by M. J. Trow
Lestrade and the Deadly Game
The Inspector Lestrade Series – Book Eleven
Table of Contents
Title Page
Lestrade and the Deadly Game | The Inspector Lestrade Series – Book Eleven
M. J. TROW
Caveat lectorum – Let the Reader Beware! | From Police Constable to Political Correctness
One to Get Ready
Two to be Steady
Three Men in a Boat
The Four | Hundred | Metres: | Fifty Seconds Dead
Death in the Fives Court
Parry of Sixte
Red for Seven
The Coxless Eight
Nine Men’s Morris
Crossing the Tape
❖ The Sawdust Ring ❖ | 1879 | ‘In the circus, nothing is what it seems ...’
❖ The Sign of Nine ❖ | 1886 | ‘Hello, hello, hello ...’ | ‘Hello, hello, hello ...’ | ‘Hello, hello, hello ...’
❖ The Ripper ❖ | 1888 | ‘Oh, have you seen the Devil ...?’
❖ The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade ❖ | 1891 | ‘Such as these shall never look | At this pretty picture book.’
❖ The Brigade ❖ | 1893 | ‘And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade.’
❖ The Dead Man’s Hand ❖ | 1895 | ‘There was no 9.38 from Penge.’
❖ The Guardian Angel ❖ | 1897/8 | ‘And a naughty boy was he ...’
❖ The Hallowed House ❖ | 1901 | ‘Quid omnes tangit, ab omnibus approbetur.’*
❖ The Gift of the Prince ❖ | 1903 | ‘Lang may your lum reek, Lestrade.’
❖ The Mirror of Murder ❖ | 1906 | Beyond the mountains of the moon ...
❖ The Deadly Game ❖ | 1908 | ‘The Games a-foot’
❖ The Leviathan ❖ | 1910 | ‘To our wives and sweethearts – may they never meet!’
❖ The Brother of Death ❖
❖ Lestrade and the Devil’s Own ❖
❖ The Magpie ❖ | 1920 | ‘There was a Front; | But damn’d if we knew where!’
❖ Lestrade and the Kiss of Horus ❖ | 1922 | ‘Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
❖ Lestrade and the Giant Rat of Sumatra ❖ | 1935 | ‘So, Sholto, let me and you be wipers | Of scores out with all men, especially pipers!’
❖ The World of Inspector Lestrade ❖
Lestrade and the Deadly Game
The Inspector Lestrade Series – Book Eleven
M. J. TROW
Copyright © 2021 M. J. Trow.
Paperback ISBN 978-1-913762-90-2
First published in 1990.
This edition published in 2021 by BLKDOG Publishing.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover art by Andy Johnson.
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The moral right of the author has been asserted.
www.blkdogpublishing.com
Caveat lectorum – Let the Reader Beware!
From Police Constable to Political Correctness
In 1891, the year in which The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade is set, Thomas Hardy had his Tess of the d’Urbervilles published in serial form by The Graphic, one of the country’s leading magazines. The editor was not happy with certain scenes which he felt would upset Hardy’s genteel readership. In one instance, when Angel Clare has to carry Tess over a minor flood, Hardy had to write in a handy wheelbarrow so that Tess and Angel had no bodily contact. When it came to Tess’s seduction by the dastardly Alec d’Urberville, the pair go into a wood and a series of dots follows ...
Even with all this whitewash, reviews of the revised version were mixed and it was many years before some of the Grundyisms* were restored to their original glory and Tess of the D’Urbervilles was established as another masterpiece of one of Britain’s greatest writers.
In the Lestrade series, I hope I have not offended anyone, but the job of an historical novelist – and of an historian – is to try to portray an accurate impression of the time, not some politically correct Utopian idyll which is not only fake news, but which bores the pants off the reader. Politicians routinely apologize for the past – historical novelists don’t. we have different views from the Victorians, who in turn had different views from the Jacobeans, who in turn ... you get the point. When the eighteenth century playwright/actor Colley Cibber rewrote Shakespeare – for example, giving King Lear a happy ending! – no doubt he thought he was doing the right thing. He wasn’t.
