by M. J. Trow
‘Well enough off to be murdered?’
Watson shrugged.
‘Married?’
‘I think not. But, Lestrade, you know what this means, don’t you?’
‘Tell me, doctor.’
‘If Hughie Ralph was poisoned, it must have been by someone in the club.’
‘Not necessarily, doctor, although of course I shall have to make enquiries. What did the Hertfordshire police do?’
‘Had several pints in The Long Arm. That was about it.’
‘They didn’t find the glow peculiar?’
‘I’m not sure they noticed it.’
‘Probably just as well. Will your fellow Spokesmen be meeting again?’
‘One last jaunt before the weather sets in. We’d planned to do the same route in honour of poor Hughie. Next Sunday, I believe.’
‘Can you get me a machine?’
‘I may have an old Kangaroo available.’ Watson rubbed his chin.
‘I was hoping for a bicycle, doctor,’ Lestrade said, straight-faced.
‘I see no need for levity here, Lestrade. A man is dead.’
‘Indeed,’ said Lestrade, his face unchanging. ‘Let me know when and where to meet, doctor. Pass me off as . . . what . . . a friend, cousin, something. I’ll accompany you and find out what I can. Probably get further that way than in an official capacity. Besides, I’m rather off hooks at the Yard at the moment.’
‘Ah, Nimrod Frost at his surly best, eh?’ Watson recognized a suspended policeman when he saw one. ‘All right. Sunday, at dawn. Corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. I’ll bring the machine. Have you a Norfolk jacket and plus fours?’
‘I expect young Dew here can lift me those articles from Police Lost Property, Islington. In the meantime, doctor, I’d like from you a detailed list of club members and Constable Skinner can start earning his keep by making some enquiries at the Stock Exchange. Two more teas, Dew.’
Lestrade came off suspension that Saturday. A cursory nod from Assistant Commissioner Frost was all he got in recognition of the fact. Skinner had been prised out of Lestrade’s office, on the desk of which he had left ‘Lestrade’s’ specs, still occasionally finding time to search for his own, and had gone to the City. Lilley had been despatched to the rooms of the late Hughie Ralph in Bloomsbury. He was still visibly shaken when he returned, and not a little stirred.
‘Why is it, constable,’ Lestrade peered over the steaming tea, ‘that whenever you return from a routine enquiry you look like death?’
‘Sergeant Dixon is on the desk, sir.’ Lilley sat down heavily. ‘He got his finger caught in a ledger. It’s all turned blue . . .’ his eyes rolled upwards.
‘Yes, well, it will match his uniform, lad. Now, concentrate. Bloomsbury. Ralph’s rooms.’
‘Ransacked, sir.’ Lilley shook himself free of the spectacle of abject horror he had witnessed.
‘Ralph’s rooms ransacked?’ Lestrade put his cup down. ‘You’d better tell me about it, constable.’
Lilley consulted his notebook. ‘I entered the premises at Number One hundred and forty-eight, Gower Street at eight o’clock this morning, sir. I was let in by the housekeeper, a Mrs Beeton . . .’
The Yard men looked at each other. ‘Good,’ said Lestrade.
‘The place was in . . .’ Lilley strained to read his own writing.
‘Gower Street?’ suggested Lestrade.
‘Turmoil,’ said Lilley. ‘Furniture upside-down, drawers scattered about. Cushions ripped.’
‘What did the housekeeper make of it?’
‘Rather more of a mess, sir, or she would have if I hadn’t stopped her and told her it was evidence.’
‘Quite right. When had she seen Ralph last?’
‘On the Friday previous, sir. He had given her the week off on account of her ailing sister in Macclesfield.’
Lestrade had been there. He knew there wasn’t much else to do but ail in Macclesfield.
‘And when had she returned?’
‘The previous evening, sir.’
‘Did she enter Ralph’s rooms?’
‘No, sir. The first time was when I knocked her up, so to speak. Proper shocked, she was. First by all the mess, then by the news of the master’s death, as she put it. She was quite taken queer, had to sit down.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Well, I must admit I had to sit down with her. Quite turned us both up.’
‘Did she have any idea why the rooms had been turned over?’
