by M. J. Trow
‘Well?’ Lestrade snapped, one hour of his twenty-four appreciably eaten into already.
The constable looked up from Lestrade’s copperplate to its author. He took in the jaundiced skin, the scarred cheeks and forehead, the nose without a tip and the patient, tired eyes.
‘It’s not bad, sir,’ Skinner said.
‘I beg your pardon?’ The inspector’s jaw hung slacker than was usual.
‘A little heavy on the gerundives, perhaps, and I fear you have split three infinitives. But I particularly like the use of hendiadys in line thirty-eight . . .’
‘What the devil are you talking about, constable?’ Lestrade was nonplussed.
‘The report, sir. You asked my views on it.’
‘I meant its contents, man! What do you think of the Fellowes case?’
‘Ah, I see. Well, I’m afraid I didn’t read the last section, sir, the coroner’s report and so on.’
‘Why not?’ Lestrade raised an eyebrow in much the same manner that Frost had done moments earlier.
‘Blood, sir. I don’t really care for the violent side of life.’
‘Indeed?’ Lestrade leaned forward, dunking his tie nicely into his tea. ‘Then why did you sign on to be a constable?’
‘Oh, I didn’t, sir. That is, I did, but I wanted to be a sort of back-room boy, you know, working on ciphers and codes and forgeries and so on.’
Lestrade sat back with a glazed expression and his glaze met that of Constable Dew, who coughed politely. ‘I’ve got the station wagon here to take you and Mrs Bandicoot to the station.’
‘Now there’s an example,’ Skinner went on. ‘Constable Dew’s last sentence was a triumph of bathos. He used the word “station” twice.’
All three policemen looked at each other.
‘The use of the second “station” was anti-climacteric; redundant . . .’
‘. . . which is, I suspect, what you will be, come morning,’ nodded Lestrade. ‘It’s all clear to me now.’
‘Oh, good,’ smiled Skinner, on another plane entirely. ‘What is?’
‘The reason for Chief Inspector Abberline’s smile when I met him a few moments ago and told him I had been ordered to take you off his hands. It all makes perfect sense.’ He sighed and reached for his boater. ‘Over there,’ he said to Skinner, ‘is a pile of personal papers belonging to the late Captain Fellowes. Your job is to sift through them by tonight. And Skinner . . .’
‘Sir?’
‘We are looking for reasons for the man’s sudden death, not his style of written English. Savvy?’
‘Ah.’ Skinner’s eyes lit up. ‘From the French savoir: to know. And more closely, from the Spanish sabe usted. I had no idea you were such a linguist, Inspector.’
‘And I had no idea you were such a . . .’
‘Sholto!’ Letitia Bandicoot’s head popped round the door. ‘Shall we go?’
Lestrade threw a spare collar into his battered Gladstone. ‘Keep this man supplied with tea, Walter. If he talks to you, there’s a dictionary here somewhere . . .’
IT WAS EARLY EVENING by the time Inspector Lestrade groped his way through the dolomitic conglomerate crevice that was Wookey Hole. He had left Letitia with Harry at Bandicoot Hall and grabbing Harry’s trap, had jolted across country, rattling under Glastonbury Tor, hurtling around the George and Pilgrims’ Corner on one wheel and grinding at last to a halt at the cave entrance.
Harry had been no more helpful than Letitia had been. But both of them had a profound sense of unease and Letitia had taken the reins in her hands and gone to the Yard and to Sholto Lestrade. And since the body of Richard Tetley had been found in the Hole, it was natural that it was here Lestrade should start his enquiries. He and Harry went back a long way and if Harry or Harry’s wife asked for help, that was enough for him. The trouble with Harry was that he had an astonishing sense of duty and of loyalty and of honour. The late Richard Tetley had taken the Dower House some months before and had therefore become a tenant in an odd sort of way. And Harry looked after his tenants. He mowed with them when they mowed his corn. He laughed with them when they laughed and he helped to bury them when they died.
Caves were not Lestrade’s favourite places. He kept his boater on in case a monstrous brood of vampire bats should suddenly sweep out of the darkness. He clutched the lantern Harry had thoughtfully lent in one hand and he clutched his crutch in the other. One could never be too careful in caves. Dolomitic conglomerate was soft, Harry had told him as a guide to Wookey, but Lestrade’s shins soon told a different story as he tapped his way into the innermost recesses of the pudding stone. At first, the wooden walkways and duckboards placed there for the curious among the summer visitors helped him, but they soon gave way to slippery, green channels and he raised the lantern to gaze in awe on the giant rock formations, jutting primevally from the ancient dark.
