You Buy Bones (26 page)

“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.

He could not see the policemen, but he trusted they could see him, and that they could see his signal for what it was: there was enough reason to come in and search. Watson would pretend to be as innocent and outraged as Parker at the rude intrusion, and there was more than a good chance he would ask Watson to vouch for him in incriminating language.

But that little jaw-bone... that is enough cause to bring in the Law.
Watson was still sickened at the thought, and hoped his reaction had never shown.
Even if that is all we find tonight, I am glad.
He gulped hard, swallowing a harsh mouthful of smoke, and his eyes burned in as much anger as tobacco. He was not complicated enough of a man to justify the confessed trickery over a child's bones. Let him be seen as simple and short-sighted for science. He did not care.

Is it so easy to pretend?
Is it so simple to lower someone's standards?
It would seem so.

It went against Watson's every nerve to smoke at night when he did not want to be overtly observed; one might as well have a glowing target for their head. He'd declared enough sentries dead of their indulgence despite the orders of all the officers. A glowing coal was a perfect orientation for a rifleman. He shifted his weight from good leg to bad leg several times, pondering Dr. Parker. In the beginning, the man had paid no more attention to him than he had any of his other students.

Parker had met Hamish first; most people did. Hamish was as bright and obtrusive as the ideal British man. Whilst medicine had not been his forte' - indeed it was one of the few things in which he hadn't taken an interest - he had shared his curiosity with geology and geography with the interdepartmentally minded Parker. From there Parker had noticed Hamish' brother, and perhaps he had wanted to see for himself what operated under John's mind.

And John had not disappointed his teachers. Medicine was instinct as much as information; and he excelled in both. In a way, medicine was as thrilling as any sport or battle - well, it was a battle; a battle against the many forms of Death. To successfully conclude a case with a patient was a feeling he never tired of duplicating.

He would have stayed in the Army forever had his fate not rested in other areas. Rather than subside into a broken heart like his brother... he had become another sort of a soldier; one that saw disease and debility as his opponents.

Through it all, from triumph to tragedy and abject failure... Parker had made John uncomfortable with the vague and unspoken feeling that the man wanted to find something remarkable in him... which was one thing, but there were men who wanted to discover great things... simply to say they had been the discoverers. And with Parker... all the better to be able to say that he had discovered something remarkable within John Watson.

All his life, he had watched as people flocked to his brother, wanting his friendship and his approval... wanting to take him home for the same reasons why they wanted to collect something exotic. John had loathed it too deeply for envy, and now he realised he had made a serious mistake in not ciphering this behaviour out. Now that it was being focused upon him, he didn't know what to do about it.

He wondered if this might be the root of Holmes' erratic impatience with praise. He liked it well enough... if he had similar regard for the person doing the praising! If not... the phrase, ‘damn with faint praise' could not begin to describe how his friend would react. Watson always dreaded the denouement of his cases when it had difficult clients. Holmes' temper was quick to break free when someone he despised insulted him with congratulations and admiration.

I should pay more attention,
Watson promised himself.
Starting when we are both back at Baker Street.

He drew the smoke inside his lungs and held it for a moment, needing the calming influence of the plant. His thoughts were still in turmoil; it was not unlike knowing the enemy would attack at dawn, but being forced to wait for that intermittent hour. He blew out the tobacco in a thin cloud, watching it catch the dying raindrops from outside the tiny porch eves. The storm was fading in uneven rhythm; it made a clumsy counterpoint to the singing.

Singing.

Singing?
The doctor felt his face deepen into a frown of concentration. His heart pounded as he moved slightly against the edge of the porch-rail, listening for the source of that sound.

It was an old mode. Aeolian, rising and falling in the cadence of the minors' scales. Something about it was familiar... familiar and dark.

“As I was walking all alane,

I heard twa corbies making a mane;

The tane unto the t'other say,

‘Where sall we gang and dine to-day?'”

Parker
.

Watson felt his unease swell to exponential mountains. Where was the man? The sound was coming from somewhere below his own feet! He looked about him quickly, saw nothing - no sign of Bradstreet or Lestrade - but nor did he see the source of the singing.

“‘In behint yon auld fail dyke,

I wot there lies a new slain knight;

And naebody kens that he lies there,

But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair...'”

It was the oldest song in the English language; so old no one could even begin to guess. And it just
happened
to be a murder ballad.

“‘His hound is to the hunting gane,

His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,

His lady's ta'en another mate,

So we may mak our dinner sweet...'”

Bradstreet stiffened as, through the curtain of box, Watson had suddenly grown as taut as Flag Manoeuvres on the green. The man's head whipped from side to side.

“He hears something?” The big man whispered.

“Look!” Lestrade's whisper was even softer, but it managed to cut through his friend like a knife. Watson was no longer looking about; he was looking down, but then with a swift jerk, was lowering himself off the porch, exquisitely careful to not click his soles against the stonework. As they watched in growing puzzlement, the doctor dropped into a crouch, heedless of anyone seeing him off the empty street.

For long moments they watched, baffled but knowing to be wary, then Watson very carefully rose to his feet again. It was difficult; his war injuries corresponded with each other, shoulder-wound opposing his leg.

His face was a papery mask as he glanced up at the street-lamp, and he carefully pulled out another cigarette, making a point of smoking it halfway down before he tossed it into the stonework ringing the porch.

“Hold it!” Lestrade hissed but Bradstreet was out of the boxwoods as soon as the door shut after Watson. The smaller man gritted his teeth, in for a penny/in for a pound, and followed him out.

Bradstreet had stopped at the spot the doctor had just vacated. He turned to look as Lestrade came up, and his face was milky under the dark of his moustaches. “Listen,” he whispered harshly.

And Lestrade caught his breath.

“‘Mony a one for him makes mane,

But nane sall ken where he is gane;

Oer his white banes, when they are bare,

The wind sall blaw for evermair...'”

“Where is it coming from?” He whispered. “Is it the sewers?”