Devilry
A series of slightly-darker fics for...let's just say a person who has very good cause to ask a favor of me. Here's hoping they enjoy themselves, because I'm determined to give them what they ask for...
The little bookseller died at dawn.
It was Murcher's beat; the big man got a little stuffed-up in his voice when he relayed the news. No fault to him. Hardly anyone could remember not seeing the wizened-up little figure scuttling back and forth the busy streets of London.
"Plato!" He would insist upon a poor, bewildered student from the University. With his rough, croaking voice he might have been a black-clad frog hopping around the tall, young, straight and unwary quarry. "The Classics must be appreciated by such a fine gentleman such as yourself!" Or, upon spying a tired-looking cutter coming out of Bart's..."Galen! Surely you cannot pretend to be a student of your Art, sir, your Medical Art, without learning of your forefathers!" And despite the fact that a cutter's chance for advancement was rife against his station...the man would find himself buying the book in trade for a moment's peace. And who was to say how he benefited from it? The old man had an instinct for knowing the secret hungers that walked around him.
Lestrade had fallen victim himself, once or twice. Unlike Gregson, who could be cozened into a fancy dictionary, Lestrade merely wanted to know more of the law and its changing nature. Some of the books he'd bought off the street were still unfinished; heavy, hearty stuff with pithy contents needing the attention of one chapter a night. But he had bought them, and, buyer beware, Lestrade had never allowed himself to regret his side of the bargain.
He was poor, they all knew. He had a stall, if one could call it that; a costermonger's little get-up and painted with so many layers of mahogany varnish it must have been proof against the thought of rain or snow and wind…he took better care of his little cart than he did himself; he was always cleaning it when he was on the kerb, muttering to himself in strange little snatches of foreign languages. He was a familiar sight to nearly everyone throughout London.
Lestrade had been there when Murcher made the call; had been on his way to crossing the street at the sound of the whistle. That quickly, his breakfast was diverted and he was one of the people drawing to the big Constable…the difference being he was supposed to be there. His heart began to sink at the little glimpses of shrunken black form through the crowd Murcher was swatting back like horseflies. The corner of the little portable stall protruded from behind his blue coat-tails. At the hunched-over little form inside his battered black frock-coat, with the blue veins shrunken into his dry hands, Lestrade felt the descent complete.
"He seemed fine enough when I walked past him," Murcher nodded and touched his thick fingers to the brim of his helmet. The crowd took the cue, and scattered. Lestrade and Murcher ignored how they moved slowly, as if to prove they weren't intimidated. "Just a little tired. I asked how he 'uz, and he croaked, "sufficient today is the evil thereof."
"Sounds just like him." Lestrade knelt carefully on the rim of the street, and tilted the slumped head that was resting on the hollow chest. What he saw was all too-familiar, even if he hadn't seen the dark, glimmering track of death through the thin white hair running down and behind the stained collar. The frail old head, scarcely more than the three pounds or so it was supposed to weigh, was even heavier in death as it wobbled on the neck. The light grey eyes were already clouding over.
Atheists were strange folk, the Inspector thought and not for the first time. How could anyone witness the change from life to death, especially in the eyes, not believe in the immortal soul?
"Looks like a burst vessel, straight enough…" The quickness of the death was offset by the appearance one left behind. The Inspector quietly leaned the head back and with Murcher's help, stretched the old man's body upon its back. The pooling blood had already suffused the face behind and around the white side-whiskers with an unpleasant plum-like tint, and made a slight swelling where the wrinkles sunk into the face. It was difficult to make the body rest supine; perhaps the rumors were true, and he really had broken his back in the past. Lestrade doubted he really had handicapped himself in a coal-mine. Miners didn't have time to read.
There was nothing in the way of dead-filth, just the usual filth of the living upon the clothing. Lestrade wondered how many rag-shop vendors had given the old man the clothing he wore. It was nosy, and he felt guilty, like a peeping Tom, but it was inevitable to wonder. The cream-coloured shirt had been beautiful silk once. The collar atop the shirt had belonged to an earlier age. The cuffs had been too large for those thin wrists. The cufflinks were cheap, but cunningly fashioned of tiny polished acorns. What the Inspector could see of the waistcoat was a rusty wool, only barely dark enough to match the street-battered black wool.