‘Watch out for the witch!’ a voice boomed nearby. Or was it far away? It roared and ricocheted with a thunderous echo that made Lestrade drop his lantern and his crutch.
‘Sorry, old boy. Just my idea of a joke,’ the voice boomed on. ‘Over here. To your right.’
Lestrade floundered till he found the lantern and steadied himself on an outcrop while trying to relight it.
The owner of the voice emerged beneath a lurid green light. ‘Bulleid.’ He extended a hand.
‘Who is?’ Lestrade wondered how the cave’s occupant could pick out an ocular deficiency at that distance. Perhaps if you lived in caves, you became more proficient at these things.
‘I am,’ the green face said. ‘Arthur Bulleid. Archaeologist.’
‘Ah.’ Lestrade reached forward to the outstretched hand, and fetched himself a sharp one on something hard and groin-height in front of him.
‘That was a stalagmite.’ Bulleid smiled. ‘Place is riddled with ’em. Mind how you go.’
Lestrade wondered through his tears whether this man knew Sergeant Dixon at the Yard, whose favourite phrase that was. ‘You said something about a witch?’ he asked.
‘Just my little joke,’ guffawed Bulleid again. ‘She’s up there. See?’ He pointed to a projection of rock, twisted and gnarled into the profile of a grotesque old hag. ‘The Mother-in-law of Wookey. Now, let me see. You are . . . ?’
‘In pain.’ Lestrade sank gratefully on to a rock ledge only to rise again with a further feeling of distinct discomfort.
‘No, I wouldn’t sit down. There are puddles everywhere. Besides, never know when you’ll find a flint implement – and believe me, they’re damned sharp, some of them. Are you an archaeologist or one of those damned tourist chappies?’
‘Neither,’ said Lestrade. ‘I’m a policeman.’
‘Good Lord.’ Bulleid squinted at him through the lantern’s green gleam. ‘So you are. You’ve come about old Tetley, no doubt.’
‘You found him, I gather?’
‘That’s right, Mr . . . er . . . ?’
‘Lestrade, Scotland Yard.’
‘Oh, the Yard.’
‘You know our work?’
‘No. But I did read a pamphlet on the body they found when they were building the Opera House, which was later occupied by your chaps.’
‘Yes. Quite. Now, about Tetley . . .’
‘He was over here,’ Bulleid said, leaving Lestrade to stagger like a straw-hatted crippled mole in the darkness behind him. At a point where the slimy floor of the cavern widened, Bulleid suddenly crouched, pointing to an area cordoned off in blue ribbon. ‘Here,’ he said, scratching instinctively with his trowel.
‘Is this cordon yours, sir?’ Lestrade asked.
‘Good Lord, no. Local constabulary put it there. Annoying really. I was hoping for a fascine. Or at least some crannogs.’
Lestrade wondered why the man hadn’t brought his sandwiches, but it seemed impolite to ask.
‘You found him two days ago?’
‘Yes. Shortly after midday.’
‘He was lying here?’ Lestrade did his best to
crouch, but, one-legged, it did not come easy and he gave it up as a bad job.
‘That was the damnedest thing. Someone had laid him out as though for burial.’
‘With his hands across his chest, you mean?’
‘Yes, but rather after the manner of the Pharaohs, as though in a sarcophagus.’
‘Can you think why that should be?’ Lestrade asked, wondering if the latter were some kind of trance.
‘Well, Tetley was an Egyptologist. Rather fitting, I suppose.’
‘An Egyptologist, sir?’
Bulleid perched himself on a stalagmite. ‘He had excavated tombs in Upper Egypt, Mr Lestrade. Thebes, Luxor. It was at Luxor he found the tomb of Amenhotep. It was the find of the century.’
‘Was it?’ Lestrade was doubly in the dark.
‘You must have heard of it. Happened back in . . . let me see . . . ’91. Yes, that would be it. Made old Tetley’s career, of course.’
‘How old was he?’
‘Fifty or so. Between you and me, he wasn’t much of an archaeologist. Like that Schliemann chappie, only British of course. Bit of a showman.’
