by Trow, M J
‘And the regimental lace of the Thirteenth Hussars?’
Arabella laughed. ‘God knows, but it was the first of many delightful red herrings. Papa, of course, kept me informed.’
‘Of course. Which is why I thought he was our man.’
‘Shame on you, Sholto Lestrade. To think such things of your superior.’ Arabella clicked her tongue.
‘Tell me about Freddie Hurstmonceux. How did you do it?’
‘Ah, yes, that was difficult. It’s so useful, knowing so many people in so many walks of life. Papa has many contacts. One of them is … well, his name doesn’t matter, after all he is an accessory to murder. He is Master of the Pytchley Hunt and knows more about dogs than you do about flat feet. Well, I bet him, to cut a long story short, a hundred pounds that he couldn’t train a dog to go berserk at the mention of one word.’
Lestrade smiled to himself that his assumptions had been correct. ‘The word being harrow?’
‘Exactly. The old school of the Master of the Pytchley. We both laughed at that, but I already had my target – Lord Freddie, a thoroughly detestable pig of a man – and my means. I met Freddie through this intermediary and used all my wiles to make him buy a new hunting pack – the one with the lead hound, Tray, who’d been taught to kill at the mention of a word. The rest of the pack would follow suit if he led. The most difficult thing was getting the harrow into position. It was all rather hit and miss of course; four earlier hunts had gone the wrong way. Even I can’t control foxes, Sholto.’
‘You amaze me,’ said Lestrade. ‘What about Harriet?’
‘Yes, I didn’t like doing that one. She was a very stupid girl, but I felt a certain sympathy for her. It was also riskier than Hurstmonceux. I had to be seen in public, as a man. Luckily, poor Harriet didn’t know one end of a man from another. I played her along with secret rendezvous, flowers etc. and of course, I taught her to smoke.’ Arabella blew more rings skyward.
‘Of course,’ said Lestrade.
‘It was simple to get into the house and pour petroleum spirit into the lavatory. Oh, sorry, Sholto, Chapel of Ease – I didn’t mean to offend your sensibilities.’
Lestrade found himself smiling.
‘It was beginning to get embarrassing. The silly little dolt talked of marriage. It was all rather sick. After all, Her Majesty has said that such unnatural acts do not go on between women.’
‘What about the Inky Boys?’ asked Lestrade.
‘Ah, well, the visit of Atlanta Washington had been planned for months. It fitted well, but the actual method of murder was tricky. I wasn’t sure it would work. I spent hours poring over Papa’s chemistry books and the Yard library. In the end I took a chance. I selected my trio of racists and invited them to a secret rendezvous in upper rooms in James Street. I drugged them, tied them up, painted them in black enamel …’
‘Which you stole from Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s studio?’
‘Yes. I thought Papa would give the game away there, when he told you he knew the artist. I was the sitter who cancelled my appointment at the last moment so that I would have a chance to go to St John’s Woods anyway and steal the paint. But you didn’t get the point, dear Sholto, did you?’
‘How did you get the bodies to the Park?’
‘The same way I just overpowered you, Sholto. A combination of cunning and brute force. It was risky, of course – but there are many drivers and hauliers carrying bundles in the early hours. No one asked questions. The hire of the van was simple enough.
‘And Tall Agrippa appeared for the first time in a mourning letter. Tell me, Papa’s typewriter?’
‘At the Yard, actually. I typed most of them together, feet away from your own office, Sholto.’
‘Albert Mauleverer?’
‘He was a non-event. The most difficult thing in the provincial murders, especially Macclesfield and Warwick, was getting away from the family for long enough. Luckily, we have dozens of distant aunts who do not contact us much. I was supposedly visiting them. I invariably wore a male disguise at hotels so that there should be no awkward questions about a woman travelling alone. Of course, I didn’t bargain for you falling for Mrs Mauleverer.’
‘Did I?’
Arabella’s tone changed. ‘Oh, Sholto, I loved you. If you had shown the slightest interest … well, none of this would have happened.’
‘Why Forbes?’
Arabella had nearly finished her cigar and Lestrade was anxious to keep her going.
‘Conrad is the name in the Struwwelpeter rhymes. I couldn’t find one. Anyway, I disliked Forbes intensely. He had an arrogance above his station. I got him, shall we say, interested in me at the Commissioner’s Ball. Then I sent him that farcical note, as I did you; it never fails.’
‘Was it a hat pin?’
‘It was. Cutting the thumbs off was more difficult than you’d imagine. Ruined my dressmaking scissors.’
