by M. J. Trow
They brought him ashore, carried him across the sands at Ryde, through the crowd whose cheering and flag-waving turned to silence. Her Grace the Duchess was at his side the whole time, ashen-faced, tense. No one watched the Cobweb’s lap of honour on the sparkling Solent. No one listened to the official times shouted over the loud-hailers. They drifted away from the sands, numbed by the irony of it all. An Olympic Silver Medal after three successive days of sailing. A triumph for British skill and intrepidity. But a man was dead. Home was the sailor, home from the sea, and Inspector Hunter of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary sent a telegram to Scotland Yard.
It should have been Abberline’s case, but Abberline was unaccountably held up by prolonged surveillance work at Penge. The only officer of sufficient rank who could be spared was Sholto Lestrade. Yes, Henry knew he had the Fitzgibbon case dangling over him – as Lestrade said, with his vast classical background, ‘like the sword of Demosthenes’ – yes, Henry knew the Hans-Rudiger thing might blow up any day into an International Incident of ugly proportions. Even so, Henry had said, the request came not from an obscure inspector of an obscure force but from the Duchess of Westminster herself. Lestrade must go.
He packed some spare collars, his pea jacket and jaunty sailor’s cap and drove south in Elsa, his Lanchester. He scattered a flock of sheep near Guildford and at least one of them was dead as mutton. At the Devil’s Punch Bowl he collided with a haywain, and his registration number was taken by eighteen constables to the north of Petersfield alone. By the time the level of Portchester Castle hove into view, the drive had passed into legend. It won him no medals, of course, but he had reached Portsmouth in record time. One of the pedestrians he nearly killed slowly pulled a pencil from his pocket as though deep in thought and began to scribble on a notepad. All in all, Mr Grahame was lucky to be alive.
‘Never heard of such a thing,’ the ferryman growled at Portsmouth. ‘You can’t take one of them horseless carriages on a steam packet. I don’t care if you’re the bleedin’ Prime Minister. We don’t even take horses, let alone them infernal machines.’
And that was it. Lestrade alighted at the pier on foot and for all his fifty-four years and the sweltering heat, slung his goggles around his neck and ran the length of the pier, each groan of the planking reminding him anew that the thing had been built in 1813, in his great grandfather’s day. The passers-by in their summer fol-de-rols and parasols who applauded him as he ran had no idea he was running for somebody else’s life.
Lestrade had been to the Isle of Wight before, on the case of the Man in the Chine. Then he had stayed at Shanklin and had the dubious pleasure of pounds of cottage pie offered daily by the monotonous culinarist Mrs Bush, wife of the local sergeant. On the way down, while he crashed his gears and cursed the slapping foliage of the English hedgerows, logic and mathematics told him that the sergeant must long ago have retired. So it was with something approaching dismay that Lestrade saw a grey, moustachioed figure standing squarely on Pier Street as he hurtled past the barrier, catching his cheek painfully as he did so. Well, what was another bruise among friends?
‘Superintendent Lestrade, sir!’ the moustachioed figure said. ‘How good to see you, sir, after all these years. We’ve followed your exploits in the Lunnon newspapers.’
‘Sergeant Bush?’ Lestrade hoped he was wrong.
‘Sub Inspector.’ Bush straightened. Sixteen years and he had soared by half a rank.
‘Incredible,’ said Lestrade.
‘You remember my good lady wife.’ Bush gestured to the black-coated thing beside him. She bobbed and beamed, still wearing her apron.
‘Intimately,’ said Lestrade. ‘And all the little Bushes? They must be a veritable little copse by now, eh?’
The bon mot fell on deaf ears. After all, this was the Isle of Wight. Wit had left it with the passing of Tennyson and repartee a long time before that.
‘Inspector Hunter’s compliments, sir. He isn’t expecting you until tomorrow. I happened to be on pier patrol anyway – well, what with all the Overners about.’
‘Overners?’
‘Oh, beggin’ your pardon, sir. Foreigners. Over here from the mainland, sir. Like yourself.’ The sub inspector consulted his half-hunter. ‘You’re a mite late for nammet,’ he said, ‘but if you’ll take a ride in my station wagon, Mrs Bush has some rare shepherd’s pie in the oven.’
