by M. J. Trow
‘No, sir.’ Lestrade closed to the four-poster bed. ‘It’s not about Roger.’
‘Not about Roger?’ The old man cupped his good ear. ‘She said it was. Eight children – isn’t it? – and I’m stuck with the imbecile. What’s it about then, Defarge, this other matter?’
‘We think Roger was killed by a man named le Mouton.’ Lestrade heartily wished he hadn’t embarked on this.
‘Ah, bloody Frenchman, eh? Can’t trust ’em, L’Orange. They’re foreign, y’see. Not like you and me. I don’t mind tellin’ you, when I heard that Frog prince was killed by those damned blackamoors in Zululand, I laughed like a bloody drain. Didn’t I, Cleo? You’ll bear me out?’
‘Yes, Papa,’ she said obediently.
‘Sir, were you with your son when he was killed? Last year, I mean,’ Lestrade battled on regardless.
‘God, don’t tell me Mortimer’s gone too. What’s a man supposed to do without his sons?’
‘No, Papa,’ Cleo comforted him. ‘Mr Lestrade is talking about Roger.’
‘Roger?’ He strained round to face her, staring in astonishment. ‘Are you deaf?’ he bellowed. ‘He’s come about another matter.’
The anguish in Cleo’s face told Lestrade he was wasting his time. Still, this was a Yard enquiry. No stone must be left interred.
‘Does the name Perameles mean anything to you, sir?’
‘No.’ Lytton was adamant, shaking his head. ‘I haven’t a son by that name.’
‘What about Coquette?’ Lestrade was clutching at straws, but Lytton suddenly sat bolt upright in bed. He flung the ear trumpet from him and rammed the rattan cane into Lestrade’s navel.
‘I have no son by that name either,’ he hissed and fell back, deadly white and gasping on the pillow.
‘Is he all right?’ Lestrade asked as Cleopatra fussed around her father.
‘He will be,’ she explained. ‘Would you leave us?’
‘I must be going,’ Lestrade said, sensing a wasted journey. ‘I’ll see myself out.’
WALTER DEW’S SIGN LANGUAGE had run out after ‘Hello’ and a slow stagger through the vowels. He hadn’t the courage to tell his guv’nor he had slept through most of that lecture. In any case, Aunt Sybil had just looked at him, bemused. He had finally admitted defeat and left in search of Lestrade or Lilley. The house in Parabola Road unnerved him. It was cold and dark. Ancient Indian gargoyles leered at him from every turn in the corridor and he had a niggling inability to find the hall again. Twice he caught sight of a solitary shadow flitting on a landing above him. It was hunched and twisted and he tightened his grip on his truncheon. The door when he found it came as a relief – an ordinary, everyday object in a house of shadows. He knocked on the mahogany panel.
‘Come in,’ a female voice called. ‘Well, hello.’
At first his eyes could not acclimatize to the room. Then he became aware of a bed facing him and on the bed reclined one of the girls who had brought the tea. A less-experienced man might have missed it, but Dew had been married for some years. The girl on the bed was stark naked except for her stockings and she rolled on to her back and kicked her legs in the air.
There was a giggle and Dew became aware of the other two cousins on either side of him. Like their sister they had discarded their dresses and they ran their hands over his Donegal and tickled his ears.
‘I’m sorry,’ Dew mumbled, flushing crimson in the twilight, ‘wrong room.’
‘Nonsense,’ the girl on the bed crooned. ‘We don’t have many visitors, especially not men.’
She rolled over again and knelt in front of him, the pert cheeks of her bottom high in the air. Dew swallowed hard and felt fingers loosening his waistcoat buttons and an arm thrusting down the waistband of his trousers. He was aware of a heady scent of perfume and of firm nipples nudging against his chest. They were not his own. He backed to the door but the sight of Hope on the bed and the ministrations of Faith and Charity on each side of him were beginning to have their effect.
‘Remember, he’s mine first.’ Hope ran her tongue over her lips.
‘Only until the other two arrive,’ Charity said.
‘Dew!’
The constable leapt back into reality at the sound of his master’s voice and he hauled the girl’s arm out of his kicksies. Prising white knuckles off the door, he wrenched it open and collided with his guv’nor, returning from the bedroom of old man Lytton.
