The Lazarus Machine

Chapter 16

The carriage had barely made it to London and Sherlock was plastered to the window trying to judge precisely when forward progress would be faster by foot than through traffic.  His brother, ever indulgent no matter what Sherlock said, had instructed the driver to make directly for the morgue nearest Bow Street.  It was in the lower floor of a new hospital, St. Bartholemew's.  Lord Sherrinford had not, of course, ever set foot in such a squalid earthy location, but it was a waste of breath to scold Sherlock about it.

The streets of London were full this time of day: full of people, full of life, full of smells and soot and heart-wrenching horror.  Nothing, nowhere, could ever be better.  Sherlock loved this city, this giant madhouse with over a million minds tearing it this way and that.  It was amazing, exciting, thrilling; he knew every inch of its thin, twisty streets, even the narrow alleys and courtyards, the sewers with child sized rats eking out a rancid existence.  If the cab or carriage weren't so necessary for the long distances, Sherlock would never close himself away from his city so.  He wanted to feel the dirt and cobbles beneath his feet; less than three days away and he was ready to crawl out of his skin in gladness for being home.

Traffic slowed to a crawl about six blocks from the hospital.  Sherlock jumped out of the carriage – only his incredible fleetness and luck preventing a flattened foot or muddy splash to his boots.  Lord Sherrinford immediately rapped on the small driver's window.

"He has made his escape.  Turn towards the London house at the earliest opportunity."

Sherlock dashed through the myriad people as if they stood still; in truth, his world merely moved faster than most by comparison.  He took the familiar entrance that led directly to the morgue, dodging the fresh and not-so-fresh deliveries.

"Oi!  You can't come in here!"

"I was invited.  Who the hell are you?"  Sherlock peered down his nose at the sniveling little man, who, in fact, was nearly as tall as him and thicker through the neck.  Sherlock saw him only by the size of his brain – insignificant! – and by his loathing for the detective.

"You know very well who I am."  The man, more than thrice met, wrinkled up his pointy little face in a sneer.

"Nonsense.  I'd never forget meeting a rat-faced, mealy-mouthed little worm such as yourself.  Unless it was purposely."  Sherlock sniffed.  "Now that I consider it, the instance of intentional amnesia is quite likely.  Now get out of my way."

"Anderson, step aside and let Mr. Holmes through."  Lestrade's voice cut through their sniping.  "Holmes, I rather expected you at Bow Street first."

"The hands are here."

"I'm not overly concerned about the hands."

"But the hands tell the story!  Five hands could mean as many as five victims!  We must catalog the details of each and compare them to reports of missing persons."

"Holmes, I did not call on you about the hands.  They could be missing from cadavers already in morgues around the city; they could be some dumb prank by this year's medical class, stolen from the labs at university; they could have been harvested like any other body part by cadaver men digging up graves.  And while all those are repugnant, the immediate origins of the hands do not concern me."

"Then why on earth did your dispatch mention five disembodied hands?"  Sherlock threw up his very-much-embodied hands in exasperation. 

Lestrade thrust a much-folded square of paper towards him.

"Because the letter addressed to you mentions them."

Sherlock snatched up the note, reading it five times before taking note of the details in the handwriting, type of paper, flow of ink, scratch of nib.  All this he catalogued in silence.  Finally Lestrade interrupted.

"What does it mean, Holmes?"

Sherlock tucked the note inside his coat.  Lestrade knew he wouldn't turn it back over the second he handed it to him.  He sighed at the lost cause.

"Not enough data.  What data do we have?  The note and the hands.  I must see the hands."

"Anderson, fetch him the hands."  The morgue attendant grumbled, but carried over two jars.

"What have you done to them?"  Sherlock was aghast.  "All the evidence is ruined!  You incompetent clod!"

The five hands had been stuffed in two large jars of alcohol and had slightly bloated.  At least they hadn't been disposed of by fire or by burial in the lime-lined pits that were dug and filled almost constantly in a city as large as London. 

"I wasn't going to let them sit there and putrefy a sennight, was I?"

"Lestrade, you found these a week ago and didn't notify me immediately?  I was still in London then!"

"Only four days.  And we began by contacting anyone who might have legitimately had body parts lying around to lose.  We have not been idle, Holmes.  There was no reason to call you in until the note."

Sherlock grumbled.

"What was that?"

Sherlock cleared this throat and began again.  "You knew precisely where I would be.  Mycroft informed you we'd be away, didn't he and told you not to interfere with his plans?"

"Lord Sherrinford does occasionally keep me updated."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed.  "Mycroft, damn him!"  Sherlock continued to grumble, roughly dumping out one of the jars across the autopsy table.  The liquid flooded across the slab and splashed onto the floor on the other side.  Anderson gave a disgruntled yell as he was splashed.

"Oh, do shut up, Anderson.  The smell hardly makes a dent in the miasma of death and decay that defines you."

Sherlock pushed his face close to the first two hands, pulling back again and studied them from different angles.  He prodded at the fingers with one gloved hand, (which was a constant source of employment to his haberdasher). 

"Anderson, your face is putting me off.  Twenty steps, that direction."  Sherlock pointed to the nearest wall.

"It's only ten paces to the wall," Anderson replied smugly.

"Then use the door and continue on the other side."

Lestrade put up a hand to keep Anderson from slapping Sherlock with the wet rag he was using to clean up the preserving alcohol from the slab and floor.  The morgue attendant threw the rag in a bucket and skulked from the room.

"Sherlock, I appreciate that you are so concerned with these hands."  And Sherlock might normally have interrupted Lestrade at this point, but he was engrossed and barely listening.  He could insult Anderson on pure instinct and a moment later be surprised he said anything at all.  "But the real reason I called you here was not because of the hands, but because of the letter addressed to you at Bow Street."

"How can you not see, Lestrade, how intricately the hands are tied into the note?  If we can determine the origins of the hands, we can find a pattern or a location or a suspect.  With just the letter, we have nearly nothing."

Sherlock and Lestrade stared at each other, both strong-willed and sharp.  Only Lestrade knew, however, exactly when to leave off and let the other have his way.

"Fine, Sherlock, do what you want.  Stop by Bow Street in the morning and I'll bring you to see where the bag was found and you can interview the merchant if you want."

"Yes, yes, fine."  Lestrade could see that Sherlock was lost.  Maybe he was right, that if they found out where the hands came from, they'd find the connection that would lead them to… to whom?  Some sick bastard playing games with body parts.  Lestrade wasn't even sure what he'd say to the magistrate when they found the person responsible.  Improper disposal of a corpse?  Or maybe it was murder?  Nothing for it but to let Sherlock have a go, he supposed. 

But that letter.  That letter gave him chills.  It rang with the voice of a madman in Lestrade's mind.