Mrs Bush bobbed and beamed again. Not as rare as all that, Lestrade thought to himself.
‘I’d rather view the body,’ he said. It was not intended to be an insult. He needn’t have worried. It was not taken as such.
‘This way, sir. They’ve got him at the Royal Esplanade. ’Ere,’ He grabbed the ear of a passing schoolboy. ‘Stop dreamin’ about them boats, Uffa Fox, and carry the Superintendent’s case.’
While Mrs Bush left, no doubt to busy herself with a work of art in the kitchen, Bush and Lestrade were shown into the cellar. Mine host was a nervous man of dyspeptic disposition, acutely aware of what the presence of corpses did in the way of trade falling off. Even so, he was decorum itself and ceased charging sixpence a time to visitors to view the body while Lestrade was present.
‘So what happened, Bush?’ Lestrade wandered around the makeshift table between the kegs of Burt’s Best Bitter, looking at the body for nothing.
‘Carried up dead he was, sir. From the beach.’
‘Cause of death?’
There was a silence. Bush was no detective. He wasn’t much of a policeman. And it was not Hollingsworth-type insolence that made him murmur, ‘Shortness of breath, sir.’ It was simply the best he could manage.
Lestrade noted the yellow canvas life jacket still strapped under the arms, the sou’wester lying beside him, the heavy sea boots on the floor. ‘A sailor then?’
Bush was stunned. ‘My eyes, Mr Lestrade. You Lunnon ’tecs know a thing or two. Off the Psoriasis, Lady Westminster’s yacht.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Lestrade. ‘Her Grace the Duchess. Who was he?’
Bush had to resort to his notebook. ‘Mr Hemingway,’ he said, ‘of Portman Square, London and Windsor.’
‘Professional sailor?’ Lestrade asked.
‘No, sir. All the yachtsmen in these Games are amateurs, sir.’
Rather like some policemen, Lestrade thought, but held himself in check. He looked at the earthly remains of the late Mr Hemingway. He was a man of thirty or so, with a pronounced centre parting and a clipped military moustache. He looked peaceful enough, his eyes closed, his hands clasped across his chest. Laid out for the undertaker. Well worth sixpence a time. It was the bright green stains down his life jacket that interested Lestrade.
‘What do you think, Mr Lestrade?’ Bush enquired. ‘Heart?’
‘Possibly,’ murmured Lestrade. ‘Do you have a list of his fellow crew members?’
‘I do, sir.’
‘Where would I find them now?’
Bush consulted his watch again. ‘Ooh, they’d be up at the castle by now, sir. Big garden party going on there, there is.’
‘How do I get there?’
‘I’ll take you in my station wagon, sir.’
‘Oh, good.’
They rattled through the summer dust along what passed in the Isle of Wight for roads until they took the steep hill that led to Carisbrooke Castle. At the ivy-covered barbican of the noble pile, Bush applied the brake. It had little effect and it took him several hundred yards of hauling on the reins until the constabulary animals obeyed his snarling commands.
‘You’d better wait here,’ Lestrade said, hurriedly unpacking his pea jacket. ‘We don’t want your uniform frightening the ladies.’
‘Very good, sir. I’ll hold my horses.’
The strains of a string quartet reached Lestrade’s ears as he walked through the medieval archway into the courtyard. On the bowling green to his right, a large gathering of guests made small talk on the afternoon air, to the chink of fine porcelain and the drone of dull speeches made
by Princess Beatrice as Governor of the island. Lestrade realized at once that his choice of natty naval attire had not been a good one. Everyone else was gorgeously dressed in frock coats and top hats. He chatted to a flunkey who pointed out an attractive lady in a broad-brimmed, flowered hat.
‘Your Grace?’ he approached her, surrounded as she was by men. ‘I am Superintendent Lestrade of Scotland Yard. I wonder if I may have a word?’
‘Of course,’ the Duchess of Westminster said. ‘Gentlemen, would you excuse us?’
‘Is there somewhere we could go?’ Lestrade asked.
‘The battlements?’ she suggested and led the way.