‘What did you do when you found the body?’
‘Damned near filled my breeks, I don’t mind tellin’ you. I mean, fossilized remains, Etrurian excrement, mummified fingers, all that’s in a day’s work. But this one was a threat fresh.’
‘How fresh, would you say?’
Bulleid rummaged in his rucksack for a cigar. ‘Well, he was still warm, if that’s any help. Smoke?’
‘No, thank you. Did you see anyone else – in the cave or nearby?’
‘Old Spiggot, the guide.’
‘He works here?’
‘In a manner of speaking,’ puffed Bulleid. ‘Shows people round for sixpence a throw.’
‘And was there anyone here that morning?’
‘There may have been. You’ll have to ask him. The arrangement is that he keeps them to the lower levels in the mornings only. I have free run of the place in the afternoon. Good Lord.’ He snapped shut his hunter with its luminous dial. ‘Is that the time? I’m due at the Bandicoots.’
‘So am I. Shall we?’
BUT LESTRADE DID NOT go to Bandicoot Hall. Time was short and there were pressing questions to be asked if he was to put Harry’s mind at rest about the demise of Richard Tetley. He borrowed Harry’s trap and sped through the lovely summer’s evening to the quaint little cottage where lived Old Spiggot, the guide. Bearing in mind the old boy eked out a living in the days of his dotage by talking his way around the cave at Wookey, he was about as articulate as a Billingsgate slab. But what he lacked in bonhomie was compensated for by his wife, Old Mrs Spiggot. She was in the process of talking the hindleg off Harry’s horse, when Lestrade took pity on the animal and whipped it south-east in the direction of the Dower House, home of the former Richard Tetley, deceased.
The Old Spiggots, for all the lady’s loquacity, were not much help. Tuesday had been a typical day. Old Spiggot must have shown a dozen or so people the cave. No, he’d noticed no one in particular. There was a rather weasly man with a bad cough and a woman with an outsize ear trumpet who kept knocking Spiggot’s hat off, but nothing untoward. Spiggot had been a bit annoyed to find Mr Tetley there too early – the arrangement was specifically for twelve midday and Old Spiggot had definitely heard the bells of Wells striking eleven as he arrived.
The Dower House on the Bandicoot estate was less opulent than the Bandicoots’, but older – an Elizabethan edifice on the classic ‘E’ plan, with curling brick chimneys, redundant now in the warmth of summer. The place was a silent silhouette against the sunset when Lestrade reined in on the gravel drive. He was shown in by an equally silent silhouette of a butler who checked Lestrade’s credentials and ushered him reverently into a parlour where Richard Tetley lay in a silk-lined coffin.
‘A glass top,’ Lestrade commented, admiring the rich mahogany and gilded fittings. ‘Isn’t that rather unusual?’
‘I believe it is an American custom, sir,’ the butler intoned. ‘Mr Tetley spent several years in the United States. After Egypt, it was his second love.’
‘I see. Tell me . . . er . . .’
‘Hickok, sir.’
‘. . . Hickok, was Mr Tetley married?’
‘To his work, sir.’
‘Quite,’ sighed Lestrade, knowing that feeling well. But he heard the grandfather in the hall chime nine and his twenty-four hours were running out. ‘Was there a woman in his life, Hickok?’
The butler turned the colour of mildew. ‘Oh, no, sir,’ he whispered. ‘I had the honour to serve Mr Tetley for thirty years. Never in that time has there been . . . a . . . woman.’
Lestrade circled the room, letting his fingers play for a while on the Egyptian figurines on the sideboard.
‘Anubis,’ Hickok said, as Lestrade stared at a marble carving.
‘Really?’ Lestrade knew a thing or two about art. He had once met Mr Alma-Tadema. ‘Looks more like a jackal. Was Mr Tetley in the habit of going to the cave at Wookey regularly?’
‘Of recent weeks, sir, yes. He was, I believe, working with a Mr Bulleid.’
‘Yes, I’ve met him. Another archaeologist.’
Hickok sniffed disapprovingly. ‘If you say so, sir.’
‘Mr Bulleid says so.’ Lestrade smiled. ‘Do I gather you don’t approve, Hickok?’
The butler pulled himself upright so that his starched shirt-front creaked. ‘I am a gentleman’s gentleman, sir. The son and grandson of a gentleman’s gentleman. It is not my place to disapprove.’
