You Buy Bones Read Free

life, I’ve actually come to learn to appreciate irony. Watson wouldn’t have been injured in the first place if he hadn’t gone on vacation without Mr. Holmes. I was there when they were arguing at the station. Holmes just couldn’t put down a petty forgery case long enough to hike to the coast.” The chuckle was low and amused. “It’ll be a cold day on the sun when Mr. Holmes lets him go on vacation without him after this.” He turned his head, eyes sharpening as a flicker of fire caught on the rim of the ocean. “Hah!”
    Hopkins was already lunging for his tiny notebook and lead pencil. “Ready!”
    â€œN... W...” Lestrade counted the flashes on the encroaching smuggling ship. “C... V... - Northwest Cove - ”
    Some instinct made Hopkins look up as he wrote. “Lestrade!” He hissed.
    â€œNot now, Hopkins... 12 D. L...”
    â€œI think that’s Mr. Holmes running across that old Neolithic village!”
    â€œ... Twelve degrees larboard ... probably is, Hopkins... hmn... two degrees North .?”
    â€œLestrade!” Hopkins protested. “I think he’s going after those pothunters!”
    â€œProbably.” Lestrade was unruffled.
    â€œShouldn’t we do anything?”
    â€œIsn’t Gregson with him?”
    â€œUh... W... I suppose that’s Gregson chasing after him.”
    â€œHe’ll be fine. G... R... T... B... -’ Great Boulder,’ or I’m a ruddy slide ruler. Are you getting this down?”
    Hopkins scribbled frantically. “It’s the two of them in that awful place, Lestrade!”
    â€œYou think?” Lestrade drawled. “F... R... S... T... hmn... I think he dropped his lantern on that one...”
    A gunshot rippled through the air from the other side of the village.
    Hopkins jumped. Lestrade didn’t.
    â€œLestrade!” Hopkins groaned.
    â€œWhat did I tell you about Dr. Watson, Hopkins?”
    â€œW - He’s still in a hospital’s bed!”
    â€œYou have a lot to learn about Dr. Watson, Stanley. It was only a glancing wound and that is one tough veteran.” Lestrade casually lit his pipe off a twig, eyes still on the coastline. “F-R-S-T-S-T... R... M... First Stream ... that’s got to be the little freshet that drains into the Cove...”
    â€œHe lied?” Transcribing Morse code whilst following an indubitably thrilling event in a Neolithic village across the field, and holding up his end of a strange conversation, Hopkins had never done so many different things at once.
    â€œMr. Holmes is an amateur, Hopkins.” Lestrade was smiling around the stem of his pipe as he spoke. Hopkins could hear it. “Not a man who works well in teams, he. He still trusts Dr. Watson not to lie to him... and Dr. Watson’s pulled some whoppers to save his skinny neck in the past.” Lestrade was still smiling. “Not that that’s not the most interesting thing about those fellows. I could tell you some stories about them, Stanley... oh, I could tell you stories...”
    1 A garment worn to protect the outer clothing
    2 in disguise or not recognised
    3 Great Way Round was one of the affectionate nick-names for the Great Western Rail.
    4 Tin miners
    5 Mortimer of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
    6 Large stock beet

Devil’s Milk
    Montague Street:
    It might have been the lateness of the hour, but the long rows of humble buildings and splintering ghost-stalls looked... faded. The more fanciful policemen walked this part of their twenty-mile quickly and without lingering. There was something about the presence of the fog (which always came with the night), that slid more-than-oily shapes and shadows over the old burial yards and the poor-houses.
    Crime was this street’s friend, but people did live here. It was just that two different species lived arm-and-arm in the poorer sections of the city. By day it was a clogged swarm of man,