Sherlock Holmes and the Disgraced Inspector

by John Hall

  It was my turn to ask, ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, Doctor, the commissioner did hear of it. I was summoned to appear before the assistant commissioner a couple of days ago, and had another most unpleasant half hour.’

  ‘I fail to see the reason for any unpleasantness, Lestrade,’ said I. ‘Even if the fellow’s alibi was unshakeable, the string of curious events, be they coincidence or no, surely made him an obvious suspect? You would have been remiss indeed had you not questioned him pretty closely.’

  ‘Ah, Doctor, these fellows stick together from school onwards,’ said Lestrade. ‘Anyway, the upshot was that I was instructed to leave poor Sir Octavius to grieve in peace, and get out and look for a gang of robbers.’

  ‘What reason had he for killing his wife?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘Money,’ said Lestrade. ‘By all accounts, Sir Octavius had blown his own inheritance, and such money as there was came from his wife. He couldn’t sell the house, for that is entailed.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Then the wife was insured, and for a hefty amount. And the stuff that was stolen was all hers to boot, jewellery and silver and what have you.’

  ‘I see,’ said Holmes.

  ‘I suspect he’d had his eye on that for some time, as representing a way out of his troubles,’ Lestrade continued, ‘but of course it would be awkward trying to pinch the goods with his wife still there to see. Dead wives don’t nag.’

  ‘Or talk to their fathers, or brothers, or lawyers, or the police,’ I added.

  ‘Indeed not,’ said Lestrade. ‘And for good measure, Sir Octavius is now free to marry another rich woman, of he finds one daft enough. Oh, there’s plenty of motives, Mr Holmes, it’s just a matter of picking the right one. Or two.’

  ‘H’mm. But further investigation has, you say, been firmly ruled out?’

  ‘Very firmly, sir,’ said Lestrade with a rueful grin.

  ‘I may be able to look at that matter myself,’ said Holmes thoughtfully. ‘But I cannot see that this business is any reason for distress on your part. You have had reverses enough in your time — as I have myself,’ he added rather hastily, ‘and I cannot see that one uncomfortable interview with your chief is cause for the condition you appear to be in.’

  ‘If that were all, if it were that and nothing more,’ said Lestrade, ‘I’d grin and bear it. Part of the job, as you say. But it isn’t all, Mr Holmes. Not by a long chalk. As I say, that was a couple of days ago, and the fuss was just starting to die a natural death, so to speak, when this other business happened.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  Lestrade mopped his brow. ‘It all began, you might say, some twenty years ago, before ever I met you, Mr Holmes, or you, Doctor.’ He took a sip of water. ‘In those days I was a young detective sergeant, and keen as mustard. There was me and Toby Gregson, both joined the force at the same time, both made detective at the same time, then sergeant. Not that Toby has anything to do with it, other than the fact that there was a bit of rivalry between us, friendly rivalry. More or less friendly. It kept us both on our toes, eager to please our superiors, eager to make it to inspector.

  ‘Anyway, you don’t want to know about all that, other than that I was keen as mustard to get on, make my name. There was a big case came up, a nasty case, very nasty. Made the headlines in all the newspapers at the time.’ He took another sip from the glass of water which Holmes had given him. ‘Very nasty,’ he repeated. ‘Five young boys, all of them disappeared, and the families distraught. Maybe six, because one went about three, four months before the others. Then five went more or less together, one, two, three, regular as clockwork, one a month, and all around the time of the full moon.’

  ‘A lunatic?’ I suggested.

  Lestrade shrugged. ‘That was one theory, and a popular theory, too, Doctor, yes, the intervals between them being as regular as they were. Or devil-worship, or ghosts, or I don’t know what, was suggested by fanciful folk with nothing better to do than dream up nonsense. Of course, you can imagine the sort of things they were thinking down in the East End, where the boys lived, or had lived. Some of the women there were going frantic, wondering if their kiddy might be next.’

  Holmes nodded. ‘Once again, I have some recollection of the case,’ said he, ‘although I was not living in London at the time.’

