Disclaimer – certainly not mine
Notes – set after Holmes' return from his three year hiatus. I would also like to point out that I am not attempting to write a ghost story, slash or a death fic here… also, my research is spotty at best.
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The pauper's grave had not so much been opened as decimated. Whoever had dug the body free had worked hard and fast, flinging dirt left and right with little concern for neatness or even the placement of nearby graves. It was an eerie sight in the half light, the misty rain clinging to everything around us, smothering the graveyard into half formed shapes and sculptures, making it a more sinister place. There were several uneasy constables standing about with their lamps, and Holmes was already tracking the movements of all those involved in this mornings grisly work.
A small wooden cross sagged at the edge of the hole, beside it a candle stump was dribbling wax over the newly disturbed earth. The cross had been desecrated with an odd symbol, which had been smeared over its surface and glistened in the early dawn light.
"It's blood of some sort," Lestrade said with a disgusted grimace, "Probably not human, though we'll have to check it out carefully. It's splattered all over the place, and that symbol was present at the other scene."
"Same grave yard?" I asked quietly, watching my friend circle and backtrack restlessly, stooping to examine something on the ground before going on his way again. He had gathered several samples of soil and other things, and paused for a moment to scribble down a copy of the symbol on the cross.
"No, on the other side of the river. I got assigned to it because I've had experience with grave robbers before…" Lestrade hesitated, shooting me a look and I nodded calmly. My wedding ring rested heavily on my right hand for a moment, though Mary's rest had never been disturbed by such ghouls.
"Were they after valuables or bodies?" I knew such things still occurred; indeed it was not so long ago that members of my own profession had employed body snatchers of their own, targeting particular sets of remains in order to further understand the rarer human diseases and deformities. As shameful as their conduct was, it wouldn't do to play the outraged gentleman over it. This was not the time or the place for squeamishness.
"Both," Lestrade sighed, "It was a terrible mess. Several of them ended up hanging, and the one that didn't is on hard labour for life."
"A good day's work then," I complimented him and restrained a groan when Holmes jumped down into the open grave without second thought.
"Mr Holmes!" Lestrade sounded outraged, and we moved forward so that we could see clearly what the amateur sleuth was doing. He was bent almost double in the confined space looking closely at the desecrated coffin. The flimsy wooden thing had been torn apart and there were some scratches on the inner surface of the lid that made me very uneasy.
"The occupant of this grave was undoubtedly alive when interred," Holmes confirmed my uneasy deduction and I clearly heard one of the young constables gulp.
"He was coherent enough to climb out of here with only minimal assistance, the second man held him in place while the first climbed out. He proceeded to smear the same substance that is on the cross onto the young man, and then led him away. There is something very ritualistic to all of this, gentlemen, and when we discover it we will discover some vital clues to the identity of our quarry. For now, Lestrade, all I can tell you is that one of the men is my height, the other yours, the shorter man is uneducated and left handed, and the taller man clearly was in control of this situation," Holmes delivered his findings still balanced among the remains of the coffin and then held a thin hand in my direction.
I hauled him up to ground level wordlessly and Lestrade followed us as we tracked the two body snatchers and their victim to a side gate which had been unlocked with what appeared to be a jemmy. There were a few traces from a wheeled vehicle, but the soft and continuous rain had obscured the traces after only a few yards.
"There is something about this…" Holmes muttered in frustration, and pulled out his pocket watch, "Come Watson, there is something I need to look at. I'll be in touch Lestrade!"
"But Mr Holmes! Will there be more of this?" Lestrade asked quickly as my friend strode off into the mist. The Scotland Yarder slumped in defeat at Holmes' reply and sighed.
"I don't doubt it! Hurry up Watson!"
I patted his shoulder in commiseration and headed after my friend. It took me nearly a block to draw even with him, an effort that would cost me later in the day as the damp weather laid a hold of my war wounds. For now, the hunt was on and I spared little thought to later comforts.
"Where are we headed?" I asked quietly as Holmes strode along, his brow creased in thought. Although eventually we would be in the centre of town, a more specific destination was desirable. I had always been frustrated with Holmes' tendency to keep key facts and conclusions to himself as we worked, a habit that had me scrambling to keep up, or even defend us, on more than one occasion. Any complaint to that effect had always landed on deaf ears, and I made a mental note to dig out and clean my service revolver once we returned to Baker Street. Better to be prepared, and this was sure to be a grisly business.
"The bookstore," Holmes grunted in a tone that warned he was in no mood for further questions or comments from my quarter. I was not at all dismayed by this, as he frequently required time to think before imparting what clues he felt relevant to the matter at hand.
Now that I had a firm destination I could afford to pamper my wounded leg a little and slowed my own pace. Holmes drew slightly ahead, his head sunk in thought, and I took the time to observe the pedestrians that were beginning to emerge as they wended their own way to their various occupations. The place that Holmes referred to had a proper title, but he invariably called it 'the bookstore', as if it was the only one in London. Situated as it was, equidistant between the courts of law and a teaching hospital, it had a large selection of medical and legal books as well as the more common fiction and historic texts. Holmes preferred this store above all others as it was run by a family with excellent memories and a lot of patience for what must have been one of their most difficult customers. I had even spotted my own small works upon their shelves and the proprietor, Mr Gadwall, had mentioned that his daughter was an avid reader of 'The Strand'.
A racket started up in front of me and I sighed, hurrying my pace again to where my friend was battering on the door of his chosen store, creating a disturbance that would surely attract the ire of the beat constable. Several well groomed gentlemen looked askance at my friend as he beat on the door again and I sent them on their way with a look of my own. Sometimes the simplest defence is to look as if the other person is the one acting oddly, and that particular look had cowed many a superior and smug gentleman.