‘And Augustus?’
‘Ah, yes, old Prendergast. I was staying – or rather, wasn’t – with another fictional aunt in Kent. As with Conrad it proved impossible to find an Augustus, so I selected this tyrannical old codger. Reprehensible, wasn’t it, to tie him up out of reach of food like that. Even I had qualms. But then, I didn’t have to find the corpse.’
‘Why did you risk Madame Slopesski?’
‘I don’t know. Vanity, I suppose. I suggested to Papa he encourage the séance idea. I wanted to confront you, to be as close as we are now and to watch your reaction. I must admit, when I realised Frank Podmore was there, and I guessed he would know the real Slopesski, my heart sank. I think that was probably the most awkward moment of my life.’
‘What about fidgety Philip?’
‘Ah, yes, the unsavoury Mr Faye. I didn’t like him at all. I’d met him through the Queensburys. Friends of friends of friends, actually. He was physically very weak. I pretended to be enamoured of the ass, then pinned him down with my ample bosom and suffocated him with a sheet. John Torquil called for more ingenuity, but you know, Sholto, how I rise to a challenge. I played myself with him, risky but fun, but as he pointed out a woman aviator would be absurd, so again, male garb. I joined the aeronauts and awaited my chance. He would keep giggling to himself about the subterfuge. Pity, really, I think Maxim’s machine might actually have flown if it hadn’t been for my tinkering.’
‘Why did your father invite me to The Tors?’
‘My idea.’ Arabella threw the cigar butt into the sawdust. ‘A woman is only a woman, Sholto, but a good cigar is a smoke. Come on.’ She hauled him upright. ‘I was determined to seduce you before … tonight.’
‘What about the shotgun blast? I thought it was Sir Melville’s deliberate attempt to kill me.’
Arabella chuckled. ‘One of life’s little accidents, Sholto. It would have been ironic, wouldn’t it, if Papa had robbed me of “Flying Robert”? I’m sure you can manage the steps with your hands tied.’
‘I’m not going in there, Arabella.’
She raised and cocked the revolver. ‘Sholto, I have packed enough explosives into that breech to blow it and you apart. That way, at least death will be instantaneous. But there are five shots left in this revolver. That way, death can be very slow.’
Lestrade summed up his predicament in a second and reluctantly climbed inside the cannon’s mouth. He slid down until his knees were against the circular wall. Above him, all he could see was the stars, crisp and twinkling through the glass night. The last verse of Struwwelpeter whirled through his brain –
Soon they got to such a height,
They were nearly out of sight!
And the hat went up so high
That it nearly touched the sky.
No one ever yet could tell
Where they stopped or where they fell;
Only this one thing was plain,
Bob was never seen again.
‘How did you get the use of this place?’ Lestrade’s voice was echoing in its death chamber. Arabella was busy with th
e fuse.
‘Charlie Hengler is a law-abiding soul,’ she answered. ‘And he doesn’t know Papa. I came to see him yesterday claiming that I, Melville McNaghten, had an undercover job to do of the gravest importance. International espionage, no less. I needed to take part in the show as a clown and to have the theatre to myself at the end of the show. Oh, don’t worry, Sholto, we shan’t be disturbed.’
‘One last thing.’ Lestrade was still hopeful, the eternal optimist.
‘What’s that, Sholto?’ Arabella struck her match.
‘Why? Why?’
‘Have you heard of Sigmund Freud, Sholto?’
‘Is that a penny dreadful?’
‘No, my dear.’ She smiled acidly, looking up at the smooth painted sides of the cannon. ‘Mr Freud is a psychologist. His wife Martha and I were at school together. We keep in constant touch. His theory is that all little girls at some point want to be little boys. Penis envy, he calls it – oh, there, I’ve shocked you again.’ She clicked her tongue derisively. ‘Willy envy, is that better? Well, I suppose I’m the classic case. Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a policeman, to join the Force, to be what Papa was. I couldn’t do that, Sholto. Society wouldn’t have it. But what I could do is to beat you all at your own game. All you men. With your cigars and your arrogance and your hypocrisy. I have killed ten people, Sholto, tonight will make it eleven. And you didn’t have a clue. I left plenty, God knows, and the nearest you got was my father. And you’re about the best of them, Sholto. Oh, and by the way …’ She applied her match, slow burning, to the fuse. It flashed and crackled. She stepped back. ‘… the Ripper File I stole for you, an eternity ago …’
‘What about it?’ Lestrade could hear the fuse as well. His heart was thumping.
