. “Lad's too caught into the fanciful stuff as is.” He set his glass down with a sigh. “And speaking of reading... will your desk be clear in a few days?”

“Absolutely.” Lestrade answered. A bit of tension bled out of him. He sighed. “When your correspondence comes in, we'll talk to Watson.”

“Speaking of fanciful... how's he going to keep this particular little problem away from Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

“Lord only knows; I don't.” was Lestrade's fervent reply.

A pall settled over the room; some of it was the factual weariness that intruded upon the mind whenever the concept of persuading Sherlock Holmes of anything was offered. The men settled into individual brown studies, Lestrade playing with his little glass more than he sipped, and Bradstreet stretched toes-out to the small fire lapping at his wet soles.

Baker Street:

Watson woke up hours earlier than his usual habit in a mood as foul as the overcast sky. His body ached and throbbed from the remnants of the war; he more rolled out of bed than got out of it; one of the fouler phrases from his barracks-days came to his mind and he just as viciously stamped it down.

Why was it,
he wondered darkly
, that the Army insists on sending home men who are still capable of pulling a trigger?
God knows, the urge to pull that said
trigger was strong today. He could take his Adams and retire to the
practice-range...

But not in this weather. He scowled as he clipped his moustache for the day. Even Mrs. Hudson's plane-tree looked abashed in the small courtyard.
And if it wasn't this weather, I wouldn't have the urge to go practice!

Holmes' solution, which was a panoptic redecoration of the room in bullet-pocks, was no solution at all.

He yanked on his waistcoat and found a clean handkerchief for his sleeve. Away from the light chill of the window the warmth of the fire penetrated the floor-boards. Knowing Mrs. Hudson, there was hot coffee or tea on standby. He shot his cuffs and descended the stairs amid the warm smells of a busy kitchen, expecting Holmes to be smoking up the Drawing Room if he had not gone to bed.

But the Drawing-Room empty and the atmosphere free and clear.

Watson felt his brows float upward, buoyed by surprise as he stepped into the uninhabited room. The bedroom door was half-open; Holmes usual habit to let him know he was out.

This was a little out of what Watson had grown accustomed to for his friend's schedule. Under normal circumstances, Holmes would have been fixing his pre-breakfast pipe by now with his morbid collection of all the unsmoked tobacco fished out of the bottom of his bowl during the course of yesterday.

Watson looked about; Holmes was still not there. The drapes were pulled open presenting a wide view of the chilly wet street.

A folded paper torn out of one of Holmes' unlined notebooks rested on the breakfast-table like a dozing butterfly.
[40]

Curiouser and curiouser
... Watson flipped the card over.

Watson,

Will be gone until the following Tuesday.

H.
[41]

“Huh!”

For someone who was capable of the most amazing verbal creations, when it came to writing Holmes could be as brusque as an unsanded plank.

Holmes had left the early-morning paper by the note; thoughtful of him. Watson couldn't face the thought of going outside just yet. He poured water out of the pitcher and mixed himself a packet of acetylsalicylic powder. The cloudy drink was bitter and sour, but he drank it from long experience. It wasn't enough to take away the edge of the pain.

He was down to the worst of the gritty bottom-dregs when Mrs. Hudson emerged with the breakfast tray - set for one. He replied to her usual good-morning queries with his usual manners, knowing she deserved that much courtesy when Holmes could barely remember if he had eaten. He was glad of the coffee, and was pouring himself his second cup when his landlady arrived, too early to take the tray.

“Begging your pardon, doctor, but this just showed up at the door for you.” She pulled a neat little envelope out of her apron-pocket. By now Watson had come to recognise various hands from the Yard; they were economical on paper. He thanked her and snipped the lip of the flap open with a snap of his fingernail.

Doctor,

We have the materials you requested.

You may see me at yr convenience.

G. Lestrade

Excellent use of discretion from Lestrade; and here Holmes wasn't even around to appreciate it! Life and its myriad ironies... the doctor caught himself smiling. Why was he smiling? His heart rate had increased; he was facing the prospect of something grim and dire, but he was looking forward to it at the same time.

His smile faded. Holmes was gone. He was guiltily relieved.
There is no need to feel this way. If I can solve this appropriately, he will never know the shame of my profession.

Scotland Yard:

Bradstreet's smoking had increased after Hazel's illness. Lestrade mentally shot up a prayer of thanks that the man's intake had cut down markedly in the past 24 hours. Thinking of a problem often did that to him - that and knowing Hazel was beginning to pull through.

“I wouldn't trust those maps,” Bradstreet was saying. “Sure they go back far enough, but the coordinates are nightmarish. How's one supposed to find a missing tombstone when the boundary between two graveyards was separated by a white cedar?”

“I'd look under the cedars myself,” Lestrade noted. “You just think how big they can get. And the roots could be causing all the upheaval... could very easily crush the grave-markers to rubble in a short period of time. Well, I could be wrong. What're the stones made of?”

“Yellow soapstone. It was local over there. Almost slippery to the touch, soft as butter when it comes fresh out of the ground, which is why everyone wants all these elabourate decorations? But it isn't permanent.”

