You Buy Bones (12 page)

Who is it he searches for in London?
The question alternately flared and smouldered in Holmes' brain.
Why does he not seek them out? It is someone he
both needs and dreads.

The silent and painful hope in those brown eyes stymied Holmes, for those thoughts should not be anyone's business but Watson's. Watson made no attempts to seek this person out by means of mail, newspaper, Scotland Yard or even the nearest consulting detective who sat at him across the breakfast-table every morning.

He was grateful that they had never needed to speak amongst each other merely for the sake of it; Watson had that rare quality of silence, and days could pass when he barely initiated conversation at all. It was all part of his nature, and Holmes found it a simple thing to live with - his own habits, he was certain, were far stranger and irritating.

There was a price in seeing too much.

“My apologies, Watson.”

Watson had nearly fallen asleep. He lifted his head slightly, drowsy puzzlement tinting his eyes. “Whatever for, Holmes?”

“You are in a low mood and I should not be pressing my opinions on you.” Holmes felt his awkwardness grow, and with it, a converse desire to snap his impatience to the world. “It is clear your day has been as bad as it can get.”

Watson shook them both with a gallows-laugh. “Oh, dear fellow, one
never
uses those words around a physician. A day can
always
get worse.” He realised he was in danger of dropping his glass and finished it quickly. “Any day one can walk away can't possibly be a complete disaster.”

“I feel I prefer your every-day displays of optimism as opposed to that one,” Holmes mused. “But then, most emotions are outside my realm, not just the softer ones.”

Watson opened one eye again, and this time the look was of patient tolerance. “Holmes, it hardly matters. You've got a soul and that's what matters the most.”

Holmes sniggered. “I am often accused otherwise, my dear fellow. I believe it was the Assizes who commented that my curiosity in crime must have been spurned by the grievous theft of my soul as a child, henceforth I dabble in shadows, hoping to find the thief.”

Watson chuckled too, impressed at his wit. “I'm afraid I can't speak for your childhood. But I can say with confidence you have a soul. Through it your emotions are expressed.” Weariness thickened his voice; with the brandy and the warmth of the fire, he was sliding fast to Morpheus.

“Of course, you had to purchase it first...”

“Purchase it? My dear doctor, I shall have to examine that brandy for foreign agents. “One does not have the ability to purchase a soul.”

“I couldn't disagree more...” Watson riposted drowsily. “If it's available from a Tottingham Court Road peddler for fifty-five shillings.”
[26]

By the time Holmes had recovered enough to say something, Watson was asleep.

221B Baker Street:

“You won't find any answers there, my friend.”

Watson slowly released his gaze from his plate to look at his breakfast companion. “I'm sorry; I was woolgathering, Holmes. What did you just say?”

Holmes nodded at the plate. “I was saying you won't find any answers there - well, at least you won't find too many. Other than the fact that Mrs. Hudson's way with sausages are to be commended. They accompany her hand for coddled eggs and toast.”

Watson snorted softly and returned to his fork. “Very true.” He admitted.

Holmes did not quite sigh, but his eyes glittered. “Was the Convention
that
dreadful?”

Watson's response was to put down the fork and rest his head in his hands. (Holmes committed himself to an heroic act of will and forced his lips shut) “In some ways, going to that convention was one of the worst mistakes I've made in my life.” The doctor confessed.

“And you've had the opportunity to make
so many
mistakes in your advanced years.” Holmes observed.

Watson lifted his head and managed to skewer his room-mate. “In the course of things, Holmes, one doesn't need to make
many
mistakes.
One
is all that's required.”

“Whilst I've often said as much in tracking criminals from those very mistakes, my dear Watson, it is upsetting in the extreme to hear such a philosophy from
your
lips.” Holmes' concern, when he was able to express it, could be difficult to combat. “Pessimism does not become you, Watson.”

“You are the philosopher among us, Holmes.” Watson regarded his plate and finally began cutting his food. “
I'm
the frustrated writer.”

