Lestrade and the Dead Man's Hand

by M. J. Trow

  ‘Oh, come off it, Nanny,’ Bandicoot defended his old guv’nor. ‘It wasn’t that bad a shot.’

  ‘Anyway,’ insisted the dour domestic, ‘You were out, Mr Lestrade, in all senses of the word.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Harry. What was the final score?’

  ‘Three hundred and six, all out.’

  ‘Three hundred and . . .’ Lestrade cradled his head. ‘I’m sorry, it must be the bump. I thought you said “three hundred and six”.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Yes, I know. When you stepped in we had forty-one, all but seven scored by me; but in view of your injury, W. G. was kind enough to let me play a twelfth man.’

  ‘Who was that?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Nanny Balsam,’ Bandicoot said a little sheepishly.

  ‘We kept them at bay,’ she of the barbed-wire hair said, knowingly. ‘You’re coming on, Harry. A year or two and you’ll be a useful sort of batsman. Ah,’ she raised a finger as the clock struck something or other, ‘it’s the children’s bath time.’ She looked severely at Lestrade. ‘I suggest you have one of those,’ she recommended. ‘A bath that is, rather than a child. Although both would, I suspect, be a salutary experience for people like you.’ And she swept from the room.

  ‘Harry?’ Lestrade propped himself on his pillow. ‘William Bellamy?’

  ‘Is still here, Sholto,’ the squire said. ‘He knows you want to see him. W. G.? Dinner shouldn’t be long. I wanted to see that action of Ranjitsinhji’s you talked about.’ And he led the good doctor away.

  William Bellamy joined Lestrade shortly afterwards. Gone were the flannels and the tasselled cap. Now the man stood before him in a lightweight Kashmir, whose embroidered pocket bore the arms of the Kent Cricket Club. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, pulling up a chair.

  ‘A little blurred,’ Lestrade confessed.

  ‘Could have happened to anyone,’ Bellamy said kindly, though he didn’t believe it. ‘Demon bowler, W. G., isn’t he?’

  Until today, Lestrade had thought that phrase referred to something he habitually wore on his head. ‘Mr Bellamy, there is no way to soften what I have to say to you,’ he said.

  The smile faded from the man’s face. ‘It’s Emily, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘It’s my sister.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Please, Mr Lestrade, don’t play games with me. I left all that out there on the pitch. If you know anything, I have a right to know.’

  Lestrade nodded. ‘I am afraid, sir, that Miss Emily Bellamy is dead. She was found murdered on an Underground train belonging to the City and South London Railway at the Elephant and Castle Station in the early hours of this morning.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’

  ‘It’s been a shock, clearly. I’m sorry that I couldn’t tell you earlier.’

  ‘That explains why she didn’t arrive. It makes sense now. She never missed a match – even a charity local – if she could avoid it. Oh, my God! Emily. Emily.’ Her brother hung his head.

  ‘Did she live alone in the Walworth Road?’ Lestrade asked. He was less than at ease. His vision still doggy-paddled rather than swam, and he was sitting in somebody else’s bed, wearing somebody else’s pyjamas, his head wrapped in a bandage. Hardly the most commanding way to conduct an inquiry.

  ‘Yes. It was our parents’ house. After they died, she naturally lived on there.’

  ‘No maid?’

  ‘Yes, two. Faithful old biddies. They’ll be devastated.’

  ‘Forgive me, Mr Bellamy, but there are painful questions I must ask.’

  ‘Of course, Mr Lestrade. I understand. Bowl away.’

  ‘Did your sister have any . . . gentlemen friends?’

  ‘No. She lived for her cricket.’

  ‘I see. That was her only interest?’

  ‘That and her house. She loved beautiful things. Had a penchant for objets d’art. Finest collection of fire-irons in eight counties. That sort of thing.’

  ‘So her interests were cricket and the hearth, you might say?’

  ‘You might, Mr Lestrade. Tell me, how . . . how did she die?’

  ‘She was strangled, Mr Bellamy. I cannot pretend that her death was either quick or painless. But one thing I assure you. As soon as I am out of this bed, I shall set about nailing the bastard responsible.’