‘None,’ Lilley shrugged. ‘Nor could she tell me what was missing. I tried to pump her.’
Lestrade looked askance. ‘Really?’ he said again.
‘I suggested it might be students from the University.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She didn’t think they’d bother to come all the way down from Oxford.’
‘Forced entry?’
‘No sign of it, sir.’
‘Pass key, then?’
‘Probably.’
‘Valuables taken?’
‘Some nice antique vase things still there, one smashed. Quite a bit of silver. Loose cash. A few bonds.’
‘Bonds?’
‘That’s what Mrs Beeton said they were. Is it a clue, do you think?’
‘I leave clues to Drs Watson and Conan Doyle, Lilley.’ Lestrade leaned back with his hands behind his head. ‘I deal in evidence. Ah.’ He turned at the click of the door. ‘Constable Skinner. What news of Change Alley?’
‘The bottom’s gone out of South African gold, sir,’ Skinner told him.
The inspector shook his head. ‘It had to come,’ he said ruefully.
‘It’s the cyanide process, of course.’
‘You’re a mine of information today, Skinner. What’s all this got to do with Hughie Ralph?’
‘Is that how he died, sir?’ Lilley asked. ‘The cyanide process?’
Lestrade and Skinner looked at each other. ‘May I, sir?’
Skinner asked. ‘In the cyanide process of mining, the ore is crushed and treated with a three per cent solution of . . .’
‘Yes, thank you, constable,’ Lestrade interrupted him, ‘we’ll leave the percentage solutions to others, shall we? I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment without a blow by blow account of the mysteries of Witwatersrand.’
He cocked a smug eyebrow at Skinner. Only that morning he had read that word in the Sun. His timing was perfect. ‘Hughie Ralph,’ he repeated.
‘Would appear to have been a rather shady gentleman.’ Skinner sat down and opened a capacious Gladstone bulging with papers. ‘I’ve only had a few minutes to compile a few notes, sir, on my way back from the Exchange.’
‘And?’
‘Railways, sir. A major fraud as far as I can ascertain from the figures, running to several thousand pounds.’
‘Where?’
‘The Belgian Congo.’
‘Convenient,’ Lestrade mused.
‘Ah, but that’s the beauty of it, sir. Railway frauds have been impossible in this country since George Hudson.’
‘Before my time, constable,’ Lestrade shrugged.
‘And mine, sir, but in Africa, well, corruption is rife. He sold shares in six fictitious companies.’
‘Ruined hundreds, I suppose?’
‘No doubt, but one in particular.’
‘Ah?’
‘This is only gossip, of course, Inspector.’
‘Of course, constable, but where would we be without it?’
‘A little jobber I know on the floor told me of an unfortunate named Elliott. From riches to rags overnight apparently.’
‘Do we know the whereabouts of this Elliott?’
‘The workhouse, perhaps in Poplar. I couldn’t glean more than that.’
Lestrade nodded. ‘Any other specific names in this swindle?’
‘None I could find. Most of them were Dutchmen or Germans in the Congo.’
‘No Belgians?’
‘Too
mean, apparently,’ Skinner observed.
‘Right. Lilley, get over to Poplar. Find this Elliott and get what you can from him. You’ve done well, Skinner. Ask Constable Dew for one of his excellent cups of tea and then write up all this paperwork. I’ve got to get on my bicycle.’
SUNDAY DAWNED CHILLY and crisp. Lestrade had donned a borrowed Norfolk jacket and plus fours, courtesy of the Police Lost Property Department, and met Dr Watson at the end of Tottenham Court Road.
‘Morning, Lestrade,’ he greeted him.
‘I think so.’ Lestrade peered through bloodshot eyes and tightened the tweed cap-flaps under his chin. ‘But I wouldn’t put money on it.’
‘Couldn’t get you a Kangaroo,’ Watson told him. Lestrade breathed a sigh of relief. ‘But I thought this Facile was rather appropriate for you.’
Lestrade looked at the dwarf ordinary resting against the wall. It suddenly looked infinitely more dangerous than the horse he had borrowed from the Yorkshire Hussars. It had a large wheel at the front and a smaller one at the back and a saddle like the business end of a harpoon. He looked with envy at Watson’s bamboo-framed Whippet and snarled inwardly.
