A/N: I am a horrible person, I know. I will scrape and claw to get this done, and the end is relatively nigh, I promise. This chapter was hard for me, I think, because it is not one I sit and fantasize about (like, say, smutty or fluffy ones *cough*) and so I had to work about ten times as hard to not absolutely loathe every line. It took me ages just to figure out what I wanted to say. I am pleased right now, and had already started some on the next chapter. I can't promise much, but I do promise less than four months. :) The crap in my head is mildly improved, and will hopefully continue to do so. Thanks for everyone's patience and notes that they had not given up on me :)

John's leg had stiffened during the ride home and his descent from the carriage was somewhat precarious. Still, he steadied himself grimly with his cane and paid his fare. Matthews had the door opened by the time the carriage was pulling away.

"Would you like assis… a bath tonight, sir?" The footman hastily corrected his offer as John hauled himself up each step with a defiant grimace. John felt grimy enough that he would have used the servants' entrance if it wouldn't have meant a longer distance and more stairs to handle.

"That would be brilliant, Matthews. I suspect, though, that I'll be reeking of smoke for days regardless. Has Mr. Holmes returned for the evening yet?"

"No, sir."

John sighed, but even he wasn't certain if it was the disappointment because Sherlock wasn't home or because his arrival in the foyer reminded him of the long staircase to the first floor.

John set his jaw and hoisted himself up step after step. By the time he arrived, Matthews had already set up the shallow tub in front of a freshly blazing fire. Either John had taken longer to scale their seventeen steps than he estimated, or Matthews was a master of forethought. He had even conscripted the two younger brothers of their maid to haul water up the stairs. John wasn't surprised to learn that they ran and fetched for Mrs. Hudson frequently.

Matthews assisted John in his bath, pouring clean, warm water over him, handing him soap and clean flannels. He disappeared frequently for more water as John scrubbed himself diligently, and reappeared once with a plate of cold beef and cheese and toasted bread care of Mrs. Hudson.

"Dr. Watson," Matthews said, returning to the room with a final jug of lukewarm rinse water, "There is a man waiting downstairs for you."

"For me? At this hour? Who is it?"

"He wasn't the type to offer a card, sir," Matthews opined a bit haughtily. "Said a Mr. Corbeau sent him around. I made him wait outside. Didn't want him downstairs with no one but Mrs. Hudson to guard him. He objected to being made to wait on the steps, but I insisted."

John nodded, trusting his man's judgment. An unknown caller after dark in a house that lacked a full complement of footmen was something of which to be wary, not to mention the shocking murders taking place lately. One could not be too careful. And if Corbeau had sent him, that meant the man was a grave robber, a resurrection man, someone who had few qualms with handling a dead body as a matter of course.

Matthews helped him dress in fresh clothing as efficiently as possible, while John stole bits of food from his plate between layers of garments and gulped down his tea once it had cooled enough. There was no telling if he'd return to his supper moments or hours later.

"You may have need of this," Matthews handed John a heavy purse. John pulled out two coins, both shiny, gold guineas. When John questioned him about it, Matthews gave him nothing but an inscrutable gaze and finished tying his cravat. Not for the first time, John wondered what sort of training footmen went through in Lord Sherrinford's household. John tucked the two coins into his hip pocket and the rest into his frock coat's breast pocket. When he was presentable, he followed Matthews down the stairs, at least feeling somewhat refreshed for his thorough wash and bit of food.

"Some hospitality," came the admonishment when the door was unlocked. John could not see the man at first, clothed as he was in dark and dirt. The man stepped into the foyer's lamp light and John made out a beard cut squarely below a strong chin, a long, thin scarf twisted multiple times around a short neck, and the broad shoulders and barrel chest of someone who made a living laboring.

"I will not scold my footman for his caution, sir. Now, state your business."

"Best not waste dark in the height of the season, but can I not at least come in and warm my nose?"

John recalled this did not refer to the aristocrat's Season of balls and entertainments, but the fact that anatomy schools ran most of their classes between October and April, when the cold weather slowed the decomposition of the bodies, both in the ground and on the slab. In the harshest winters, bodies were set aside for weeks if the ground was too frozen to dig, and could be spirited away with much ease.

"Very well, come inside." John supposed this conversation was not one to be had on the doorstep within both view and earshot of their neighbors. The other residents of Baker Street would surely grasp at any gossip with which the new tenants provided them.