  DR GRACE INSISTED THAT Lestrade attend his surgery in Bristol. Prince Ranjitsinhji insisted he try an old Indian remedy handed down by the Moguls which seemed to consist of the yak droppings so plentiful in the West Country; Letitia was adamant that the Inspector spend at least the next day in bed and some time with his daughter. Nanny Balsam couldn’t see what all the fuss was about, and aided and abetted the Inspector by driving him to the station in her donkey cart.

  ‘Thank you, Nanny,’ he said, the boater sitting uneasily atop his bandage, ‘for looking after little Emma.’

  ‘It’s nothing that a trained saint and martyr such as myself wouldn’t do for anyone,’ she told him, gathering up her reins. ‘And I couldn’t see the little waif starve, which is what she would surely do if left to your devices. She was an orphan of the storm, Mr Lestrade, but she is safe now. Now I’m a very busy woman. I’ve verrucas to lance and the Lord knows what else. You, I assume, have some murky business to unravel; some depths which you must plumb.’

  ‘Indeed I have,’ he sighed. It was the story of his life.

  WHEN LESTRADE REACHED the Yard that Sunday morning, all hell had broken loose. What Fleet Street referred to in more jocund moments as its newspapers smelt linked murders and incompetent policing. Fine, upstanding guardians that they were, they bayed for blood and when they saw an exposed jugular, they went for it.

  They caught Lestrade in an unguarded moment as he crossed Whitehall.

  ‘T. A. Liesinsdad,’ a bald man snarled at him, ‘Daily Graphic. Three women butchered on the Underground. Is the Ripper still at large, Inspector Lestrade? Is Jack back?’

  ‘No, Mr Liesinsdad.’ Lestrade had met the reporter from the Principality before and the Welshman never failed to climb up his nostrils. ‘The ladies in question were strangled. There were no mutilations.’

  ‘David Newman, Catholic Herald.’ Another one blocked his way, pad poised. ‘Is sex involved?’

  ‘Does the Catholic Herald really want to know that?’ Lestrade threw it back.

  ‘Ezekiel Ledbetter, the War Cry. Is there a Methodist connection, Inspector?’

  ‘Not that I am aware. Gentlemen, please!’ He held up his hand to still the noise. ‘At the moment, we are pursuing every inquiry. No stone will be unturned.’

  ‘Barry Bucknell, the Woodworker. Is a man helping you with your inquiries?’

  ‘Some are, some aren’t,’ said Lestrade, ‘and at the moment, you’re not. Now, please can I get on with the job in hand?’

  ‘Albert Wedgewood, the Sun. If we came out with a headline like “Daily Murders. Lestrade Has No Clue”, would you sue us for libel, Inspector?’

  ‘No,’ sighed Lestrade, ‘I’d have you shot. Good morning, gentlemen.’

  ‘Mr Lestrade,’ and the Inspector turned in time to have his face blackened by the sulphur flash of a photographer from the Monthly Exposure.

  He vaguely acknowledged Sergeant Dixon on the front desk. He slammed angrily into the lift that jarred and rattled its way to the first floor. He marched off down sunlit corridors until he found his office where the sun never shone. But here, as his boater unerringly missed the hat rack, was a brilliance of its own – a radiant smile on the face of Detective Constable Walter Dew.

  ‘Well, well,’ Lestrade snapped. Journalists always left him frayed, tetchy, past his best. ‘Got lucky crossing the Common last night, Dew?’

  The Constable looked a little hurt. ‘I am a happily married man, sir,’ he said.

  Lestrade collapsed into the rickety chair, the one with the peeling leather. ‘Of course you are, Walter,’ he said. ‘The world is full, is it not, of ma
rried men? So, why are you so happy?’

  ‘We’ve got him, sir.’ Dew’s beam returned.

  ‘Who?’ Lestrade toyed with reaching for the teapot, but the strain was too great and he let Dew do it.

  ‘Our man. Our Underground murderer.’

  Lestrade sat bolt upright. ‘We have?’ he said slowly.

  Dew nodded. ‘He’s downstairs now. Constable Corkindale is keeping an eye on him.’

  ‘Corkindale?’ Lestrade roared. ‘Dew, the man is an animal!’

  ‘Don’t worry, guv,’ Dew grinned. ‘I left the door open.’