  ‘Before your time, sir, like I said,’ agreed Lestrade. ‘Anyway, I was put on to the case, or to be accurate, Inspector White was put on to it, and I was his sergeant. Old “Chalky” White,’ he added. ‘Of course, nobody called him “Chalky” to his face, you understand. The man really in charge of the case was Buller, Superintendent Buller, he’s dead, now. Well, the newspapers made a big thing of it, as I say, and as you can readily imagine, and one day Buller comes in white as a sheet. He’d been called in for a little friendly chat with the assistant commissioner, who’d had a little chat of his own with the Home Secretary. You can guess the rest. “Chalky” got an earful, and he gave me an earful, said we must have an early arrest, and so on. Well, there we were, urged — no, ordered, to do something, and fast; and at the same time I was anxious to make a good showing, for my own career.’

  ‘And you made an honest mistake?’ I suggested.

  Lestrade shook his head impatiently. ‘The devil I did! No, Doctor, hear me out, if you will, for it’s a complicated story. We hadn’t got the ghost of a clue — ’

  Holmes seemed about to speak, and Lestrade looked at him. Holmes waved a hand in a languid fashion, to indicate that the inspector should continue.

  ‘We hadn’t the ghost of a clue,’ said Lestrade firmly, ‘and I honestly believe that you wouldn’t have had one either, sir. The boys had nothing in common, other than living in London. Four were East End lads, poor but honest, as the newspapers put it, one was better off, a bit, from a fairly well to do background in trade, a little shop in Clerkenwell, his father had, and the first one, the one we weren’t sure about, his father was Sir somebody-or-the-other. The mother, she was a real lady, heart-broken she was, you could see that.’

  ‘And he lived where?’

  ‘Out Twickenham way. Different from the others, you see, for they were all more or less from the one small area, East End, as I say, and then there was a gap between him and the rest, so we thought it was completely different, the first one. Unrelated. Anyway, there we were, pretty well at our wits’ end, when we got this letter.’

  ‘Anonymous?’

  Lestrade nodded. ‘Although we did think it was his next-door neighbour. In any event, that’s neither here nor there, who sent it. The important thing was that it concerned a man called Jacobson. Said he’d been in and out at all sorts of odd hours, that he was strange, the usual stuff and nonsense. A case like that, you get all sorts of things, people confessing to things they couldn’t have done, or denouncing their neighbours. This Jacobson was strange, that was right enough, and I’ll tell you about that in a moment. And maybe it was that, or maybe it was his name, foreign-sounding as it was. Although in fact he was as English as you or me,’ added Lestrade without the slightest trace of irony. ‘Well, Buller said, what the — you know — we’d talked to dozens, maybe hundreds, of men, it won’t hurt to talk to this one as well.’ He paused, and took another sip of water. ‘Don’t get me wrong, gents. I’m perhaps making it sound more important than it seemed at the time. As I say, with a case like that, you know how it is. You’ll get a couple of nasty letters pretty well every morning, saying that so-and-so’s up to no good, that sort of thing. Buller just shrugged his shoulders when he saw this letter, said bring him along to the station, have a word, that sort of thing, routine, you might say. So we did.’

  ‘And?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘And he told us that he’d done it.’

  ‘As simple as that?’ said I, incredulous.

  Lestrade nodded. ‘As simple as that, very nearly, Doctor. I went along and picked him up. They didn’t think it was important enough to go there themselves, the superintendent and
the inspector, you see. That’s how little they thought of it. He was only a youngish chap, twenty-three, or four, and he seemed very nervous when I asked him to go along of me. Well, that’s neither here nor there, for there’s many an innocent man acts odd, for all the world as if he was guilty, when the police stop him. So, I took him to the station, and put him in a cell, while I went to fetch Inspector White. When we walked in, this Jacobson practically broke down in tears, said he’d been kept awake at nights thinking about what he’d done, that sort of thing. I’ve seen some rum things in my day but that beat all. Why, I almost felt ashamed for him.’

  ‘And he admitted what, exactly?’ said Holmes.

  ‘Murder, sir. Abduction and murder. Five murders, to be exact.’

  ‘Five? Not six?’

  Lestrade shook his head. ‘Not the first one, he denied all knowledge of that. Well, that was fair enough, we’d thought that was different, like I said.’

