You Buy Bones Read Free Page B

small black shape flitted across his path; its mate ran directly over his shoe. He swallowed an oath. Rats were a part of London... more so the closer to the water. He didn’t miss that part of his early days along the banks, where the feel of those tiny paws over his heavy shoes was a regular occurrence.
    He was never partial to animals... and rats least of all.
    High time he got this over with.
    He took a deep breath. The door-knocker was of the old-fashioned, solid sort, a conglomeration of iron and brass and it was of such an unpleasant mien he doubted even a starving man would nick it for the scrap. Jacob Marley’s ghost over the ring wouldn’t have been as bad as this contraption meant to resemble a Chinese dog with an African lion in its ancestry.
    I haven’t read Dickens in years... something must be the matter with me...
    And in the meantime, the fog was rolling its way to him. Lestrade grimaced at the enemy’s latest approach and lifted the knocker, glad for his gloves. Through the thin leather he felt the clammy bite of weeping metal.
    The landlady who answered was of the frightening stamp of womanhood that sought control as a right of birth, not merit. The hard, small eyes scoured him like carbolic acid once, twice, even three times before it paused to think that he might desire admittance. His badge, Lestrade was amused to note, took no more than a moment’s consideration.
    â€œHe’s inside tonight.” The old dragon said of the hand-drawn image in his hand. “Has he done something, then?”
    Lestrade caught the underlying eagerness in the dirty woman, and something contrary and obstinate rose to the challenge. “Not at all. An assistant to a case, if you get my meaning.”
    Oh, she loved the implication that one of her lodgers in this dirty town and filthy street might have seen something. With a grin shy of three teeth (all on the bottom), she paid a kick to one of the doors in the hallway, and stood aside when that same door was torn open with enough force to send its hinge shrieking.
    â€œMrs. Wexler?” The high voice belonged to a man who was either upset beyond all comprehension, or had not finished settling his vocal gifts. Lestrade’s hopes sank as he watched the drama unfold: a dismayingly young-looking man bent over the landlady like a serpent over a bird. “I trust you have a reason for this interruption?”
    â€œNot I, Mr. Holmes!” Her sniff was fantastic . “Your guest.”
    â€œGuest?”
    Lestrade’s heart had still been in the process of sinking at the proof of youth upon that lean face. Then the head with black hair turned, and eyes grey as a spring cloud fastened upon him. Not so very young, then . Just moves like a young manl ...
    â€œMr. Lestrade,” a voice rolled forth. That swiftly, the impression of youth and inexperience had rolled away like a holed carpet. “You have not yet recovered from your duties upon the London Particular [8] that struck us in ‘77.”
    Something about that voice - or perhaps the way he was being looked at up and down like something that was on the other side of the zoo-bars... hackled.
    â€œIf someone’s been telling stories about my competency, sir, I would like to know about it!”
    The young man chuckled. “Not at all,” he responded with a swiftness that made the other’s head spin. “You are slightly underweight - else your clothing is cut slightly too large for your form, and with your eye to dress that would be most unlikely. A man who spends his limited pay on the better footwear would hardly ignore the cut of his coat when a tailor charges by how much cloth he must cut.” A long, nearly skeletal finger dipped in the air between them, and before Lestrade could finish enduring the unpleasantness of his face warming under embarrassment-
    â€œYou are an unhealthy colour, even for someone who serves his life among the streets of