“Better frustrated than frustrating, and that you never are.” Holmes' sudden desire for neatness led to his using the toast to clean up what remained on his plate.

Watson almost laughed, but it was not the kind of laugh anyone wanted to hear. “What would you say to a doctor who is blood-sick, Holmes?”

Holmes would never admit it to anyone but himself, but Watson had a gift for flattening others with the sheer intensity of his gaze. This was one of those times.

“I would say it is a rare physician who never feels that way.” Holmes picked his words with care; a chasm had yawed open between them, and he was not certain of his path. “One of the finest painters I know cannot bear the sight or smell of his art five months out of the year; an accountant is prone to the silence of a stone two-thirds of his waking day in balance of what he refers to as ‘the chatter of mathematics' in his head... you have seen for yourself how stale I become when the mood overtakes me.” Holmes abandoned his clean plate for a teacup. “The contradiction of your profession, Watson, is that you as a physician are sworn to uphold life, and yet that oath requires you to be constantly exposed to death and miasma. You would astonish me if you were immune to it.”

Watson appeared to be
slightly
mollified by Holmes' observations. “That convention was full of death.” The words were nearly blurted out. “Edinburgh medicine is no light thing, Holmes. It has been holding its own ground among its peers since before it was established in the eyes of the world. I was witness to the most brilliant minds of our time, and I heard their thoughts; saw their demonstrations; came out of it intellectually inspired and encouraged... but that was only the
intellectual
aspect.

“Perhaps it is because we are still in the wake of war and its strains... but... for every living man there, I
swear
there was a skeleton, or something that was once alive preserved in jars. The dissections had never been so hateful to my eye, and I witnessed enough tasteless jokes levity to last a lifetime!” He rubbed at his forehead against the tight band that had appeared. “I don't remember this when I was a student... can a war change views to such an extent? Where was the reverence?” He finally whispered. “Why was it so rare?”

The doctor had closed his eyes. Holmes could see how his eyes still moved behind the lids, seeing things that had passed. “I can stand being a locum.” He said at last. “I can build on my practice in a year or two, enough that I can purchase something around Paddington or even Kensington... but I tell you Holmes, I see more respect for the dead when I'm with you, or in the cool-room at Scotland Yard.”

Paddington Street:

Bradstreet took the news well, all things considering.

Lestrade had slept as poorly as Watson; every few hours he would catch himself lying wide awake in bed, staring at the black of the ceiling. He would force himself to relax and drift into a doze - but then the enormity of his task would rise up again and undo all the good of the light rest. Bradstreet had commented on it as soon as he'd knocked on the door, as snowmelt evaporated off his blackcloth-broad shoulders like dirty mist.

For all their similarities, Lestrade was not capable of mourning longer than a short period of time. His people were hard-cut children of the Channel Isles and it went against their grain - not to mention their faith - to wear grief heavily. Grief held the dead back from their rightful passage to Heaven. Excessive grief meant their loved ones had to carry heavy buckets slopping over with coal-black tears. At the same time, he understood that Bradstreet's people weren't his people, and it stood to reason they'd think and see things differently.

Mourning was a necessity, and one that Lestrade understood even if his own people recoiled from its demonstration. More than expression, Bradstreet was silently advertising that the loss existed. It told people how to act when they were around him - no overt levity, no jokes within a certain frame, nothing that would be inappropriate.

Bradstreet was a large, gentle man for all that he was fierce in a fight, but Lestrade wished his friend had not had to wear the black
so very
much
. First his sister, then his parents, then an infant... and now his two youngest down from the same fevers and his wife had very nearly followed.

In all but the first case, the passings at least had the comfort of the impartial hand of death. The first one, Bradstreet's only sister and his closest flesh and blood... had been of willful violence. That was not anything like knowing disease and old age had come calling. It was much worse.