"Wonder when he last et?" Murcher was asking.
Lestrade shrugged. "He always went to Brucie's for bread and tea in the evening. Someone ought to tell him…where was he seen last?"
"He was sniggling eels under the Bridge yesterday."
"I'm betting you that's where he set up for the night."
"Lord, I hope not, sir. The wind coming off the Thames was fierce last night."
"It usually is, this time of year, but two old men would choose it if it meant less chance of being preyed on."
It always took long enough for the dead-cart. Lestrade folded the scrawny hands across the chest anyway. No sense wasting time. He didn't know if there were provisions set aside, or anything in the way of possessions outside the cart. Brucie ought to be told. Another harmless old soul that even the cutthroats ignored out of whatever decency they might posses...or perhaps even they knew there was nothing worth killing for inside those old coats.
Another piece of London just died, he thought. He'd seen the old bookseller for years—even in his early days on the beat and he'd looked old even then. His hair had been white; he had scuttled across the city with his cart and his books strapped to his shoulders. When a building was about to be demolished, he was there. When something crumbled and was thrown out into the rubbish…he was there too. He ignored the brass fixtures, the antique brick, anything else of value…it had been the books he wanted to salvage. It was the books he pulled out of the rubbish, lovingly dusted them off, and repaired their pages well as he could. He read every book he sold, and recited large bits from his memory when persuading a sot to buy. He took pricier volumes to antique and reliquary shops, persuaded them of the use of his time, and walked off (if temporary in his wealth), better than he'd been earlier.
No different from the mudlarks and street-Arabs who knew a good deal in the tip when they saw it…and how many times did the respectable establishments rely on these bitterly poor people to find a crowning piece for their display?
Lestrade once, in his salad days, took him for some sort of beggar trying to nick a few coins on the pretext of a book. But Old Leathersides, the wags off Lambeth said, Old Leathersides had loved his books too much. When he saw someone worthy of his wares, he pressed upon them and harried them with his good intentions until they crumbled to soggy sand and took up the book.
"He's rooked Mr. Holmes a time or two," Gregson had commented once. "Then again, maybe he didn't. Holmes is a queer enough bird…could be he can find sense in spending money on a book written in a language England's never seen, and bound in a country we can't even spell."
Can't even spell…
Lestrade thought of that then, without knowing why. Possibly because he knew English and was uncomfortable with all other tongues…but it seemed very wrong for someone to master more than one language…and not be given honours…at least a soft bed and a good meal once a day. What use was education if it wasn't respected? Old Leathersides had conversed to him in what he'd said was Hebrew, Greek, Latin…and even more strangely, spoke of books the Inspector hadn't imagination to conjure by himself. He hadn't belonged on the streets of the homeless any more than the rest. Who had taught him?
Murcher was clearing his throat as Lestrade quietly went through his pockets. A pawn-ticket for a bottle of preservative oils. A silk handkerchief, given better care than the rest of his clothing. A broken watch with an ivory back and a deer leaping across a carved wood. A single piece of jewelry hung at his watch-chain: A finely carved cameo of polished sea-coal, of a young woman with eyes too large and haunting to speak of health.
"A city of millions…millions…with millions of those dedicated to crime…and he manages to die of natural causes."
"Seems to me, sir…any death in London is a natural cause." Murcher answered softly--and with not a small grain of truth to his observation.
Lestrade looked up at that, and years later, he still didn't know what he was about to say to the man—something stern yet encouraging, something a superior would say to bolster up a man in a gruff, no-frills way…but all that went to pieces at the sight of a tall, thin man striding through the crowd with his walking-stick like a third arm.
One look at the look on Mr. Holmes' thin face, and Lestrade felt something; his heart sunk to a previously new station below his ribs.
"Lestrade," Mr. Holmes begin with a high, quick catch to his voice (usually so capable of slicing a man through with a single look, a single eyeball of a look, or the lift of a nostril…even the way that starving amateur could put his pipe to his lips could be an insult or condemnation)…
"Good-morning, Mr. Holmes." Lestrade slowly rose to his feet; he'd stayed put for too long, and his foot ached like a living thing was in his shoe…with teeth that wanted sharpening on the thick bone under his arch. "I'm afraid Mr. Leathersides passed away just now."