That said, I don’t think that a reader today will find much that is offensive in the Lestrade series. So, read on and enjoy.
*From Mrs Grundy, a priggish character in Thomas Morton’s play Speed the Plough, 1798.
Reviews for the Lestrade Series
‘This is Lestrade the intelligent, the intuitive bright light of law and order in a wicked Victorian world.’
Punch
‘A wickedly funny treat.’
Stephen Walsh, Oxford Times
‘... M.J. Trow proves emphatically that crime and comedy can mix.’
Val McDermid Manchester Evening News
‘Good enough to make a grown man weep.’
Yorkshire Post
‘Splendidly shaken cocktail of Victorian fact and fiction ... Witty, literate and great fun.’
Marcel Berlins, The Times
‘One of the funniest in a very funny series ... lovely lunacy.’
Mike Ripley, Daily Telegraph
‘High-spirited period rag with the Yard’s despised flatfoot wiping the great Sherlock’s eye ...’
Christopher Wordsworth, Observer
‘Barrowloads of nineteenth century history ... If you like your humour chirpy, you’ll find this sings.’
H.R.F Keating, Daily Telegraph
‘Richly humorous, Lestrade has quickly become one of fiction’s favourite detectives.’
Yorkshire Evening Post
‘No one, no one at all, writes like Trow.’
Yorkshire Post
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the Gods; They kill us for their sport.
King Lear Act IV Scene i
One to Get Ready
T
he Greeks had a word for it. It was a short one and it translated rather well into Anglo-Saxon. Someone had pinched their Games.
But in other ways, the year was set fair. The Congo was annexed by Belgium. Bosnia and Herzegovina, the terrible twins of those tiresome Balkan States, were annexed by Austria. There was even a new annexe at Scotland Yard. The British Army of course excelled itself by devising a new pattern sword with a pistol grip hilt of gutta-percha. To the Yeomanry who had served so well on Veldt and Nek, it declined to give any swords at all. And weary gentlemen, then abed, shook their heads and muttered as they read their morning papers. That buffoon Haldane had introduced a new part-time soldier he called a ‘terrier’. The country was of course going to the dogs.
Mr Edward Henry crossed again to his window, the only one that permitted a decent view of the river, sparkling now in the morning sun. He looked at the grandmother on the wall.
‘Yes.’ He heard the monotone behind him. ‘Half-past. It’s certainly getting on.’
‘You’d think they’d be here by now,’ he said, trying to fix an air of even average intellect on to his bovine face.
‘Indeed.’ Henry’s temper, no longer than he was, was within an ace of snapping. He flicked open the silver box and cut himself into a new Havana.
‘Ah,’ said Gregory, with the air of a man about to be offered a smoke. ‘Ahhmmm,’ and he had the grace to turn disappointment into a cough as he fidgeted on his chair. ‘Did I ever tell you about that case in Piddletrenthide, Chief?’ he asked hopefully.
‘Yes,’ said Henry.
‘The old pedlar with the monkey?’
‘Yes.’
‘The one with the missing third finger, left hand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, it was back in ’96. Or was it ’97 . . .?’
Mercifully, Henry was not to find out, for the knock at the door heralded the arrival of Inspector Mungo Hyde of the River Police.
‘Sorry, Mr Henry,’ he blustered, struggling with his forage cap. ‘Lighter broke loose at the East India. My boys and I have been out since dawn.’
‘Thank you, Inspector. Take a seat.’
In the event, Hyde took two. It had to be said that the bacon buns of Mrs Squatt of Rotherhithe had done immeasurable harm to the good man’s waistline. It was rumoured in the River Police that he had to take soundings to make sure his feet were still there, for even in a strong nor’westerly, he’d lost sight of them years ago.
‘Did I ever tell you, Mungo, about that case in Yorkshire last year?’