  ‘You are certain it was unconnected with the others?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘Certain as can be, sir. You’d perhaps be surprised just how easy it is to disappear in London, and how many people do vanish every year. Of course, mostly they’re husbands wanting to skip out on their wives, and that kind of thing, but there are lots of homeless children in this fair city. Some find a niche, somehow, some do come to a sticky end, but this case was so regular, so consistent, like, a real pattern to it, the regular disappearances and all. That’s what drew our attention to it, for in the ordinary way a missing child would just be reported to the local station, and they’d do what they could.’ He sighed. ‘Now, I was talking of Jacobson. Well, Chalky asks him, “Very well my lad, where’s the bodies?” And he told us where one — and only one, mark you — of ’em was.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Well, Chalky kept on at him, saying you must know, if you did ’em in, that kind of thing, so where are the other four? And after a time, and a good long time it was too, this Jacobson says something like, “No, it was Algy who was driving”, or words to that effect, “I didn’t see where we were going”, says he.’

  ‘Algy?’ asked Holmes, sitting up.

  ‘All in good time, Mr Holmes,’ said Lestrade. ‘Well, you can imagine that we pretty well laid into him then, asked him who’s Algy, where’s he live, what has he to do with it, all that kind of thing. And would you believe this Jacobson wouldn’t tell us? Seemed for all the world as if he regretted having blurted the name out, and was damned if he’d say any more. Well, this went on for maybe two, three, hours. Wouldn’t say another word, only that he deserved to hang for what he’d done. Said that more than once, loud and clear. Then Chalky — he was the inspector, remember, and I was only his sergeant — he looks at me, and he winks, and he says, “Shove off, lad, and get yourself a cup of tea”.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I did,’ said Lestrade, with some considerable embarrassment. He coughed, and studied his boots.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘And when I went back, Jacobson was snivelling, and he had a black eye, and his nose was bleeding.’

  ‘Ah. I see.’

  ‘But he had told Chalky that the other bloke was an Algernon Clayton,’ said Lestrade.

  ‘Do I understand you to say that this — Inspector White, was it — had more or less beaten the information out of this suspect?’ I asked, with some surprise.

  Lestrade gave an odd shrug of his shoulders. ‘You know how it is, Doctor,’ he said defensively. ‘Some of these old lags are tough, and if you didn’t use the back of your hand or the toe of your boot occasionally — ’ and he ended the sentiment with another shrug.

  ‘In ancient China,’ said Holmes, ‘the judges could not pass sentence without a confession, and to prevent hardened criminals remaining silent the courts were empowered to use torture in moderation.’

  ‘There you are,’ said Lestrade. ‘If the old emperors and typhoons and what-have-you needed a bit of rough stuff now and then, I’m sure we do.’

  ‘With a hardened criminal, perhaps,’ said I. ‘Although even then, not everyone would agree that it is entirely necessary. But this young man was not, as I understand you, a hardened criminal? You have said yourself that he was not originally even suspected of this crime.’

  Lestrade had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘That’s maybe true,’ said he, ‘but under the circumstances it didn’t seem that way to me then. And, as I say, he confessed. What more could you ask for, Doctor?’

  ‘And you arrested this Clayton?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘We did. And he denied the whole thing. Said he’d no sort of alibi, that he’d been out working when the lads vanished. Turned out he was a cab driver, by the way.’

  ‘Which accounts for the other fellow saying that Clayton had been driving?’

  Lestrade nodded. ‘But you’re making me do what you complained of, sir, and tell my tale out of order. We didn’t just take this Jacobson’s word for it that Clayton was involved. We set a man to keep an eye on him, Clayton that is, while we made Jacobson lead us to where he, or they, as the case might be, had hidden the body he’d spoken of.’ He stopped, and indicated his glass. ‘If I might have just the merest splash of brandy, Doctor? Thank you. I’ll never forget that lad,’ he went on. ‘He was buried on a bit of waste ground by the river. What they’d done to him — ’ and he shuddered, and drank his brandy.

  ‘Was there any unpleasantness, any assault?’ I asked, with some distaste.