  But Lestrade wasn’t listening. He’d gone, in a flurry of pro formas and liniment, his bandage streaming out in his wake, like the wrappings of some unusually healthy mummy. Down the corridors they ran, the Inspector and the Constable, leaping over saddles on the stairways, brushing the dust off aspidistras in their haste, hurtling past the ancient graffito in honour of a former Assistant Commissioner which read ‘McNaghten Rules’. They aimed for the lift, but Assistant Commissioner Frost was filling that all by himself, so they took the back doubles and reached the cells in double-quick time. A man the height of a Clydesdale, with shoulders to match, stood at the door of a cell. Lestrade thrust a practised eye to the little grille in the centre thereof and rounded on the vast Constable.

  ‘Corkindale, have you touched this man?’

  ‘No, sir,’ the man droned, but some seconds after the question was asked.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ after the same time had elapsed. ‘Open up, then.’

  They waited while the order permeated to whatever levels of consciousness Corkindale possessed and they swept into the room.

  ‘I am Inspector Lestrade,’ said Lestrade to the man sitting at the small wooden table. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Edward Bayreuth,’ he said, but Lestrade ignored him. ‘Dew,’ he snapped, indicating the door, ‘a word in your ear.’

  The confused Constable led the way and Lestrade slammed the door behind them. He looked at the constables before him.

  Dew, ever-loyal, ever-eager. He might make sergeant if hell froze over. He looked at Corkindale. And he shook his head. In the same length of time he might become a human being. But all in all, it wasn’t likely.

  ‘Tell me, Dew,’ said Lestrade softly, ‘did that man have only one arm before he was in Constable Corkindale’s company? Or do we have a rather tricky police brutality case on our hands?’

  Dew breathed a sigh of relief. ‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘Mr Bayreuth lost his arm in a printing accident many years ago.’

  Lestrade nodded. The same printing accident had led, or so he believed, to some of Miss Corelli’s outpourings. He turned to the vast Constable. ‘Tell me, Corkindale, what do you weigh?’

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘How heavy are you?’

  ‘I’m seventeen stone, sir, give or take.’

  ‘Right. Are you right-handed?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir. Mrs Minniver up at the school taught me to be, sir.’

  ‘Excellent. Did she teach you to think as well?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Never mind. Put your left arm behind your back, will you?’ The confused Constable did.

  ‘Good. Now. I want you to strangle Constable Dew here. But only with that one hand. Got it?’

  ‘Er . . .’ The chorus came from both constables, both of them, for different reasons, unsure about the experiment that was about to take place.

  ‘Well, go on, man,’ Lestrade insisted.

  Corkindale’s giant palm slid forward and locked around Dew’s throat. The man began to turn a rather attractive shade of purple. Then he gurgled a bit.

  ‘Well, do something, Dew!’ Lestrade thought it best to command.

  The smaller man’s right knee came up, catching Corkindale a nasty one in the groin. As his strangling hand gave way, Dew swung both fists into the man’s face, then hobbled away, clutching his knuckles under his armpits.

  ‘Sorry, Walter,’ Corkindale mumbled, ‘I hope I didn’t hurt you.’

  ‘No, no, Herminius,’ Dew bit his lip to prevent the scream, ‘not in the slightest.’

  ‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ said Lestrade. ‘A useful little test, I think. Now, Dew, let’s see this murderer of yours.’

  Edward Bayreuth was a wizened little man with the mien of an idiot. In fact, as idiots go, they probably didn’t come any meaner. His doleful eyes took in the re-entry of the detectives and he watched carefully as Lestrade took out a cigar, lit it and blew the smoke into his face.

  ‘Now, then,’ he said, ‘I believe you’ve met my assistant here before.’

  ‘I have, sir,’ Bayreuth said.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Within the last hour.’

  ‘And what did you tell him?’

  ‘That I’m the one that you want. I’m the murderer.’

  ‘Of whom?’

  ‘Whom would you like me to be the murderer of?’

  Lestrade leaned forward so that his cigar smouldered dangerously near to the nose of the man. ‘Do you imagine this is some sort of game, Mr Bayruth?’

  ‘Bayreuth.’ He corrected the Yard man’s pronunciation. ‘Not at all, sir. I am guilty and I deserve to be punished. Horribly. Painfully.’

  ‘All right.’ Lestrade leaned back. ‘Tell us about it.’