‘Heigh-ho for the open road,’ called Watson, suddenly a changed man as the ground sped beneath him and he swung a leg over his saddle bags and was gone. Not so Lestrade. He had never been a scorcher. Not for him the running start and the flying wheel. He squared his back against the wall and gingerly stepped on to the pedals. His groin was thrust upwards somewhere below his cravat and he crouched, as he saw Watson doing ahead of him in the mist.
‘Come on, Lestrade,’ the doctor called.
‘There’s an east wind blowing, Watson,’ Lestrade said by way of explanation that he was veering sideways. He could have managed a safety bicycle, but the Facile was a sportsman’s machine and at dawn on that Sunday, Lestrade felt anything but a sportsman.
The still-sleeping city fell behind and, one by one, waving figures fell in behind the pair. Watson, at the head, sounded a bugle as each newcomer arrived and they made for the country. The sun was high and the ground mist had all but cleared as the little troupe wheeled into the village of Lemsford. They had decided not to go on to Tewin because their latest recruit was already lagging far behind. They had been riding for hours and Lestrade was not ready for the sudden camber by the bridge. Watson blasted his bugle to slacken speed, but Lestrade was not attuned to the notes and the Facile sailed serenely onwards as the others took the bend. Lestrade gestured frantically, emitting a silent scream as man and machine parted company in mid-air, only to meet again in the great equalizer of the River Lea.
There was a scramble down the bank and members of the Wheel of Fortune Club hurried to the inspector’s rescue. Facile and fallen were lifted bodily out of the murky waters, both dangling with weeds.
‘Are you all right. . . er . . . Lister?’ Watson remembered the agreed alias.
‘Yes,’ Lestrade trilled, a little too brittly to be truly convincing. ‘Faulty chain, I think.’
‘Better get him into The Long Arm,’ said Watson. ‘He’s delirious.’
Mine host was less than genial, but after much arguing and the crossing of palms with silver, he allowed Lestrade to bath and lent him a rustic dressing gown on which his senile pet mastiff was prone to sleep. The smell would have dropped a weaker man, but Lestrade sat in the snug while the club members toasted themselves by the fire and talked of this and that. Watson stood up after the beef sandwiches and held his tankard aloft. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘members of the Wheel of Fortune, I give you absent friends.’
‘Absent friends,’ they chorused. Lestrade watched them intently. Two did not drink. He would talk to them later. First, he must rescue his socks from the flames.
It was a little after two o’clock that the troupe set off, Watson blowing his bugle with the sort of hot air that had made him famous in his own little way. Lestrade’s jacket had shrunk and his cuffs barely reached to his elbows. What with the smell of the incontinent mastiff and the Lea about him, he was not pleasant company. Besides, the fall at the bridge had knocked his saddle askew and his left knee protruded at an odd angle to maintain his foot’s contact with the pedal. He slid his machine into line along the Great North Road beside the lady who had not drunk the toast.
‘A lovely day, Miss . . .’
‘Trelawney,’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen you before, Mr . . .’
‘Lister,’ Lestrade said. ‘I fear the good doctor didn’t introduce me.’
‘Have you recovered from your cropper, Mr Lister?’ she asked, beginning to scent something about Lestrade.
‘Oh, yes, quite, quite,’ he laughed. ‘Confoundedly silly, really. Faulty chain.’
‘I see.’
His knee brushed her voluminous skirts and she veered away. Unsure of himself or the Facile, he veered with her and furthered his cause. ‘I understand one of your club passed away on the last ride.’
‘Why, yes.’ She looked at him through her veil, an attractive girl of uncertain years, though pale and weak-looking. ‘Hughie Ralph. This ride was in his honour, really.’
‘I couldn’t help noticing, Miss Trelawney, that when we drank a health to absent friends, you didn’t drink.’
She turned away.
‘I assume absent friends did refer to Mr Ralph?’ he persisted, his knee prodding her upper thigh.
‘I assumed so too, Mr Lister,’ she said.
‘Didn’t you like him?’ Lestrade asked, keeping his banter as light as he could and his eyes on the road.