The big man listened in perfect silence, dark eyes intent, never once asking a question. Lestrade was glad when he could finally finish, and the silence steamed between them as Lestrade served up some of Mrs. Collins' hot coffee and raspberry scones.

Bradstreet chewed through two of those scones, his face wrapped in the deepest concentration Lestrade had ever seen in him. His thoughts were so absorbed he couldn't even let his emotions out; his eyes clicked like cogs, making Lestrade recall Mr. Holmes was when he was body and soul into a case.

“We had thought of that.” Bradstreet finally said. His mourning-jet cufflinks were dulled with too much recent use; they scraped against the table linen. Lestrade shivered, relieved that the silence was shattered. “There had been a few people who were curious in her... from a...
medical viewpoint
.” Bradstreet spoke to the top of his coffee, which was muddy and milky and speckled with tiny grounds as if those minute flecks held all the secrets normally revealed by tea leaves. He did not speak to Lestrade. It was easier that way. The years made his face ancient around the lower-mask of his moustache. “I still have the list of names of those who were willing to pay our parents for the honour of examining her.”

“Dr. Watson said he was collating the names of them who were the most outwardly involved.” Lestrade pushed the jam pot to Bradstreet, mostly to give his hands a task.

“Watson has family up there, doesn't he?”

“I have no idea.” Lestrade confessed. “Why?”

“Well, he's a
Watson
.” Bradstreet said as if that explained everything. At Lestrade's utter blank helplessness, the thinnest smile touched his lips. “Watsons were first registered up there in Edinburgh. Some four hundred years or so... it's a war-name. Battle commanders. They're about the worst family you'd ever
want to trace, I think there's about
fifty
different septs and the Edinburgh strain suddenly vanishes as if it never existed around the first part of our century.

“But as much as the Crown lavishes on its wounded soldiers,” Bradstreet's second emotion of the day was sarcasm, “I can't imagine he would have gone up there and paid for a place to stay when there was family to stay
with
.” He rapped his fingers on the table. “And if he's so determined to be in on this, I'd say we avoid the fantods for his sake.
Anything
Watson does for us up there could still cause a backwash to any kith or kin.”

“I hadn't thought of that.” Lestrade muttered.

“I daresay most your procedural thoughts fled at his news.” Bradstreet said softly.

“Would you rather stay out of this?” Lestrade blurted.

Bradstreet looked amazed. “I am dead until I find my sister.”

“Forgive me, Roger.” Lestrade hated himself.

“Geoffrey...” Bradstreet suddenly looked awkward. He cleared his throat. “Forgive
me
for asking this... and you don't have to answer...”

“No, do go on.” Lestrade couldn't imagine refusing Bradstreet in view of what was happening.

“This could be very dangerous... a doctor who kills for his own glory can do it again. Are you certain
you
want to be a part of this?”

“Roger, for God's sake. How could I not be?” Lestrade's face flared at his embarrassment.

Bradstreet only grunted. “On that sentence... Have
you
made peace with
your
kinfolk yet?” He probed.

Lestrade felt words dry in his mouth. It was his turn to speak to the coffee cup. “There doesn't seem to be much point in my trying any longer.” He said at last. “A rope is a final argument.”

Bradstreet did not compound his confession with words of sympathy. There was no need.

221B Baker Street:

Watson had never before known guilt for poking through Holmes' papers.
Holmes
certainly never cared - his only confidential writings were locked up in a trunk half the size of his own bed, and Watson would never touch
that
. Even if the mercenary urge had come to him, he had every faith it was its own level of organizational Waterloo. But this was the first time he was actually employing Holmes' own research for a personal matter and it felt vaguely like exploitation.

Just because Holmes had neither rhyme nor reason to his creative filing system, and just because he could
never
find a blessed thing without covering the carpet in four inches of tossed foolscap, didn't mean Holmes wouldn't have a sudden attack of genius on something that was different from the day before. Watson eased the leather binder off the shelf and gave it a stern glare before opening it up.