  ‘Well, I saw this woman on the Underground. She got on at the Oval. I at Stockwell. She showed a clean pair of ankles. It was her ankles that inflamed me.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘No, it’s true. I’ve always had this thing about ankles. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been an ankle man.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well, I started . . . you know . . . talking to her. She seemed upset. Moved away. So I sat by her.’

  ‘Which compartment was this in?’

  ‘The end one,’ said Bayreuth.

  ‘Was it just the two of you in the carriage?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘She tried to get away. Well, I couldn’t feel her ankles from a distance, could I? So I strangled her.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I said,’ Lestrade was a model of patience, ‘how did you strangle her?’

  Bayreuth’s eyes bulged anew and he swallowed convulsively. ‘With my bare hands,’ he explained.

  Lestrade looked at Dew. ‘Shouldn’t that be hand?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’ Bayreuth had obviously lost the gist of the interrogation.

  ‘Mr Bayreuth,’ sighed Lestrade, ‘I don’t know whether it has escaped your notice, but you have a deformity.’

  ‘How dare you?’ Bayreuth turned an even more malevolent shade of grey. ‘I find that remark highly offensive, that’s what I do.’

  ‘Perhaps you do.’ Lestrade lolled back in his chair. ‘But we are in the business of facts here at Scotland Yard. And it is a fact that you have only one arm.’

  Bayreuth shot a lightning glance at his empty sleeve as if to confirm the fact. ‘Well, that doesn’t mean I’m not a murderer!’ he snapped.

  ‘If the lady in question was shot, stabbed or even bludgeoned, I might agree with you,’ Lestrade said, ‘but the lady in question appeared to have been a healthy lass until somebody snuffed out the candle of her life. How did you hold her down while you strangled her?’

  ‘Ah,’ Bayreuth’s eyes rolled wildly in his head, ‘it was surprise, you see. The effluent of surprise. I come up on her blind side.’

  ‘Her blind side?’ Lestrade repeated. ‘Ah, I see. You’re referring to her one eye.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Bayreuth clicked his limited choice of fingers.

  ‘Was that her right or her left?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Her missing eye. The one with the patch. You must remember. One-eyed women can’t be all that common on the Underground. She’d have stood out like a sore thumb – oh, I beg your pardon.’

  ‘Left,
’ Bayreuth guessed. Then, when he saw Lestrade’s expression, blurted, ‘Right. It was her right. Of course. I remember now.’

  Lestrade scraped back the chair. ‘I’m afraid, Mr Bayreuth, you’ve given my Constable here hours of paperwork for nothing. Turn the light off on your way out, will you?’

  ‘But I done it!’ Bayreuth was on his feet, shouting. ‘I killed her.’

  ‘With your bare hand. Yes, I know. You told me. Now, what is it you want, Mr Bayreuth? The limelight of an Old Bailey trial? The kiss of the rope? Or just a month or two in custody? Because the first two I’m afraid I can’t provide. But the last one is easy. All I have to do is to charge you with wasting police time. Good morning.’

  ‘Your trouble is, you’re not grateful,’ Bayreuth screamed as Lestrade saw himself out. ‘Here I am giving you the collar of your career and you’re throwing it all away. Bloody philistine, that’s what you are. That bandaged head don’t fool me.’

  At the bottom of the stairs, Lestrade paused. ‘The f word again,’ he sighed. ‘Constable Corkindale, see Mr Bayreuth out, would you? I’ll leave his condition largely up to you.’

  THE HORSE AND COLLAR had closed an hour ago. But to them, the landlord reckoned, it was still open. The little back room that is, furthest from the river. It was here that Lestrade sat, in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, across a gnarled old table from Walter Dew.

  ‘Right, Walter, now that we’ve disposed of Mr Bayreuth; any other little surprises I should know about?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Dew said confidently. ‘Mr Bellamy came to identify his wife.’

  Lestrade’s feet fell off the table to crash on to the uneven brick floor, thick with sawdust. ‘Who?’ he managed.

  ‘The dead woman’s husband, guv.’ Clearly the bandage round the Inspector’s head covered a more serious wound than Dew imagined.

  ‘She didn’t have a husband, Walter,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘Ah, that’s what we assumed, yes. But in point of fact, she did. I’ve got it here.’ He flicked open his notebook. ‘Name of William.’

  ‘But William’s the brother,’ Lestrade said. ‘I played cricket with him yesterday – after a fashion.’