‘Yes, Tom,’ the River Policeman answered.
‘Right in the centre of Arndale, it happened.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’d have thought he’d have been past it, wouldn’t you, a man of his age?’
‘Yes.’
‘But not a bit of it. He . . .’
The door crashed back and a tall, square policeman stood there, a bridle draped over his shoulder.
‘Sorry I’m late, Assistant Commissioner,’ he said in a bluff accent from somewhere north of Watford. ‘Dray horses bolted along Fleet Street. Must have got a whiff of a mare, I suppose. At least those lazy bastards of reporters had a jammy time. All they had to do was to lean out of the window for a story.’
‘Gentlemen,’ said Henry, ‘I don’t believe you know Inspector Edgar-Smith of the Mounted Division. Inspector Hyde of the River Police and Inspector Gregory of . . .’
‘L Division, sir.’ Gregory rose and shook the man’s hand. ‘I used to ride a horse, you know . . .’
‘Really,’ grunted Edgar-Smith, a little less than captivated by the admission. ‘Well, I never.’
‘Oh, but surely.’ Gregory was surprised. ‘You being in the Mounted Division, and all . . .’
He met six hostile eyes in his usual blank manner, but they were quickly joined by two more.
‘Ah, Abberline.’ Henry gestured the newest arrival to a chair. ‘Gentlemen, I believe you all know Chief Superintendent Abberline.’
There were nods and rumbles all round. Then Abberline realized that Henry was looking at him for an explanation.
‘Ah,’ he said, adjusting the gardenia in his buttonhole. ‘Minor derailment at Penge.’
‘But you live in Norwood, Mr Abberline,’ Gregory said innocently.
Abberline withered him and noticed that Mungo Hyde’s left eye was flickering with a life of its own. His head began to dip towards his shoulder. When he realized everyone was looking at him, he began to tug at his collar. ‘Damned thing,’ he said. ‘This patrol jacket seems to have shrunk in the wash.’ He could help Abberline no further.
Henry was altogether less concerned. ‘You appear to have a lipstick smudge on your cheek, Chief Superintendent,’ he said blandly, sitting back behind his desk.
Abberline rose sharply, glancing behind him. Quickly realizing all was not well, he produced a monogrammed lace handkerchief and dabbed his face. ‘Mrs Abberline,’ he grinned sheepishly. ‘You know what women are.’
As he dabbed, the lacy scrap floated to his feet. He bent to retrieve it – and what he could of his dignity – and his eyes met a pair of less than reputable boots. He followed up the matching trousers and was within a whisker of snatching the handkerchief when the owner of the boots did it for him.
‘M,’ said the owner, reading the ornately embroidered initial. ‘That must stand for Mrs Abberline. How is Ermintrude?’
‘Lestrade . . .’ Abberline began, but the Assistant Commissioner cut him off.
‘We’re already forty minutes late, Lestrade. Mr Gregory has been here since ten.’
Lestrade crossed the room and shook Henry’s hands warmly. ‘How can I ever forgive myself?’ he asked solemnly. He looked deeply into Henry’s eyes. He knew what those forty minutes had cost him.
‘May we please begin?’
All eyes settled on Henry as he leaned forward in his leather chair. Simultaneously, all legs except Hyde’s crossed at the knee.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Henry, his eyes dark and serious through the smoke of his cigar, ‘we all know that the Congo has been annexed by the Belgians. Rumour has it that Bosnia and Herzegovina will, after all, be annexed by Austria. It is not of course for us to question the machinations of the Government in creating the Territorial Army. By the way, Edgar-Smith, have your chaps had a crack at this new pattern sword yet?’
‘Sword be buggered!’ snapped the man from the Mounted Division, slapping his shoulder anew with the bridle. ‘Give my boys six inches more on their hardwood truncheons, that’s all I ask. We’ll crack these suffragists’ skulls . . .’
‘Yes, thank you Inspector,’ Henry interrupted. ‘Gentlemen, you’ve seen my memoranda to your various departments. All leave is cancelled forthwith. Rest days will be suspended until the matter in hand is passed.’
