The Lazarus Machine

Chapter 20

"Wiggins, lad, what have you got for me?"

Sherlock slipped a coin from his pocket and the child in front of him made it quickly disappear somewhere about his person.  The boy didn't have pockets.

"Some of the mudlarks down by Blackfriars saw a man drop a bag off the bridge.  They thought he was drownin' pups or sommat and they waded out a little to see."

"What man?  Did you get a description?"

"Tall, dark caped coat, top hat.  Couldn't catch much more'n his shadow as he ran off."

"Fine, fine."  Sherlock's mind whirled.  Another bag, another clue!

"What was in the bag, Wiggins?"

"Four feet."

"Four feet of what?" John asked.  Sherlock made a disgruntled sound.  Wiggins stuck out a dirty, rag-covered extremity. 

"Appendages, John.  Like the hands," Sherlock explained quite impatiently.

"Oh, sorry, right.  Because body parts get tossed over bridge rails every single day."

"Of course not, John, but it's been a strange month."

John looked at Sherlock, lips twitching with mirth.  Sherlock allowed himself a smile and turned back to the fidgety boy in front of him. 

"Who answered the whistle?"

"River police, I guess."  Wiggins shrugged.  "None of us stuck around to get caught."

Sherlock rubbed together another two coins between his fingertips before dropping them into Wiggins' outstretched palm.

"Very good job, young man.  Come along, John.  We must intercept the evidence before it gets too fouled by stupid hands."

John kept up with Sherlock as far as the busy street where he hailed a hackney cab.  Sherlock swung himself inside with a flourish and shouted out his direction to the driver.  John hauled himself inside after and had barely settled before the coach set off towards the river.

"I do hope Dimmock is on duty tonight.  Lestrade owes him a favor so he may just foist the feet onto him and wash his hands of it."

"And if it's not Dimmock?"

But Sherlock wasn't interested in making conversation.  He gazed out the window as they rolled through the smoky evening air.  John studied the silence and imagined he could almost hear Sherlock thinking, though his mind worked with a well-oiled whir as opposed to his brother's supposed rusty clanking.  The thought made him smile.

"Donovan."  Sherlock scowled as he paid the driver and leapt from the cab.

"Well, if it ain't the mad little lordling.  I should have known.  Grisly remains discarded and Holmes comes walking up like he knew they was here."

Donovan, new-made sergeant of the River Police, strode up to Sherlock and John as their cab departed.  He was big and beefy, his nose broken too many times and his dark hair was shorn as close as the five o'clock shadow that covered his face.  How the bully had ever made sergeant was a mystery that Sherlock couldn’t solve.  He caressed his truncheon far too fondly.

"You know, we had a report of a tall man in a caped greatcoat like yours running off the bridge just after the bag dropped to the river.  Have you got an alibi, Holmes?"

Sherlock drily replied, "What, a greatcoat like the one every gentleman of quality wears in November in London?"  Donovan was not insulted enough.

"What's the matter, Holmes?  Did you misjudge the tide and your little prizes landed in the mud instead of the river proper?"

"New haircut, Donovan?  Criminals giving you fleas again or are you delousing after a particularly nasty whore?"

"Gentlemen!"  Lestrade's voice punched through the tension.  "Donovan, this is clearly part of my case."

"Talk to my superiors, then, Lestrade," Donovan growled.  "Until I'm told otherwise, you're out of your jurisdiction."

"Do you really want to listen to Sherlock proselytizing until ten tomorrow morning when your superiors are in the office?  Because you know he will.  He can talk more useless nonsense than a politician and twice as long."

"I'll have you know that nothing I say is nonsense, Lestrade!"  John hid his smile at Sherlock's indignation behind a cough when Sherlock glared in his direction.

Donovan looked torn between laughing at the insult and admitting just how true it was.

"Christ!  Fine, Lestrade, take them.  I'll be glad to have that one off my hands.  Oi!  Bring the bag over here, lad!  We're off!"  One of the other river patrols trotted up and tossed a burlap bag at Sherlock's feet.  "And you.  I ain't seen you before," Donovan directed at John, "but you showed up with him.  He's a madman, mind you.  Even if he ain't the one who dumped these feet, he'll be doing the crime one day and showing up the next to lead us all on a merry chase in the wrong directions.  And maybe that time, it'll be your foot, or hand, or head falling from the bridge.  And I'll earn my next promotion when his neck is stretched…"

"Donovan, enough!  I'm certain you have patrols to cover."  Lestrade inserted himself in the middle of their little group.  He stood on guard like a fierce mastiff until Donovan and his underlings had sauntered off into the night.

"Jesus, Sherlock, what did you ever do to Donovan to make him hate you so much?"

"What do I ever do, Lestrade?"

"It's like the menagerie, Sherlock.  Don't provoke the animals," Lestrade admonished once Donovan was out of earshot.

Instead of taking the warning, Sherlock chuckled.

"John, this is Lestrade, one of the only halfway intelligent men working on Bow Street."

"He means the only one who will work with him."  Lestrade held out his hand for John to shake.

"Lestrade, this is Captain John Watson, formerly of the 52nd Northumberland Fusilers.  He's my…"

"Colleague," John interrupted, not sure quite what Sherlock was going to say.

"Yes, colleague."  Sherlock glanced at him curiously.  "He was a surgeon in the army.  I'm consulting him about the nature of the amputations."

"The great Sherlock Holmes is consulting someone else?" Lestrade hooted.  "My goodness, man, you must be brilliant."

"I hardly think it unusual that I would consult a man of experience.  He has been to war; I have not.  I may have expertise in anatomy, but I have never sawn off a man's leg."  Sherlock reverted back to a haughty, insulted tone.

"Now, Holmes, I did not mean to ruffle your feathers."  Sherlock ignored him.

"Let's get these to the morgue, John."  Sherlock picked up the bag, swung it, mud and all, over his shoulder.  John gave Lestrade an apologetic look and trailed after.