  ‘Not unless you count being cut up like cats’ meat,’ said Lestrade shortly. He recovered his composure, and gave an uneasy smile. ‘I’m sorry, Doctor. No, I know well enough what you mean. No, sir, there was no unpleasantness of that kind. Not that there needed to be. It was bad enough as it was, Lord knows.’

  ‘But might there have been?’ Holmes wanted to know. ‘Were any of these boys of doubtful repute in that respect?’

  ‘Not a bit of it, sir,’ Lestrade told him. ‘I know what you’re driving at. Some of these youngsters, boys or girls, a couple of shillings and they’re anybody’s, and if they get more than they bargained for, well, we all say “How terrible!”, and so it is, but I don’t know as how they haven’t mostly just themselves to blame. But there was nothing of that kind in this case, I’ll swear to that. The youngest was only six, the oldest twelve or thirteen. A couple of them had little jobs, the others were at school, poor little beggars. Nothing special about any of ’em, none of them were plaster saints, but to end up like mutton on a butcher’s slab — ’ and he shuddered visibly.

  I passed the decanter over to him. ‘Help yourself,’ I told him, ‘for the recollection is evidently a painful one.’

  ‘It is, Doctor, and that’s a fact. Chalky White had seen pretty well everything, hard as nails, Chalky, and even he was turned over by it all. Well, to cut a long story short, once we’d found the body, and knew that Jacobson had told us the truth, or at any rate, a part of it, then naturally we arrested Clayton.’ He poured himself more brandy. ‘Algernon Clayton. Now, he really was a queer fish if you like. Even odder than Jacobson, if you ask me. Cold, not showing any sort of emotion, neither guilt, nor remorse, nor anger. Nothing. Well, we’d got the body, and we’d got Jacobson’s confession, so we fairly went for Clayton.’

  ‘And you say he denied it?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘Yes, sir. Denied the whole thing, flatly.’

  ‘And did Inspector White use the same investigative technique as he had used on Jacobson?’

  Lestrade flushed. ‘By then, Buller had taken over the case, more or less, and he took charge of the questioning. It was all above board with him, I can tell you. Buller made Clayton look at the body we’d found. “What d’you say to that?” Buller asks him. And Clayton says, “Terrible. Tragic. But absolutely nothing to do with me”, he says.’

  ‘And when you read Jacobson’s confession to him?’

  ‘Still denied it. “He’s lying”, he says, “or else he’s making a mistake”, and that was all he said about that. He hadn’t any sort of alibi, I tol
d you that, just said that he’d been out driving his cab, and stuck to that. Most of the lads had vanished in the evening, didn’t get home from work or school, that sort of thing. Clayton couldn’t produce any witnesses who’d been with him when the boys vanished — ’

  ‘No passengers?’

  ‘Who remembers a cab driver, Mr Holmes? But, by the same token, we couldn’t find any witnesses who put him, or his cab, or indeed any cab, anywhere that could be useful to us. Part of the difficulty was, we didn’t have the other bodies, so we didn’t really know where to look for anyone who might possibly have witnessed their being disposed of.’

  ‘But the case went to court, on the strength of Jacobson’s confession?’

  ‘It did, sir. The confession counted for a good deal, you could tell that just looking at the jury. That, and the photographs they were shown of the body.’

  ‘And Clayton continued to maintain his innocence at the trial?’ I asked.

  ‘He did. The prosecution made a big thing of the body, said what did Clayton say to that? He just repeated what he’d already told us, said it was an awful thing, but nothing to do with him. We had a body, fair enough, but we also had Jacobson’s confession, so why involve him, Clayton that is? His lawyer made that point very strongly.’

  ‘But to no avail?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘The thing was,’ said Lestrade, ‘we knew Jacobson had killed the one lad, because the body was where he’d said it was. So that was certain. In fact it was about the only certain thing in the whole sorry business. Now, if he’d told the truth about that, then why should he lie about the rest? Why should he lie as to Clayton’s being involved? That’s what did for Clayton. The jury didn’t take above half an hour. Guilty, the pair of them. And both sentenced to hang. But there was something, some doubt in the judge’s mind, or an appeal, perhaps, and the sentences were both altered to penal servitude for life.’

  Holmes nodded. ‘That seems — I beg your pardon, Lestrade. Please go on.’