‘Anything untoward, Dew?’ Lestrade noted the high colour, the open waistcoat, the bulge in the trousers. He glanced over the constable’s head to the odd, sweetly smelling darkened room beyond and heard the screams subside to a low moan.
‘No, sir. I . . . er . . . missed my way, sir.’
‘As long as that is all you missed,’ said Lestrade. ‘Where’s Lilley?’
They looked at each other. There was a distant call, as though it came from Hell.
‘Down there,’ said Dew.
‘This way,’ said Lestrade and dashed down the stairs. Dew contemplated sliding down the ornate banister to save time, but he wasn’t ready for that yet and anyway, there was a much bigger knob at the bottom which would have taken the wind out of more than his sails. He took the more conventional risers.
‘Oh, no, it’s the cellar!’ they heard Cleopatra Lytton cry above them.
Lestrade stopped sharply and Dew hit him again. In a tangle of Donegals and bowlers, the two men rolled over the hall floor. Salvaging what they could of their dignity, they struggled upright.
‘Cellar?’ Lestrade looked up at the apparition in white.
‘The floor in the old dining-room. It has a touch of dry rot. And the windows have been boarded up. I fear your colleague has met with an accident.’
Lestrade and Dew followed her to the door through which Lilley had leapt into oblivion. Cleopatra opened it, but held the others back.
‘Lilley?’ Lestrade called.
‘Sir? Is that you?’
‘Where the bloody hell are you? Oh, pardon me, Miss Lytton.’
‘Down here, sir,’ a less than hearty voice called back.
‘How the devil did you get down there?’ Lestrade roared.
‘Oh, it was quite easy, sir, really.’
Lestrade fumbled for his Lucifers, but he couldn’t find them. He couldn’t find his cigars, either. Obligingly, Miss Lytton struck a match for him. They were his brand, too. She held it out into the void and they all saw Lilley lying against a corner, his coat and face filthy, his hair matted with mildew.
‘Are you all right?’ Lestrade called.
‘I think I have broken my ankle, sir,’ Lilley gasped and fainted.
‘Oh, God. Dew, get down there. Miss Lytton,’ the match went out, ‘could you find the constable here a lamp?’
She went in search of one. When it returned, Dew crept gingerly down the slippery stone steps and hauled Lilley over his shoulder in the style of the policeman’s lift and brought him up.
‘He ought to rest,’ Dew said. ‘That ankle looks nasty.’
‘It’ll match the rest of him,’ muttered Lestrade, realizing anew how much of a liability his staff were.
‘I’ll call you a cab,’ Cleopatra said. Lestrade settled for that. He’d been called worse in his time and he and Dew lifted the unconscious constable off Dew’s shoulder and propped him against a bronze elephant in a corner.
‘What do you make of it all, sir?’ Dew whispered in the silence.
‘As little as possible,’ said Lestrade and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the hansom pull up outside. ‘Come on, Dew, it’s what your right arm’s for,’ and he placed Lilley’s bowler on Lilley’s backside as Dew hoisted him out.
‘Thank you, Miss Lytton,’ Lestrade said and a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye made him turn. Cleopatra saw it.
‘Oh, that’s my other sister, Ulrica. She’s not quite the ticket, I’m afraid. Lives in the West Wing.’
‘Yes, of course,’ smiled Lestrade and tipped his bowler.
‘I hope we’ve been of some help in your enquiries, whatever they were,’ she said.
He looked at her, a pale, tragic girl surrounded by maniacs. She obviously had more than her share of crosses to bear, the only sane one among them.
‘Indeed you have,’ said Lestrade. ‘Goodbye, Miss Lytton.’
‘Oh, Inspector,’ she called as he reached the steps and freedom. She held up his matches and cigars. ‘Sorry.’ She grinned a little sheepishly.
‘Ah.’ He tried to laugh it off. ‘They must have fallen out of my pocket when Dew and I tumbled.’
‘Oh . . . and . . .’ She produced his half-hunter and its fob chain.
‘Ah,’ he said.
‘And . . . um . . .’ His wallet came next.
‘Ah.’
‘And of course . . .’ And the brass knuckles with their secret blade. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘One picks up rather nasty habits in Holloway, I’m afraid.’