"I can see that, Lestrade."
Too late, Lestrade realised he had accidentally caused insult. Of course that man, who had loved books (especially books of every method of murder or suicide known), would be able to see at a glance the bookseller had died on his own.
There was nothing for it now. An apology would mean nothing to Holmes, assuming he would even be paying attention.
With a single swoop (birdlike, he could be, and bloodhoundish at a puzzle), Holmes dropped to his knees with far less concern for his trousers than Lestrade…but to be fair, Holmes didn't have to worry about his superior's censure…Holmes acknowledged no superiors.
The horses were pulling up the dead-cart now. Lestrade knew he was being old-fashioned, but he still couldn't call it anything but that. Carts for the dead; carriages were for the living.
"He had some books for me…"
Lestrade didn't like seeing Mr. Holmes shaken up and taken aback. He far preferred the man to be what he was supposed to be: annoying, arrogant, and smug and vague and everything a policeman wasn't supposed to be. Not a man who had a foundation shaken before he was ready.
"If you can recognize them in the stack, Mr. Holmes, I'm sure he wouldn't have minded…"
Those unsettling grey eyes. Lestrade has never gotten used to them.
"And to whom the payment, Inspector?"
The voice is cutting as always. Thank God. Holmes wanted things back to normal as much as he did.
"He was a mate of the old rag-man Brucie under the Bridge...He had no kin that I was aware of, Mr. Holmes…"
"Nor did he. I'm quite certain of the fact."
Holmes straightened by inches, his tall, skinny form like a lost lighthouse in the swarm of the street. "Again, to whom should the payment go to? I can give Bruce something easily enough, but what of Mr. McDaniel? He never wanted a burial. Not even in a potter's field."
Lestrade didn't bother asking how Holmes knew. his real name or his desires. Book-lovers were their own breed, and they spoke their own language.
"I can't say, Mr. Holmes. Except perhaps that if you truly knew him, you'll be able to think of some way to commemorate him."
Again, Lestrade strikes a nerve without meaning it, but this time it didn't seem to be painful.
Lestrade and Murcher wait, respectfully silent, as Mr. Holmes slowly and quietly pages through the meagre supply of battered books and just as silently…he pulls three out.
"What will happen to his personal effects, Inspector?"
"They'll be put up if no heirs respond in the usual matter of time." Lestrade tells him. Holmes had to be upset if he'd forgotten one of the most basic of London's laws with the poor and deceased.
Holmes nodded at that…and pulled out a handful of coin that surely that Montague-Street-dragon would prefer to see in her own apron. There was a sadness to the way the young man put the money down, as if he was trying to say how heavy it was and how light was life…but before Lestrade could ponder the oddness of his own thoughts, Holmes had turned his back and left them to the business of putting up the husk of a quiet, meek, and harmless man of books.
-
Lestrade let events slip from his mind—it was a necessary quality for an Inspector who must carry many tasks at once. Standing fast was one thing; standing fast in a current would drown a man quick.
But not long after, he stepped to the sausage-cart on his way to work and nearly spat out the mouthful of breakfast into the chilly London air.
Old Leathersides was scuttling across the kerb.
The Inspector stared without shame, almost horrified at his own paralysis. But the vision failed to vanish. It flitted like a bat throughout the crowd, the pile of books belted to one stooped shoulder, a satchel at his waist.
"Dante!" The high, piping and cracked voice exults like the priest on Sundays. "The fine Italian of the Empire! Dear sir, you cannot say your collection of the classics is complete without the Divine Comedy!"
Lestrade stared until his eye hurt, but Mr. Holmes was already gone, and his target was struggling to say no.
He would give in. The Inspector knew that.
Mr. Holmes would wear him down as surely as Old Leathersides. Would inveigle his way to the man's house and there he would find…what? Proof of what crime? Or confirmation of what innocence? The old Bookseller would go off, and whoever had hired Mr. Holmes (perhaps someone even in the Yard, like Gregson)…would get a note on their desk.
He shook his head, admiring and unable to truly disapprove.
Mr. Holmes had been good to his word. He had found a way to remember the old man.
And it was a strangely fitting form of tribute, too.
Mr. Holmes had discovered the perfect disguise.
Men see what they want to see.
No one wants to see a ghost.