Old Bones Read Online Free PDF

century, including several from the original medical school.’
    â€˜I don’t see what that has to do with anything?’
    â€˜It is essential to the case, but moving forward a century and a half, more or less, we come to the night of January 21 st and the murder of Andy Sixsmith. I don’t pretend to know the exact details, but his neck was broken, presumably by the Whadcoat brothers, although sadly I have no proof of that. In any event, the job of disposing of the corpse was given to Victor Hodges and John Fellowes, both men who had little choice but to obey the Whadcoat’s orders, although I can’t imagine they relished the task. They drove north, to Hammond Street, a location one or other of them probably knew, and there, beside a lonely lane, they buried Mr Sixsmith.’
    â€˜We know that much, but it wasn’t Sixsmith we found.’
    â€˜No, it was not.’
    De Lacy paused to speak to the porter at the museum door, a man he’d made an effort to get to know and who nodded them in to an entrance hall with a high, arched roof supported by pillars of different marbles. The main room of the museum was larger still, a great vaulted chamber with an open central space and a balcony running beneath tall, diamond panelled windows to create a dim tunnel lined with rank upon rank of wooden drawers.
    â€˜The skeleton you found,’ de Lacy continued, ‘was that of Thomas Baker, a sailor who was hung from the yardarm of HMS Temeraire in 1801, hence the injuries to his neck being consistent with a long drop hanging. His crime was mutiny and his body was given up for medical dissection, following which his skeleton was donated to the then newly built medical college here at Solsbury, listed in the catalogue as HS004 and therefore stored …’
    He paused to pull out the lowest of a set of drawers, revealing a set of neatly arranged bones.
    â€˜â€¦Â here,’ he finished, ‘although as you have no doubt deduced by now these are not the bones of Thomas Baker. So, without further ado, I have the pleasure of introducing you to the Mr Andrew Sixsmith, late of Islington, London and the victim of Albert and William Whadcoat, also of that borough.’
    â€˜OK,’ Susan answered, ‘I understand, but how did you know to come here?’
    â€˜The matter was simple enough,’ de Lacy replied. ‘Indeed, one might even use the word “elementary”, although naturally there was a degree of detail work to be done and I had to be sure of my facts before presenting them to you.’
    â€˜And to get maximum effect,’ she pointed out.
    â€˜But of course,’ de Lacy replied. ‘It wouldn’t have been any fun otherwise.’
    â€˜So Hodges swapped the skeletons?’ she asked, ‘and I understand why he had to retrieve Sixsmith’s remains when the new housing estate was built, but why bury a different skeleton?’
    â€˜Because,’ de Lacy replied, ‘what Hodges couldn’t disguise was the presence of a grave. The shape, after all, is rather distinctive, and with diggers cutting into the soil he must have reasoned that it was likely to be noticed. He therefore chose to substitute another skeleton, one with which he had no connection. As you say, he must have learnt of the construction of the new estate and thought Sixsmith’s body would be found. We now know it wasn’t, as the edge of the estate stops some way short of the grave site, but Hodges wasn’t prepared to take that risk. Thinking a grave would be found, he took the skeleton of Thomas Baker and buried it in Sixsmith’s place, no doubt hoping it was be dismissed as the wayside burial place of a condemned man. Had the grave been discovered, and had not John Fellowes made his deathbed confession, Hodges’ plan would almost certainly have succeeded.’
    â€˜But wouldn’t the university have noticed the swap?’
    In answer de Lacy