WHILE DEW SAW TO LILLEY’S wounds at the local infirmary, Lestrade went in search of the last of the Lyttons. The Pittville Pump Room was an elegant edifice in the Regency style with Ionic columns after the fashion of the Ilissus at Athens. All of which architectural splendour was lost on Lestrade who was shown into a robing room and was told that Mr Lytton may be some time and he could either wait or take the waters. The hot steam was delicious after the cold of Number Thirteen, Parabola Road and he hadn’t had a Turkish bath before. He hung his Donegal and bowler on a peg and removed suit and combinations. They gave him a towel which he wrapped round his waist, and he strode out into a fine atrium in the middle of which a steaming pool beckoned.
‘Mr Lytton?’ he whispered to a lounging attendant.
‘Over there,’ he was told, ‘in the red robe.’
Mortimer Lytton was a tall, elegant man of about Lestrade’s own age. He had a finely shaped goatee and a moustache which was clearly used to being waxed and now hung somewhat after the mandarin fashion in the steam.
‘Mr Lytton?’ Lestrade asked again.
The red-robed man peered through the steam. ‘You can call me Coquette,’ he lisped.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Lestrade after a stunned pause.
‘All my friends do.’ Lytton patted Lestrade’s hand. ‘New ones as well as old. What can I call you?’
‘Inspector,’ said Lestrade.
‘Oh, my God!’ and Lytton rose as though to bolt. His towel fell off and he seemed in no hurry to pick it up.
‘Oh, dear, look at that,’ and he preened himself. ‘Would you pick it up for me, Inspector?’
Lestrade looked at him. Here was a healthy, apparently able man, yet he could not pick up a towel. Lytton sensed Lestrade’s surprise and whispered, ‘You daren’t bend over in here.’
Lestrade picked up the towel and allowed Lytton to rerobe.
‘Look,’ Lytton swept the hair back from his forehead, ‘I can explain about the incident in the library . . .’
‘That’s not why I’m here,’ Lestrade said.
‘No?’ Lytton looked furtively around, grateful for the screen the swirling steam provided. ‘Oh, it’s not that farmer’s lad, is it? Because I paid good money to . . . oh dear.’
‘Mr Lytton, I am here in connection with the death of your brother.’
‘Roger?’ Lytton’s screech was falsetto. He tapped Lestrade on the shoulder. ‘Well, why didn’t you say so? Come over here,’ he gestured to a huge marble column, ‘where it’s a bit more private.’ He tapped Lestrade’s shoulder again. ‘You’re quite taut for your age, aren’t you?’ he said, angling his head.
‘Why do they call you Coquette?’ Lestrade asked, keeping his back firmly to the column.
‘Oh, we all have nicknames here. I’ve had mine for ages, ever since I was a small boy, in fact. See him over there . . .’ He gestured to a fat, balding man who sat on a chair under the water. ‘He’s Myra. And that one over there . . .’ He nodded towards one squatting by the poolside. ‘He’s Alice. We’re quite a little fraternity here, you see.’
Lestrade saw and he felt less than at home. ‘The man who may have killed your brother has himself been murdered, Mr Lytton.’
‘No! Get away! Well, I never!’
Lestrade found that hard to believe. ‘Were you in London yesterday, sir?’ he asked.
‘Good Lord, no. Not since that incident in St Paul’s.’
‘St Paul’s?’
‘I used to live in London, Inspector. I sang in the choir. One day – I remember distinctly it was a Palm Sunday – I got . . . quite attached, shall we say, to another choirboy, some years my junior. Well, not to put too fine a point on it, I put my hand up his cassock, only to find another one there already.’
‘His own?’ Lestrade surmised.
‘No, bless your heart, the Dean of St Paul’s, sitting on the other side of him. Well, I couldn’t go back after that. I gave London a very wide berth, thank you very much. How did you find me?’
‘Your sister, Cleopatra,’ Lestrade told him, ‘who, incidentally, says you were in London yesterday.’
‘She’s deranged, Inspector. You must have noticed. How did you find her?’
‘Through your cousin, Letitia Bandicoot.’
Mortimer Lytton’s face fell and he broke away from his casual position against the column. ‘I see,’ he said sourly and his whole demeanour changed. ‘What is it you want?’
‘Some answers.’ Lestrade sensed a raw nerve and went straight for the jugular. ‘For instance, Mr Lytton, do you like chocolates?’