She turned to him sharply. ‘No, Mr Lister, though I can’t imagine what business it is of yours, I did not like Mr Ralph. He was a boor. Insulting. He spoke incessantly of his money, of his prowess in the world of business. And he made revolting remarks.’
‘Remarks?’ Lestrade wobbled closer.
‘Yes,’ she hissed, ‘but even he was not so revolting as you!’ Miss Trelawney brought her brass Cyclorne sharply down on Lestrade’s offending knee and he swerved away, howling instinctively. She pedalled furiously and wedged herself between two other ladies as Lestrade left the road. To the astonished surprise of the other members of the club, he hurtled across a ditch and ascended a slope before coming to a halt in a hawthorn bush.
‘What’s he doing?’ one member asked another.
‘Gone for a pedal, I suppose,’ came the reply.
‘Rides like a policeman,’ said a third.
‘You go on,’ called Lestrade. ‘Call of nature,’ and he disappeared behind a tree as though to relieve himself. He did so by banging his head on the rough bark to try to alleviate the pain in his leg. Then he dragged the Facile back to the road to tackle his next target.
‘Good run,’ he called gaily to the man who had not drunk the toast at The Long Arm.
‘Care to make it better?’ he asked.
‘I don’t follow,’ Lestrade told him.
‘Neither do I. I lead,’ he said. ‘Cecil.’ He shook Lestrade’s hand and their front wheels nuzzled together.
‘Lister. Do you mean a race?’ Lestrade hoped he hadn’t heard right.
‘Exactly. Five pounds says I’ll make it to the Tottenham Court Road before you. Are you game?’
‘Why not?’ Lestrade beamed through clenched teeth, noting the gathering gloom of dusk.
‘You’ve got a lamp?’ Cecil asked.
‘Oh, yes. Tell me, before we start – shocking about old Ralph.’
‘Wasn’t it?’ Cecil said without feeling. ‘Did you know him?’
‘Vaguely,’ said Lestrade, ‘via the City. Colleague of a colleague. That sort of thing. You didn’t like him either?’
Cecil looked at him. ‘Not particularly. I’ll be frank, Lister. Hughie Ralph was an exhibitionist. All this standing on the handlebars, circling on one wheel. Rank showing off.’
‘He was a scorcher, then?’
‘Of the inferior type, yes.’
‘So you weren’t sorry when he died?’
‘I’m game,’ Watson called, amazed at Lestrade’s bravery. ‘Are you sure about this, Lister?’
Lestrade smiled, weakly.
‘Lamps on, gentlemen.’ Watson stood on his pedals and sounded the bugle. Like a bat out of hell, Cecil sped forward, spraying Lestrade with the contents of a puddle. Watson hunched crablike over the handlebars. ‘Come on Lestrade,’ he whispered, ‘can’t let the side down now. If you don’t put up a good show, the others may smell a rat. I told them you were something of a scorcher yourself.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Lestrade and his left foot slipped off the pedal. Arguably, the rat was preferable to the mastiff, but there it was.
‘Tally ho!’ shouted Watson and he shot away into the country.
By the time they rattled through the suburbs, it was well and truly dark. Watson and Lestrade vied with each other for last place, skirmishing with little boys with sticks, haycarts and yapping dogs as they rode. Of Cecil, there was no sign, until Lestrade caught sight of him, pedalling like a maniac along Oxford Street at the end of their run. By now, the inspector’s cap had gone, his legs felt like lead and the Facile was heavy with mud. Who was to say whether it was the clutch of constables on duty or the tramlines or both that ended the race, at least for Lestrade? Certainly, his wheels became inexorably linked with the metal grooves in the road and so his path was more or less mapped out for him. Struggling to turn his wheels, he found them locked. Struggling to use his brakes, he found them jammed. Struggling to avoid the front of the oncoming tram, he fell off and bowled over the three constables who were minding their own business on the corner.
‘’Ello,’ said one.
‘’Ello,’ said the second.
‘’Ello,’ said the third. ‘’Aven’t we seen you somewhere before?’
‘Perhaps.’ Lestrade was trying to disentangle his foot from the mangled spokes of his front wheel.
‘I don’t like scorchers,’ one of the constables said, hauling the battered inspector upright. ‘You’re under arrest, laddie.’