You Buy Bones (9 page)

Lestrade watched the toneless, awful way Watson was speaking and began to feel sick. “She's dead, isn't she?” He whispered.

Watson nodded.

“Her name is - ,” He stopped, catching himself just in time. “-
was
Elspeth Bradstreet.” Lestrade supplied flatly. “She was his baby sister... they were farming-brokers... the family moved from Lerwick under a... cloud... when Bradstreet was no more than an infant...” Lestrade picked up his Grozet and swallowed for something to do. Even though he dearly wished to explain that ‘cloud' to Watson, it wasn't his story and he'd already said too much. “She vanished about ten years ago... they were visiting family at the islands for an extended holiday, and during the parade... she was... simply gone. They near ripped the place to pieces, and he hasn't been back since.”

“I see.” Watson had his hand over his mouth in an expression of troubled thought.

“Doctor... what
have
you and Mr. Holmes stumbled into?”

“Holmes has nothing to do with this.”

Watson couldn't have shocked Lestrade more if he had suddenly announced a membership to the Hellfire Club.
[22]
“It is something I... stumbled upon at my medical convention.” The doctor had been leaning forward; catching himself with his bad manners of posture, he leaned back, but the slowly reforming muscles of his broad shoulders were bunched under his jacket (the wounded shoulder was still smaller). Watson looked very much like he wanted to find someone and use them for bullet-practice.

“I'm sure, Inspector, you are not unfamiliar with cases involving body thieves.” Watson began slowly, and wet his lips with his tongue. Lestrade had never seen the man so unnerved, and that unnerved
him
. “And I am sure you are prescient enough to stay abreast of crime as you can. The medical field is rife with its possibilities...”

He suddenly breathed out, a quick sound. “I came across a skeleton that was being exhibited by a man I am ashamed to say I know.” He looked ready to spew at having to use the word. “This man was a fancier of the traces of physiology and pathology in folklore. He went at some length at our dinner about the existence of a subspecies of humans - for lack of better term - that were known as
selkies
. Half-man, half-seal. This man held that mythological stories of a supernatural slant were merely the ability of the human imagination to account for different physiological attributes.”

The doctor suddenly took a large drink, disgust painting every word that followed. “Lestrade, there are a great many stories involving selkies among the Orkneys and Shetland isles and the coast of Scotland. A human is marked as having selkie blood by webbed fingers and or webbed toes, and sometimes, extra fingers and toes. This is nothing more than an afterthought of development in the womb, but the tendency does run in the family. There are times when a bit of Highland blood mixes with the Lowland strain, and the result is a slightly hunched back due to an extra vertebrae, or worse, an extra half-vertebrae which causes scoliosis of the spine.”

Lestrade was gnawing on his lip. He stopped himself. “Dr. Watson, I sense you have yet to tell me the worst part.”

“The man finished his lecture with a human skeleton.” Watson repeated himself although it threatened to choke him.

“But...” Lestrade forced himself to eat a few bites, thinking hard. “Doctor... where does Miss Bradstreet come into this?”

“There was a single scoring mark on the neck vertebrae.” Watson drew his finger across an imaginary line at his jugular. “Exactly where one would commit murder. I asked where such an amazing specimen was collected, and my ‘colleague' grew uncharacteristically vague for the first time that evening. I answered him with enthusiasm, professing such a fine skeleton would no doubt be the envy of any college, and after some minutes he warmed to my naivety-” Watson's voice turned sardonic “-and he admitted to purchasing the remains “somewhere up north.” I remembered Bradstreet mentioned that his mother was a Roane, and that is a common Shetland name...
Ron
is Gaelic for seal.” He swallowed hard. “So you see, I hope to be proven wrong.”

“But how did you know
Bradstreet
had a missing female relative?” Lestrade forgot his manners -
hang
his manners - and leaned forward, drink in a death grip. “What tipped you off, doctor?”