"There's a fire in the downstairs parlor, sir. Mrs. Hudson takes her sewing in there of an evening." Matthews opened the nearest door. John nodded, and their swarthy guest dodged out of the cold air and into the warm sitting room. John followed, leaving Matthews outside the door just in case.

John had not spent any time in this room yet. It was furnished, but only with the barest essentials. Generally, Sherlock's belongings were in the rooms upstairs or in boxes in the lab, and John had no furnishings to bring. There was a comfortable chair near the fireplace, which John took after his guest decided to hunch over a small stool sitting on the hearth bricks. He stuck his raw, red hands over the coals and wiggled his fingers.

"Corbeau told me to ask for a Scot called Watson. You don't sound much like a Scot."

"The accent comes on strong with drink." That was more or less the truth. The man didn't need to be treated to a life story. "So, if Corbeau sent you, he must have told you what I want."

"'E said you were wantin' somethin' special." Sooty eyes turned John's way and the man's face glowed red from the fire.

"Hmm, yes, I am." John tried to think quickly. He wasn't quite certain what Sherlock's plan had been for the resurrection man, and they'd been so busy that John had forgotten about Corbeau entirely. Without Sherlock here to question the man with his enigmatical methods, John tried to conceive his own plan.

"Night's a wastin', Doctor." A grey handkerchief swiped at a red nose.

"I'm going to be blunt," John said. "I have no need of a body. I want information."

"Ahh, well, information is a dear thing, when it's available at all." The man rubbed his hands over the flames once more, appearing to be disinterested in the conversation.

John suddenly realized that if this man was indeed supplying bodies to the madman, alive or dead, then he was very dangerous indeed. He needed to play this very carefully, so as not to outright accuse or threaten the man.

"I need to know if you have been approached with any extraordinary requests in the last year, perhaps by a new client; or if a regular client has suddenly increased his demand."

"Ah, now, I hope you understand that I don't go tellin' other gen'lemen's business."

"I appreciate your discretion, sir. However, the matter is of grave importance."

The resurrection man grunted at John's inadvertent quip, but the glint of a gold guinea coin in John's fingers caught his scavenging eye.

"I deal in special requests, Doctor. Surely you realize that it would take the devil hisself to ask for somethin' I might consider odd."

"I do appreciate that, sir. That makes you quite the expert in this situation. And experts do command excellent wages." John tossed him the coin. A guinea was more than most people saw at one time, though grave robbing paid better than honest labor; several guineas per body was considered the minimum.

The man caught the coin and secreted it about his person. "Wot's this about?"

"Surely you have heard of the body parts being found all over the city?"

Corbeau's man gave a short nod; of course he had, as the news had begun to be shouted from every cobble and dry spot in the streets, no matter how Lestrade had tried to keep things quiet. And as the stories from the families of the missing persons began to appear in the papers, panic would begin to rise. For the moment, it was simply a shocking spectacle to be gossiped about in every house in London.

"Was there talk before the day the torsos were discovered? About hands or feet or anything else?"

"Been plenty of talk, just fun at first. The Crouch gang kicking up a fuss, or a schoolboy prank. There's no shortage of dead, after all, and larks will be had."

John nodded. Doctors who weren't loyal to their suppliers were delivered rather decrepit merchandise, usually arranged in some grotesque pantomime; and anatomy students, once they got past their initial shock, treated dissection rooms with very little gravitas. Students in his year woke with skulls next to their heads on their pillow or their feet looped with lengths of intestine.

"T'other night, Hannagan was telling tales about the walking dead, bodies just falling apart as they go, stumbling about the pub with a laugh." The man gave a shrug and shifted his posture, resting his elbows on his knees and letting his hands droop between. "When th' papers started to give more details, there was more talk, but no one knew anythin'."

"Or if they did, they were not speaking of it."

"Just so." The man sniffed, then took out his handkerchief again.

John felt a lot of words were getting said but that he was certainly not getting his guinea's worth. "Have you had any new buyers this last year?"

"Besides a whole new crop of medical students?" The man gave this some thought, but John suspected this was a purposeful lingering. John flashed a second coin, rolling it between his fingertips. "I imagine I might've had one request I turned down. But it was months ago, spring." He shrugged. "Not really a strange one, but it were the end o' the season and I take the missus to the seaside."

"What was the request?"