‘I see.’ Lestrade reached for a cigar, caught the butler’s quivering nostril, for which he duly apologized and put the cigar away. ‘Have the local constabulary been here?’
‘We have!’ A voice made him turn. ‘And we’ve returned.’
A large, ruddy man in a Panama and shirt-sleeves stood grinning between two constables. ‘Lestrade of the Yard, is it?’ he asked archly.
‘You’ve heard of me?’ Somewhere Lestrade too had an ego.
‘No. But I met Mr Arthur Bulleid earlier and he told me you were in the area. This would be the logical place to find the long nose of the Yard. I also met Mr Harold Bandicoot.’
‘Harry,’ Lestrade corrected him.
‘He may be Harry to you, Inspector, but to me he is a potential suspect.’
‘I mean he was christened Harry. And what do you mean “suspect”, Inspector . . . er . . . ?’
‘Chief Inspector,’ the ruddy-faced man felt compelled to correct him. ‘Guthrie. Somerset Constabulary. Hickok, get out!’
The grandson of a gentleman’s gentleman bowed and left while Guthrie’s constables flanked the door.
‘Gives you the creeps this place, doesn’t it?’ Guthrie reached for a cigar.
Lestrade looked disapprovingly and quivered his nostril until Guthrie put it away.
‘All this,’ the chief inspector went on, ‘all this old stuff.’
‘Egyptology.’ Lestrade limped to the mantelpiece. ‘Anubis.’ He picked up the figure.
‘I thought you said it was a jackal, sir,’ a constable said to his guv’nor.
Guthrie’s look said it all. ‘Remind me to put you back on the horse troughs at Weston tomorrow, Cherill.’
‘Very good, sir.’ The chastened constable saluted.
‘What is your interest in the case, Lestrade?’ Guthrie asked, reclining on a chaise-longue crafted in the manner of Upper Egypt. ‘Egyptology, is it?’
‘Mr Tetley was a friend of Mr Bandicoot,’ Lestrade said.
‘. . . who is a friend of yours?’
‘Quite so,’ Lestrade nodded. ‘Why is he a suspect? And what is the crime?’
‘The crime,’ guffawed Guthrie, ‘is lying in that box. People don’t just keel over and die in caves, Lestrade, even if they do suffer from hydrophobia. Mr Tetley was in the prime of life. A resilient fifty-three. Not unlike my good gentleman self, in fact.’
‘Murder, then?’ Lestrad
e probed his man.
‘Of course. At the moment by person or persons unknown.’
‘But you suspect Harry Bandicoot?’
‘I suspect everyone.’ Guthrie nodded sagely.
Lestrade hobbled over to the coffin. ‘You’ve checked the body?’
‘Of course.’
‘Cause of death?’
Guthrie got to his feet. ‘Now, look, Lestrade. I’m not one of your Yard rookies, y’know. You’ve got no official jurisdiction in this case. None whatever.’
‘The Yard’s writ runs everywhere,’ Lestrade countered.
‘Only when it’s been called in by the Chief Constable of the County. And that hasn’t happened yet, has it?’
Lestrade was forced to concede it had not. ‘Even so, I would like to have your views on what you find. Or to examine the corpse myself.’
‘Over his dead body!’ Guthrie roared.
‘The coroner’s report, then.’ Lestrade held his ground. He had met blustering chief inspectors before.
‘This is rural Somerset, Lestrade, not smart-alec London. You’ll be lucky if you see it at all.’
‘You realize you are hampering police in the pursuance of their duties?’
‘I know my duty, Lestrade. Until the Yard gets the all-clear, neither you nor anyone else from your High and Mighty Division gets a smell in here. The funeral’s tomorrow and I’ll be closing this room now. Hickok!’
The gentleman’s gentleman duly appeared.
‘This room is to be locked. Now. I will personally return at eight in the morning to see it unlocked. In the meantime, I shall take charge of the key. Mr Lestrade is just leaving.’
The inspector took his hat and brushed past the chief inspector. He heard the door click behind him and made for the waiting trap. On the way, his hand just happened to fall against the harness of the chief inspector’s vehicle and the surprisingly stiff breeze that had risen from nowhere happened to catch the hames and lift them just sufficiently for the horse to wander away in the darkness.
As he cracked his whip, he heard the bewilderment of the Somerset Constabulary behind him.