‘There was one name missing from the last page, Sholto. The name of Arabella McNaghten.’
‘You … you are Jack the Ripper?’
‘An earlier, more amateur attempt, my dear boy. Rather ironic they should put Papa on the case at the end, wasn’t it? Still, from tomorrow, Papa’s job will be up for sale to the highest bidder. As will yours, but you won’t be there to see it.’ She lingered below the cannon for a few seconds. ‘Goodbye, Sholto. I loved you once.’
Lestrade was still muttering in the echoing chamber. But Arabella was striding up the steps to the exit.
‘Miss McNaghten.’ A voice made her turn. A tall, square figure stood to her left in the next aisle. She drew the revolver and was levelling it when a shot rang out. Arabella McNaghten jerked back, eyes staring in disbelief, dark crimson spreading over the police tunic. She crashed heavily down the steps. The tall figure dashed from the pall of smoke his gun had left and scrabbled frantically for the fuse. It had an inch or a little less to go when he put it out.
‘Bandicoot?’ Lestrade’s voice had a strange maniacal quality about it.
‘Sir?’
‘Bandicoot, Bandicoot, wherefore art thou, Bandicoot?’
‘Are you all right, sir?’ The blond, curly head appeared anxiously in the cannon’s mouth.
‘Yes, Bandicoot. It’s just my appalling working-class background. Get me out of this.’
The constable helped the inspector out and untied his hands.
‘Arabella?’ asked Lestrade.
‘I’m afraid I had to kill Miss McNaghten, sir.’ Bandicoot looked decidedly shaken. ‘I didn’t tell you that my father had a brace of these things.’ He brandished the other gold-chased revolver. He straightened. ‘Sorry I disobeyed orders, sir … and came back.’
Lestrade looked at him. ‘Tonight, Bandicoot, I looked death in the face. Thanks to you, I’ve got to do that all over again.’
They crossed to where the body lay, face down in the sawdust. Lestrade knelt down and turned her over. He looked at the pale face, still streaked with makeup and looked at the blood on his fingers. ‘You’re wrong, Bandicoot.’ He closed her eyes. ‘You didn’t kill her. Agrippa did.’
‘Sir?’
‘Give me a hand.’
Together they carried Arabella to the cannon and loaded her in. ‘Now, get back.’ Bandicoot dashed for the tiers of seats as Lestrade lit the fuse. He had just time to reach the edge of the ring when the explosion ripped up and out, smashing the plate glass roof and sending debris in all directions, splashing into the lake and knocking over the tree.
Lestrade and Bandicoot were into the night air and away as the crackling flames behind them brought shouts and cries for water.
‘I don’t understand, sir,’ said Bandicoot.
Lestrade stopped and faced him. ‘You don’t have to, Bandicoot. The world must know. Sir Melville must know, that Arabella McNaghten was the final victim of Agrippa, the long, red-legged scissor man. We never caught him, Bandicoot. He lives on, the walks the streets of London yet. Oh, people will panic for a while. There’ll be demands for resignations.’ They walked on. ‘But you’re safe and perhaps I am too. In time, people will forget. We’ll make the right noises and pursue our enquiries, but you and I’ll know it’s all over.’
‘Why, sir? Why did you put her in that thing?’
‘Because … because I’ve got too much respect for a man to tell him his daughter is a monster. His favourite child an evil fiend without pity or remorse. Her death will finish him as it is, man. The least you and I can do is to leave him his memories.’
Lestrade was right. The story that Arabella had given the Evening Standard the day before appeared in The Times and all the other dailies the next morning. For a while, people panicked. There was a cry for heads and Sir Melville McNaghten, a broken man at the news of his favourite daughter’s death, offered his. He retired in the summer to The Tors, where he lived on for several years with his other children and his memories. Walter Dew became an inspector eventually and achieved undying fame as the man who arrested Dr Crippen – by long-distance wireless. Harry Bandicoot left the Metropolitan Police the following year, married a rich widow and they lived happily ever after. Constance Mauleverer vanished. No one saw her again.
And Sholto Lestrade himself? Ah, well, that is another story.
About the Author
M J Trow is a crime writer, historian and biographer who for many years doubled as a history teacher. Now retired, he is the author of three successful crime fiction series – Lestrade, Maxwell and Kit Marlowe, the latest written in collaboration with his wife.
He lives in the Isle of Wight, and as well as writing lectures on cruise ships has appeared many times on television in historical and crime documentaries.