“Goes against my grain, friend. But then again, so much of
my
family has themselves for a sexton.
[42]
I've not known many courteous enough as to die on the ship instead of off it...” Lestrade glanced up and belatedly noted Dr. Watson was standing in the doorway, hand lifted (and frozen) in the act of knocking politely on the frame. His expression was a sight to behold.

“Oh.” Lestrade cleared his throat. “We were, ah, discussing a missing graveyard, Dr. Watson.”

“A missing
graveyard
.” Watson looked like his ears had betrayed his mind.

“It's not what it sounds like. It appears to be a property issue, and it's come to the point where both sides of the border are about to go to war. Figuratively.”

“In which case, at least we know where to put them.” Bradstreet grumbled. “Mostly.”

“Oh.” Watson was still looking wary.

Lestrade thought back to what else he'd just said. “A lot of sea-farers in my family. Some of them were actually law-abiding.” He had the air of a man who has told tales on himself too long to be affected by it now.

Watson relaxed. “I'm surprised you aren't in the Thames Division.”

Bradstreet hooted. “That's what everyone says! Just because of that one ruddy inch.”
[43]

“I'm the black sheep.” Lestrade explained. “I hate to get my feet wet.”

“I've heard worse.” Watson said wryly. He limped inside the office with his damp hat in his hands. Bradstreet rose and began pouring tea.

“Lestrade made this,” he warned. “Since he came back from that undercover work with the Tinkers, he's been unable to make a decent cup.”

Lestrade blew a smoke ring at his best friend. “If it doesn't kill you, it should do all right.”

“I've never had a Tinker-brewed cup before, I confess.” Watson stared down at the cup, his natural eagerness for the spice of life warring with his natural desire to avoid a relapse in his health. Somehow, Lestrade had managed to make it strong enough to pull the theine
[44]
out of the leaves; the oils glistened on the surface, and the doctor knew without trying that half a cup of the stuff would send his heart to racing like a shot of cocaine; a break-out of sweat would surely follow. “I might need a bit of milk and sugar with this,” he said faintly.

“There's no ‘might' about it.” Bradstreet commiserated. He dropped three lumps into the brew. If anything, it looked even darker. “Lestrade likes sweets as much as Christ likes Moneychangers. You're always on your own for that around him.”

“It keeps me on my feet.” Lestrade was obviously immune to his coworker's emotions. “Well, Roger, I think I owe you a Mag.
[45]
I really would have thought Mr. Holmes would be here with the doctor.”

Watson swallowed his tea, thinking that the painkiller of this morning was nowhere near as effective. “He's off on a case. I'll hear all about it in terms that are hardly to be fathomed, and he'll probably be the thinner for forgetting to eat.”

Lestrade frowned lightly. “His weight's better than it was when I met him.”

“Surely you jest... no, surely not. You wouldn't make a joke out of that.” Watson shuddered. Lestrade shrugged with his pencil. “At any rate, I'm off work today, so I thought I'd come over.”

Bradstreet was nodding as he went to the back of the office and pulled down a tightly-built cardboard box. It was the sort for mailing packages, strong as thin wood and almost as heavy. “I remembered that our old village priest used to make hand-prints of the children when they were a few years old. The prints were sort of a... well; I suppose you would say a prayer record.”

“Go on.” Watson's brown eyes lit from within, like a flame behind a cognac bottle.

“Yes, we'd hardly any children, due to the parents moving off to work, so the elders celebrated all births.” Bradstreet did not look into the box as he pressed it in the doctor's hands. “I thought he'd just made prints, but he did one better. A few years after he'd done my age, he moved to plaster.”

Lestrade had been bracing himself for this, but Watson had the look of a man who already knew what he would see. He gently lifted the lid and poked aside the padding of soft papers. Lestrade, from his vantage point, saw the doctor's face spasm as if in pain.

That's it
.
Lestrade didn't know why, but something very important had just happened.

Watson pulled out the plaster-cast of a child's hand and held it as lightly as if it were his own. Bradstreet had clasped his hands behind his back and was turning to stare with great fascination out the window. Lestrade had been trying to ware himself for this since Bradstreet had intimated the contents of the box; it was still a shock. The thin sheets of plaster for the webbings between the fingers were delicate as sea-shells. The cast had every detail of fingernail and whorl.

It unsettled the little detective, most severely, and he didn't blame Bradstreet for not looking. Those hands were the only real physical trace he had left of his sister unless Watson was successful.

And they're real enough
, he thought.

Under his moustache, Watson's mouth had set. He was pale underneath the browning of the desert sun, and scoops echoed under his eyes. Those eyes glistened as they lifted up to look at Lestrade.

“This is what I need.” He said steadily enough, but he cleared his throat before he could continue. “If I may... Inspectors... this is a difficult question I must ask of you... if it makes it any more palatable, think of it as... a writer searching for research material.”

Bradstreet and Lestrade looked each other, but they were both in the dark. “Go on, doctor.” Lestrade prompted.

Watson thrust his jaw out, just a bit. “The case in question means going to Edinburgh. How should we do this?”

Lestrade felt the blood drip out of his face. In the corner of his eye, Bradstreet was turning on his heel, eyes wide and hands open.