"Holmes, the store won't open for another hour at least," I remonstrated with my friend, "Mr Gadwall may not even be in there."
"Someone is, I can see movement behind the shutters," Holmes replied tersely, beating on the door again.
"What on earth is going on here?" a woman asked behind us, and I turned hastily. Her fine boned features marked her as Mr Gadwall's daughter in a heartbeat, and her sensible thick coat, plain bonnet and gloves marked her character as one who would take no nonsense, not even from the families' trickiest customer. She had been frowning at us, but when I turned her face cleared and softened.
"Dr Watson? Miss Gadwall. Father is in Edinburgh Mr Holmes, a private library has come up for auction," she shook my hand and elbowed my friend aside in a neat movement, producing her own copy of the door key and letting herself and us in, "Mathews, why in heavens name didn't you answer the door?"
Mathews was a sour faced clerk with a slight stoop despite his young age, and an unpleasant pallor. He was gaping at his employer's daughter as she tugged off her gloves and bonnet. I helped her with her coat while she ordered a cup of tea for herself, and then glanced at me and added a second cup to the order.
"Miss Gadwall, I need to locate the origin of this symbol. Perhaps one of your brothers could assist?" Holmes sounded impatient with the domestic details, though he instructed Mathews to supply my tea with milk and sugar. Miss Gadwall took the journal that Holmes was holding out and angled it to catch the light of the lamp by the till. With the shutters closed the store was a very different place to the normally well lit and often busy I was more used to.
"They are scattered across England at the moment, Mr Holmes. There are several estate auctions all occurring this week with items of interest for various customers," Miss Gadwall replied calmly, "However I think I can locate this for you. Mathews! We'll be in the anthropology stacks!"
She didn't wait for a response from her clerk, leading the way briskly back into the warrens of the store, heading for the staircase at the rear that led to the second floor of the establishment. All three floors of this particular building were owned and used by the bookstore, with the fiction works housed on the ground floor. The reference books were either in the basement or the first floor, and I had spent many an interested hour browsing through the contents of the store while Holmes sought a particular fact.
I assisted with opening the upstairs shutters, and watched as Miss Gadwall pushed a ladder along one of the floor to ceiling shelves before scrambling nimbly up and poring over the titles on a top shelf.
"Here," she murmured and pulled a large tome down, flipping through it for a moment and then handing it down to Holmes, open to a particular page, "Does that match?"
"Hmm," Holmes muttered, comparing the woodcut to his journal, "There are strong similarities…"
"Well at least we're in the right section then," she replied and returned to her hunt while Holmes became engrossed in the book. I settled myself into one of the wooden chairs by the window, stretching my aching leg out stiffly and endeavouring to relax the muscles there. Mathews appeared as a second book was located and acknowledged with a grunt, passing a cup of tea up to his employer before handing one to me as well.
"I'll open the downstairs, shall I?" he asked sourly, and when he got no reply from either of the engrossed people in the stack scowled fiercely and headed back down the stairs. The tea was stronger than I liked, but it was warm and that was all that mattered at the moment. Miss Gadwall kicked the ladder along its rails while still balanced upon it, a graceful move that I had seen her father and brothers perform many a time and pulled down another four books, riffling through them and then putting them back with a grimace.
"Not quite…" she sighed, "Dr Watson, can I trouble you to go around the corner and locate for me a volume bound in black with silver lettering and purple marbling? It will have the word 'voodoo' in the title, and the author's last name should be Stiller if I recall correctly."
"Of course," I said uneasily. Voodoo was something that I had only heard fantastic and vague tales of, comprised of sacrifices, witches and spells, as well as several perverted acts. If the persons responsible for desecrating those graves were performing ritual acts of voodoo then this case had taken a very unexpected and morbid turn. Holmes and I had worked on cases where occult practices had been in place before, and they had always put the greatest strain on the both of us. People who believed in the occult were often the most difficult to predict and stop.
The volume in question was not difficult to find, and I refrained from opening it, not sure I wanted to know more than I already did.
"Ah, 'On the practice of Voodoo' by Alfred Stiller," Miss Gadwall smiled as I returned to their sides. She took the book courteously from me, flipped through it and placed it open atop the two volumes that Holmes already held.
"Ah ha!" his cry announced that he had finally isolated the symbol properly, and Miss Gadwall smiled at me indulgently. She collected our cups and followed my friend towards the stairs.
"I warn you Doctor, that last volume has been discredited since its publication. Mr Stiller infiltrated the Haitian groups under a disguise and apparently partook in a wide number of narcotics while doing so. His peers have used that fact to discredit his writing, and the Haitians involved are very distrustful of outsiders as a result of Mr Stiller's actions, so no one has been able to verify or refute any of the claims made in that book. However it does have a very good series of diagrams, which Mr Holmes will find useful."
"Thank you, Miss Gadwall," I smiled as we halted by the counter and she made her entries in the ledger. While she prepared a receipt as well Matthews swept past us, nose in the air, an action that caused Miss Gadwall to roll her eyes and shake her head.
"He's my mother's nephew," she offered in explanation, and I was hard pressed not to laugh at her resigned tone. She placed the receipt face up on the page that Holmes was reading and he grunted and slapped a handful of coins on the counter. Before I could remonstrate with him Miss Gadwall was making up the correct change, which she handed to me.
"I don't suppose I could impose upon you, Doctor… I was reading 'Study in Scarlet' again last night…" she pulled a very battered copy of my book out from under the counter, "It would mean a lot…"
I blushed a little and signed the book frontispiece for her, receiving a very charming smile in response as Holmes dragged his nose far enough out of his books to bark a brief thanks at the woman who'd helped him and headed brusquely for the door.
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