Watson was very pale as he stared at Lestrade across the table. “Some people,” he whispered, “have the ability to look at a skull... and see the face that it once wore.” He did not blink. “The face looked like a younger, feminine version of Bradstreet.”

“Doctor Watson,” Lestrade said without thinking, “that is the most damned talent I have ever heard of.” He could have crawled under the table in his following embarrassment.

Watson merely looked sad. “It is not one I would have chosen for myself.”

“I can't imagine you would.” His cheeks were still on fire. Lestrade topped his drink and signaled for another. His head swam with thoughts, all of them dark and polluted.
I
will never, ever underestimate this man again
, Lestrade vowed.
Naivety, indeed
. “How do you think he came about the... the skeleton?”

“How?” Watson glared as he forked up rice. “The child was murdered. If you knew half the stories I heard when I was a student about what an ambitious, ruthless man who
claimed
to be a physician was willing to do in the name of his research or status...” He chewed grimly, too much a soldier to sacrifice nourishment when he had no idea what the next day would bring. “I've been party to many a perusal of a murder victim, and I fear quite a few were in the army. My term in India was most informative. Cutting a throat is simple - after practice.” Watson's eyes narrowed, a portion of his mind pulling back and dredging up memory. “People go missing every day, Inspector. I for one can't think of a better place to hide a corpse than where the corpses are normally kept.”

“I think, at the very least, we can get your... cohort... for obfuscation of the law.” Lestrade thought hard. “But... as I recall, the worst bodysnatching ended at 1854 when unclaimed corpses were turned over for the use of the medical students.” Lestrade had been about... eleven years old? He still remembered the horror and how the people had talked.

“I know.” Watson said darkly. “It was the
medical profession
that supported this ghoulish business... it was the
medical profession
that made men and even women steal remains and sell them like so much merchandise. From the perspective of a
medical man
, Inspector, if I were to tell you how much the
medical profession
protested the law of 1854, you'd think me mad.”

“Why... would they protest it?”

“They were afraid of their... brokers, for lack of better term, not being able to secure the bodies they
really
wanted.” Watson's calm, stony voice stunned the Inspector. “A respectable man had to have his own skeleton. That was the least of it. As for an ordinary corpse for the students to study on, but for specialists and researchers who desired fame and fortune... well, not just
any
dead man or woman would do.” His expression did not waver. “My profession still has much to answer for, Inspector.” He stopped and took his drink as if washing out his words with the soft ale.

Lestrade thought that if Watson could sit and eat, he could too. He took another drink first. “Right. We'll go in from as many directions as we can. The first problem is proving your colleague's role in either murder, or accessory to murder, and to prove it was Eslpeth Roane Bradstreet who was the murder victim.” He couldn't believe he was being so calm and collected about this. A part of him was screaming inside the caverns of his skull, wanting to turn over the tables and run for the Home Office, foaming at the mouth for justice. “How would one go about doing that?”

Watson stabbed a potato. “Reconstructing faces from what lies beneath is such a new science it isn't even systemised
yet. It was only last year that anyone attempted to write a decent study on the subject. Man by the name of Welcker... There are a few others in the study, but I'd be surprised if we see anything definite by the end of this century.”
[23]
Watson stabbed another potato.
Clink
. The heavy oaken table rattled. “The problem is there are
so many
possible factors. You can reconstruct a face by looking at what soft tissues remain, and that is absurdly simple compared to reconstructing from a plain skeleton.”

Lestrade sincerely doubted it would be “simple” to figure out a face from mummified flesh, but medicine was not his field. “This wouldn't be a case for Sherlock Holmes?” He cleared his throat. “It seems that he would be...” He shut his mouth at the look Watson was giving him.