The view from the wall was breathtaking. Miles of countryside, dumb in the summer heat, and the rooftops of the little town below.
‘It was from that window that the late King Charles sought his escape from the castle,’ the Duchess was saying.
‘And did he make it, Your Grace?’ Lestrade had never been particularly at one with English history.
She looked at him oddly. ‘Thank you for coming so promptly,’ she said.
‘Why did you send for me?’ They stopped, overlooking the great cannons and the outer earthworks of Elizabeth’s day.
‘You will know that one of my crewmen on the Sorais, William Hemingway, is dead.’
‘Yes,’ Lestrade told her. ‘I have just left him at the Esplanade Hotel.’
‘I see.’ She swept along the mellow stone, her fan superfluous in the breeze from the ramparts. ‘He was a healthy, robust fellow, Superintendent. I cannot believe his death was natural. That is why I sent for you. Can you help?’
‘How many crew on your ship, ma’am?’ he asked.
‘Four altogether,’ she said. ‘Three men and myself.’
‘That would be – Mr Hemingway, Mr Hunloke and Mr Crichton?’ He remembered Bush’s list.
‘That is correct.’
‘Are these gentlemen here now?’
She looked down at the dots of figures below them on the lawn. ‘Philip Hunloke is not here. He had some urgent repairs to carry out in harbour.’
Lestrade looked at her.
‘At Mr Ratsey’s yard at Cowes,’ she explained.
The quartet struck up anew below them and the indescribable notes of a soprano threatened to shatter the glass for miles around.
‘Oh, no,’ muttered the Duchess, ‘Miss Lambert’s off again. Shall we take the steps to the keep, Mr Lestrade? Can you manage that?’
‘Perfectly, thank you, ma’am.’ Lestrade was a little stung by the rebuke, but by the time he reached the top he was gasping more than a little. Her Grace, however, was ahead of him, staring down a deep hole in one of the chambers, ruined and open to the sky.
‘They say this well is three hundred feet deep, Mr Lestrade,’ she said. ‘And a serving girl threw herself down it in the seventeenth century.’
‘Ah, well,’ sighed Lestrade, ‘that’s often the way with serving girls.’
At least in the lee of the great stones, they were relatively safe from the verbal assaults of Miss Lambert. Lestrade perched himself on what had been the medieval privy in the angle of the room and began.
‘Perhaps you could tell me what happened?’ he said.
The Duchess leaned against the far wall. ‘Certainly. My crew and I set sail from Ryde Pier three days ago, returning to that point each day. The eight-metre class race was over sixteen miles.’
‘Who else was in the race?’
‘Let me see – the French, the Belgians, the Swedes and the Norwegians, besides ourselves of course.’
‘And who won?’
‘Dear old Blair. Blair Cochrane on the Cobweb.’
‘Second?’
‘Myself on the Sorais.’
‘And third?’
‘The Fram from Norway.’
‘Who selected your crew?’
‘Mrs Allen and I.’
‘Mrs Allen?’
‘The owner of the yacht,’ the Duchess explained.
‘Tell me about the dead man.’
‘Willie? He was a fine man. Oh, something of an eccentric, I suppose. He believed in daily exercise and keeping fit. Nothing for him to run five miles before breakfast.’
‘And he was an accomplished sailor?’
‘The best,’ she said, ‘next to Philip Hunloke, the best man I could have chosen.’
‘You’d sailed with him before?’
‘Yes,’ she told him, ‘many times.’
‘What happened this time?’
‘At first,’ she began to pace the worn old stones, ‘all was well. The wind was fair. We were all in high spirits. We’d given an interview to the Press and had our photographs taken. Then, all hands on deck.’
‘And then?’
‘Towards the end of the first day – the Monday – Willie complained of sickness. He had pains, he said, in his stomach. George – Mr Crichton – said it was the champagne. Willie laughed it off. But as we went ashore that evening I noticed how grey he looked. However, we were leading at that stage and we all had high hopes for the Tuesday.’
‘And on the Tuesday?’