‘The . . . matter in hand, sir . . .’ Lestrade twitched his moustache. As usual, he had seen no memorandum at all.
‘Haven’t you seen my memoranda?’ Henry quizzed him.
‘No, sir, I confess not,’ said Lestrade.
‘Imbert!’ roared Henry. ‘Get in here.’
A curly-haired constable stuck his head round the glass-panelled door. ‘Sir?’
‘Did you or did you not place my recent memoranda on Mr Lestrade’s desk?’
‘Yes, sir,’ the constable replied. ‘In his in-tray.’
Henry turned to Lestrade again. ‘Do you remember an In memoranda?’
‘No, sir, I’m afraid not,’ Lestrade admitted.
‘Tsk, the Olympic Games, man,’ Henry snarled. ‘Imbert, get out!’
‘Yessir,’ and he was gone.
‘Within the fortnight, thousands of foreigners will descend on London like bees to the hive. Superintendent Quinn of the Special Branch is not with us this morning because even now he is combing his files on Undesirable Aliens. He tells me they are bulging. We shall have the scum of Europe on our doorstep, gentlemen, as surely as if there were a tunnel under the Channel itself.’
‘Heaven forbid!’ gasped Mungo Hyde, who perhaps saw his trade dropping off.
‘I’m sure the athletes aren’t that bad, sir,’ Gregory proffered.
Henry scowled. The morning was not going well. ‘I was not referring to them,’ he still had the patience to explain. ‘Their presence will attract thieves, vagabonds, swindlers and confidence tricksters by the yard. Our job is to be ever vigilant. I need hardly remind you that the Entente is, at the moment, a little less than Cordiale. Then of course, there are the Germans . . .’
‘Why are the Americans coming, exactly?’ Abberline asked.
There was a silence. Clearly, there was no answer to that.
It was luncheon, that day or the next. Chief Inspector Walter Dew, Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, was looking into the matter of the misappropriat
ion of a number of old-age pensions. To be more precise, he was looking into the bowels of the upright Remington which had worn a permanent groove into his desk. The capital L was playing up again. It was the one he used most, by virtue of his guv’nor’s name, and the thing had clashed with the exclamation mark and a number of other careless keys to grind right through the headed notepaper with the unusual watermark and into the impossible-to-reach little void behind.
‘Rosie Lee, guv?’ a cheery voice called.
Dew cursed anew. ‘I should have been at the Collar by now, Hollingsworth. The last thing I want is a cup of gnat’s pee I’ve got to blow on for half an hour. Know anything about typewriters?’
‘I’ve had a few in my time, Insp.’ The constable winked.
Dew turned to face him.
‘Ah, you mean machines?’ Hollingsworth said with a broad grin. ‘Nah. I always use me old Dirty Den.’
Dew had been more years on the Force than he cared to remember. Twenty if it was a day. And all of it more or less within tinkling distance of Bow Bells. But this man’s professional Cockneyism got right up his doublet and hose. ‘Dirty Den?’ he repeated with all the patience at his disposal.
‘Pen, Insp,’ Hollingsworth smirked. ‘Well, never mind. I’ll drink it, then. ’Ere, do you know, I do believe . . . yes . . . yes, there it is.’ He put the cup down quickly, staring intently at the top of Dew’s head.
‘What’s the matter?’ Dew instinctively felt his parting.
‘Grey, Insp,’ Hollingsworth whispered in his ear. ‘The old grey hair’s a-lying in the meadow. First of many, of course.’
‘In my day, Hollingsworth,’ Dew fumed, ‘young constables were expected to be seen and not heard. Now get out. I’m busy.’
‘Very good, Mr Dew sir.’ Hollingsworth tucked the cup in the crook of his arm and made for the door. ‘Oh, by the way.’ He paused. ‘There’s a bloke out ’ere. To see Mr Lestrade.’
‘Who is he?’ Dew asked.