“If this can be solved,” Watson kept his grim, quiet voice, “without
another single human being
learning of this, I'd be overjoyed.” He said quietly.
“Holmes is
personally
as discreet as the grave, but his
everyday personality
is anything but. He stands out like a... like a lighthouse in the desert!” He seemed gratified when Lestrade choked on his drink at the description. “You've seen him work, Inspector. If someone refuses to cooperate with him, they have very good cause to regret that later. The medical profession is
not
where a person makes enemies. Politics and career sabotages and betrayals aside, there's also the volatile subject matter itself: The last time there was a scandal involving murder victims and body thieving, a riot led to the death of some promising young students, a college was fire-bombed to the ground, the religious factions had a field day with a prime reason for keeping impressionable young minds
out
of school, and innocent men were forced to leave the country merely to save their honour at being accidentally associated with the perpetrators of such a heinous crime.” He held Lestrade's gaze sternly.

“That was considered one of the
smaller
riots. I don't care that it happened in another country where morals aren't supposed to compare with English law. A killer resurrectionist can easily escape by inciting a ravening mob.”

And, just in case Lestrade hadn't gotten the point, Watson moved in for the kill: “This is a matter of honour for the Medical Community, and I do not want Holmes to be the victim of its pride.
He knows no fear.”

Silence descended like crepe over the table. Watson allowed Lestrade time to think it over.

Lestrade didn't need much time to agree with the Doctor. Holmes had demonstrated no fear of anything on this planet; his outspoken honesty rang like silver against dross, and infuriated as many people as he soothed.

And Mr. Holmes had always been very public in his statements about professionals who perverted their hallowed trust in office, Queen, and country. What would he say of a corrupted man of medicine? Everything true... and nothing good.

Policemen learnt early in their walking-days it could be easier to accuse a Peer of the Realm of a crime than a man of medicine. The field was usually highborn, influential, capable of subtle manoeuvres, and terribly efficient at dispensing with opposition. And most men of medicine, if they weren't higher-born, were higher-connected. Their connections had connections. They were for the most part untouchable.

A man as passionate for the truth as Sherlock Holmes would sweep through those dark fields like the Reaper himself, cutting down all tender pretentions in his way. And in the face of his unflinching honesty, the entire nation of medicine could rise up against him, ignoring that Holmes was right, just seeing how Holmes had insulted them by daring suggest one of their own was less than perfect.

And he wouldn't care,
Lestrade shivered inside his coat.
He wouldn't care at all because the truth is all he sees. He'd be eaten alive...

Holmes' career was just beginning to rise from Consultant to something more active. It was more workmanlike in that he was leaving his padded arm-chair for information gleaned upon the streets and first-person. Lestrade had always respected the young man for having smarts and gifts, but it was clear to any wag at the Yard that Holmes was on his way up; men didn't change their patterns when their old ways worked unless they were aiming for something.

Oh, dear.

“Mmn...” Lestrade tapped his fingers on the table thoughtfully. “I can too easily see the picture you paint.” He rubbed at his chin, feeling the new outgrowth of hair coming in for the evening. “Is there a way we can get our hands on this skeleton? Would it help our investigation in any way?”

“It would.” Watson said firmly. “As to getting the skeleton... I debated on whether or not I should try to collect it for myself before I contacted you, but I wasn't sure if you were disposed to listen to me from gaol.”

“You would have gotten my attention.” Lestrade admitted. “But it would have guaranteed Mr. Holmes would have gotten involved.”

“Again, I'd rather it not come to this. Bad enough he'll know I had dinner with you.”

“Careful.” Lestrade smiled for the first time. “Scotland Yard sees that as the opening chance to nab a poor victim for their own ranks... Police surgeons are few and far between. We're always on the prowl for an unsuspecting addition.”

“I'm afraid you'll have to wait until my life is a bit more destitute than it is now.”

Lestrade laughed very softly. “Very well; I have a few of the smaller cases I can offer to the newcomers... basic, straightforward stuff that'll let the lads cut their teeth... This is something that requires nothing less than full focus.” He sobered and took a deep breath. “And we need to have a meeting with Bradstreet as soon as possible.” He hesitated. “This is a hard case, and a harder manner, but I know for a fact we can trust him to be nothing more than a professional.”