Sherlock Holmes: Before Baker Street David Marcum (reading eggs books .TXT) 📖

bundle over and it collapsed out into a body. A man whose flesh, that not eaten away by vermin, was a nauseous rainbow of purples and greens. Holmes’s stomach lurched, and somehow he was on the floor himself now.

Leaning heavily on the walls, Holmes staggered down the stairs and into the relatively fresh air of the slums of London. At least it was cold, and that snapped his rational mind back into action. He breathed deeply and walked away the disgust. There was one thing he was sure of: Madame Withers had sent him there knowing he would find the body. He was a pawn in her game, and Holmes would be a pawn for no one. More than the decaying body, more than the probable murder, what really rankled Holmes was that anyone would take him for a fool. He had been attending some esoteric lectures during his time in London, and at those lectures he’s made some eccentric contacts. Not friends exactly – Sherlock Holmes would never go down in the annals of friendship – but like-minded individuals. Others for whom the spirit of inquiry trumped the demands of propriety. One of these was a coroner, a freelance ghoul who would relish an invitation to macabre intrigue. Holmes proceeded at a quick step, now oblivious to the everyday predators stalking London’s shadows.

“Young Sherlock, won’t you come in?” Hershel Glave had his smock on. To little effect, Holmes thought. Glave was soaked in effluvia up past his elbows. The stench from inside his morgue was almost unbearable. Looking past Glave’s shoulder, Holmes saw the mangled cadaver the coroner must be working on, with two more set off to the side. There were always more bodies in London. Some Glave examined for the police. Others he merely disposed of. Yet others . . . . Holmes had gathered enough oblique references to know that Glave earned most of his coin as a kind of purveyor-cum-broker. The demands for human remains are myriad, and to let good produce go to waste in a potter’s field ran contrary to Glaves’ eminently practical sensibilities. The man repulsed Holmes to the quick, but his absolute detachment from all human sentiment was also fascinating in its own way. The things this man accomplished due in part to his radical emotional disassociaion were remarkable. Perhaps it was possible to become morally disentangled while retaining one’s ethical self, Holmes thought.

“Doctor Glave, I’m afraid I cannot stay long, and I do not wish to impose upon your hospitality.”

“No one ever does.” A grin split the man’s face, revealing rotten brown teeth, worse than most of his subjects.

“I know the location of a body that the Yard doesn’t even know it is looking for yet. I promise you that in a couple of days, it will be quite valuable. It is associated with a lurid scandal that will make the front page of every rag in London.”

“Oh, you do, do you? This isn’t your handiwork is it, young Sherlock?”

“Of course not! Why would I come and admit a murder to you?”

“You’d be surprised at how understanding people think I can be. How understanding I can be for the right price.”

Holmes’s lip involuntarily curled. “You’ll get your pay from the Yard, assuming you agree to my conditions.”

“Ha ha! And what are those, pray tell?”

“You will keep the body secret until I tell you otherwise. That means waiting after the reward is announced. Maybe a day or more.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I’m giving you a gift. Fast, clean money, and some favor from the Yard besides. You can have this body in your cellar within the hour. It is good business.”

“Ha ha! Okay, it is a deal.” Glave held out a filthy, repugnant hand.

Without hesitation Holmes took it. “To cross me would be bad business.”

“Yes, yes, very bad business. Ho ho!”

Holmes began crushing the man’s hand in his grip and boring his hawk-like gaze into the other man’s eyes. The coroner faltered and went slack.

“Yes, bad business. I understand, Mr. Holmes.”

“See that you do.”

Holmes helped Glave haul a hand cart back to the millenary. It was pitch black inside the flat now, but Holmes fumbled for the next candle along the wall and up they went. As they transferred the corpse onto a sheet, Graves pulled his hand away from the body’s neck and sniffed at his own fingers.

“Hmm. Swine fat,” he observed.

They wrapped the body like a mummy, hauled it downstairs, and onto the cart. No one looked twice at them on the way back to the coroner’s office. The kind of Londoner out at this hour was the kind who knew not to ask questions about the relocation of bodies. Holmes left the coroner at his doorstep, reminding him again to keep the body secret until Holmes directed him otherwise.

Back in his room, Holmes bathed himself in near boiling water, running through three kettles worth and scrubbing until his skin was red.

The next morning, he called upon Madame Withers at the Grand Royal.

“Mr. Holmes, were you unable to find the address?”

“I found it without difficulty.”

“Oh. I almost expected to open the paper this morning and read that you had discovered my husband’s body.” Her soulless eyes searched Holmes’s face. “I am relieved, of course, that is not the case.”

“Of course. I regret to report that I searched the premises thoroughly and found no sign of your husband.”

“No sign at all?”

“Well, there was some scraps and rubbish that suggested someone occupied the flat on occasion, but last night there was no one.”

“You checked the flat above the milliner’s shop, front to back, every room?”

“Every room, dear lady. Rest assured, he was not there.”

A wave of panic washed over her face. “That’s impossible! Where could .