The question caught the man off balance but he steadied himself.
‘Yes, what of it?’
‘Are you familiar with the chocolates of Messrs Rowntree, of York?’
‘I don’t believe so. I have mine sent by trap from Messrs Cadbury’s of Bournville. They too are of the Socialist bent, you see, like we Lyttons.’
Not quite like you Lyttons, hoped Lestrade. ‘What does the name “Perameles” mean to you? Another of your nicknames, perhaps? Or possibly that of one of your . . . friends?’
‘I’ve never heard the name,’ he said. ‘Why all these questions? What has all this to do with brother Roger? If you don’t tell me, I shall become really vicious.’
‘Tut, tut,’ scowled Lestrade. ‘That would never do. I am conducting an enquiry into a series of murders, Mr Lytton. I believe you may be involved.’
‘Murders?’ Lytton turned pale in the steam. ‘Me?’
‘Did you know Archibald Fellowes?’
‘No.’
‘What about Richard Tetley?’
‘What about him?’
‘Did you know him?’ Lestrade’s bonhomie was evaporating with the steam.
‘No. Look, Inspector . . . er . . .’
‘Lestrade.’
‘Lestrade. You mentioned cousin Letitia a moment ago.’
‘I did. What of it?’
‘What of a man whose old flame is found battered to death in a London park?’
‘What?’
‘What of a man who has biceps of iron and could kill anybody just by snapping his fingers?’
‘Are you . . . are you talking about Harry Bandicoot?’
‘The same,’ nodded Lytton grimly.
‘You seem well informed of recent sudden death, Mr Lytton.’
‘I read the newspapers, Inspector. I’ve known Harry Bandicoot for years. Roger was at Eton with him. I don’t know what Bandicoot’s been up to with this Marigold de Lacy. But I warned Letitia at the time. I said, “Don’t marry him, Lettie,” I said. “No good will come of it.” I don’t know what she saw in him. Have you met him?’
‘In passing.’
‘Well, of course I haven’t seen them since the wedding, but we didn’t approve. Take my advice, cherchez l’homme.’
Lestrade was vaguely sure that that wasn’t sound advice and rose to go. ‘You hadn’t planned to leave Cheltenham for a while, Mr Lytton?’
He looked lugubriously at Lestrade. ‘Who’d h
ave me, dear? I’m forty-three.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ sighed Lestrade.
As he reached the door, he heard someone call, ‘Where’s the soap?’ and a chorus of hearty male voices echoed, ‘Yes, it does, doesn’t it?’
LESTRADE DIDN’T USUALLY shop at East India House. His interest in New Art was minimal, and he cared not a jot for the Celtic revival or the Cynuric earthenware and Tudric pewter that the fashionable were paying small fortunes for. He wandered, uncaring and unimpressed, through the gorgeous fabrics and sumptuous carpets. At the feet of a vast peacock wrought in bronze lay the object of his visit – a corpse, not three hours dead, and around it, three grim-faced shopkeepers.
‘Inspector Lestrade, gentlemen. Who found the body?’
‘Gimlet, my nightwatchman,’ the eldest said. ‘I fired him, of course.’
‘Fired him?’ Lestrade knelt beside the body. ‘Why?’
‘What sort of nightwatchman was he, to allow a man to die of a heart attack – and to lie here all night?’
‘Heart attack, Mr . . . er . . . ?’
‘Liberty. Arthur Liberty. What else? People don’t just collapse in a shop, Lestrade, unless . . .’
‘Unless they’ve seen your prices, Mr Liberty?’ Lestrade smiled disarmingly.
‘Well, really . . .’
‘Who are you?’ Lestrade asked the second man, rather younger than the first.
‘George Lazenby,’ he said.
‘And you?’
‘W. J. Howe.’
‘My partners in the firm,’ explained Liberty. ‘I don’t understand why Scotland Yard have been brought in.’
‘Dew,’ Lestrade turned to his constable. ‘Who summoned us?’
‘Gimlet, the nightwatchman.’ Dew had consulted his notebook.
‘There’s one reason to reinstate him, Mr Liberty,’ Lestrade said, pointing to the body. ‘This man has been murdered.’
The three partners looked at each other, Lestrade, the body. They all subconsciously realized there was no point in looking at Dew.