"Weren't the request so much as… 'E wanted fresh dead. They all do, true, but 'e was a picky gent. Din't want no drowners, puffy from the water. No broken necks, neither. Suffocated was the best, 'e said. From his tone, I got th' impression 'e didn't care how I came by a corpse practically warm and unmarred."

Some excitement must have glinted in John's eye, for the man chose this moment to stick out his hand for the coin. He handed it over, gladly. This could be the lead he and Sherlock had been looking for.

"So, he implied you were to murder people and bring him the fresh corpses?"

"Oh, not in so many words, sir. But a lot o' the doctors talk that way, sayin' they'll ask no questions, that they don't want to know. They don't mind breakin' the law, but they don't want t' admit it."

"And what happened when you said no? He let you just walk away?"

"Why wouldn't he? I cain't exactly go to the magistrate. And what would I tell him that wouldn't earn me a fine, or time in gaol, and a reputation for loose lips? I know my business, Doctor Watson, and I know my place in the world."

"Do you recall the name of the man who made this request?"

Corbeau's man rose from his seat in front of the fireplace.

"Listen, a few minutes by the fire won't do aught but thaw me out before I go back into the wind. I've not been offered a swig or a bone and certainly not coin near what I been promised."

"Couple more guineas for a name?"

The man scoffed.

"I crossed the city in the cold, believin' that you wanted a special order. I ask seven guineas for a young boy, ten for a young girl. Each detail after that is another guinea, hair color and the like. A woman dead from childbirth, with stillborn, is twelve. A particular corpse is at least fifteen, depending on the trouble I take and how far afield I had to go to get it. Twenty if I've to deal with Crouch south of th' river."

"That's outrageous. No information you could possibly have would be worth twenty guineas!"

"Well, that is up to you to decide, I'm sure."

John could pay it. There was enough coin in the purse Matthews had tucked in his jacket, and John knew Sherlock wouldn't care about the money; it likely wouldn't even cross the man's mind. But John couldn't bear the thought of handing over such a sum for information that may or may not yield anything of consequence. He'd heard of very fresh bodies occasionally going for that much depending on the condition and time of year and the desperation and reputation of the buyer, but it wasn't like he was asking the man to risk himself over this.

Or perhaps he was. John eyed the man. He had grown more fidgety as they spoke and John recognized the look of a man taking stock of the various exits of a room. Bad enough if the man left without more than piquing John's interest. Worse if the man decided he was going to get paid whether John took the offer of information or not.

"Have you a name to give me, then?" John moved his cane up over his knees so his hand could take a firmer grasp on the length of wood.

"An address."

"And I'm supposed to trust you, why?"

"Don't care if you trust me, Doctor. Do you want the address or not?"

"Not for twenty guineas." John moved to the edge of his chair, as if he were about to stand and leave the room.

"Fifteen then."

"Ten, in addition to the two I've already given you, with half after you take me to the address and I confirm that you didn't just pick a house out of your hat."

This low offer disgruntled the man and he retorted with a grunt.

"Is that an agreement?" John asked.

"Fine, but I hain't got all night. Hand over the five now, and we must be on our way."

John dipped into the purse and pulled out a few more coins, trying not to make it obvious exactly how much he had left clinking in the bag. "I imagine all yellowboys are acceptable."

The man examined what he was given and, finding the gold coins satisfactory, tucked them into his raggedy clothes with the others. John pulled out another five and put them loose in a pocket, then stood, hiding the weakness of his leg as much as he was able.

"Matthews, my coat."

"Of course, sir."

Matthews draped him in, within moments, a new woolen overcoat with a layered cape hanging from shoulder to elbow. He murmured for John to check the pockets when he drew in close. John topped himself with a hat and tugged on a pair of gloves. He could feel the weight of his gun in his left pocket, and the small reloading kit in his right.

"Do let me remind you, Doctor Watson, that this is the last of the greatcoats until the new order arrives from the tailor's. Even given Mr. Holmes' habits, we had not supposed the two of you would discard them with such haste."

Matthews had a bit of a smile on his lips despite his dry tone and John couldn't help but chuckle in return before turning his attention to Corbeau's man.

"How far do we travel this night?" John asked. He wanted to tell Matthews when he'd be home just in case Sherlock returned.

"Not terribly far. West Side."

Which meant not as far south as the Thames and somewhere in the more affluent areas of London. Interesting.

"Well, then, Matthews, I shall not be exceedingly late, I hope. If Mr. Holmes returns, please inform him of my direction and that I will return home forthwith."

"Yes, sir."