‘Willie was visibly weaker. Most of the day, he clung to the rail, smiling when he noticed one of us looking at him. But he simply couldn’t manage the yacht at all. Philip and George carried him, as it were, but it wasn’t easy. I tended him as best I could, but the wind had changed north-easterly and we all had our hands full. By the end of Tuesday, we still had a slight lead, but the Cobweb was catching us fast and the Fram was threatening. We held a council of war on the Victoria Pier and told Willie that he wasn’t to sail on the Wednesday. He wouldn’t have it. Didn’t want to let the side down, as it were.’
‘And on the Wednesday?’
‘He seemed odd as we set sail. Stupefied almost. He barely had the strength to eat his prunes. As we rounded the buoy for the finish . . .’ Her voice trailed away for a moment, then she regained herself. ‘As we rounded the buoy, Willie collapsed. His pulse was very rapid. His eyes were glazed and the pupils dilated. He was being very, very sick. He was a good sailor, Mr Lestrade,’ she said suddenly, ‘and I’ll swear there was nothing wrong with his heart. I don’t understand any of this.’ She broke away to where the steps, worn and uneven, tumbled down the grassy motte to the bailey. ‘Oh, it’s so wretched. There’s to be a ball tonight at the Yacht Club in Ryde. I am to be the guest of honour. The belle of the ball. But I don’t feel particularly belle-ish at the moment.’
He looked at the strong, aristocratic face, the eyes big with tears. Rather like Marylou Adams had looked a few days ago. And he reflected again, as he had a thousand times, what a cold bedfellow is sudden death. No heart. No mercy. Just emptiness.
‘Your Grace,’ he said, ‘I am catapulted into this situation. I’ll confess I’m a long way from Whitehall, but I have to place my trust in someone and I feel that someone must be you.’
‘Thank you, Mr Lestrade,’ she said, afraid of what was to come.
He looked at the dots of Edwardian elegance mingling and being nice to each other on the lawn. There was no singing now. Obviously someone had made a request to Miss Lambert.
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘You mentioned prunes.’
‘Did I?’ she asked him.
‘You said Mr Hemingway barely had the strength to eat his prunes . . .’
‘Oh, yes,’ she remembered. ‘It was all part of his fitness mania, his eccentricity if you will. He ate prunes each day to keep himself regular.’
‘Who knew of this?’ Lestrade asked.
‘Almost everyone,’ she said. ‘In yachting circles at least. There was a standing joke about them. He said he used to win races because the prunes moved him on.’
‘Did anyone else in your crew eat these prunes?’
She pulled a face. ‘Good Heavens, no. As I told you, Willie was eccentric.’
‘Clearly.’
‘What is the significance of the prunes, Mr Lestrade? Were they bad?’
‘Very, ma’am,’ he said grimly. ‘I am guessing, of course, but as I said, I must trust someone.’
‘Your guess then?’ she harried him. ‘Mr Lestrade, Willie Hemingway was a very dear friend. He died on board my ship. As friend and captain I have a right to know what happened to him.’
‘Very well,’ said Lestrade, breaking away from the wall to face her. ‘Brace yourself, madam. William Hemingway was poisoned.’
‘By accident?’ She felt her heart stop.
‘No, ma’am. By design. The symptoms you describe – the weakness, the sickness, the dilated pupils, the collapse. Above all, the vomit – grass-green, wasn’t it?’
She nodded silently.
He nodded too. ‘Digitalis,’ he said. ‘The purple foxglove.’
She gasped.
‘One ounce of the tincture – and it’s not difficult to get, even with the new Poisons Act – or thirty-six grains of the leaf. Death takes . . . about three days.’
She swayed for a moment against the archway.
‘Are you all right, Your Grace?’ He caught her arm.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. She looked at him hard. ‘You are telling me that Willie was murdered?’
‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘Who gave him the prunes?’
She frowned, then gathered up her skirts. ‘Mr Lestrade, I must be going.’
But Lestrade put his arm across the archway and prevented that. ‘Who gave him the prunes?’ he repeated. Prunes had that effect on people.
He saw the lip quiver for a second only. ‘Philip Hunloke,’ she said.
The ball was at its height on that still and tropic night. Lestrade had had no luck at Mr Ratsey’s yard. Philip Hunloke had been there, certainly, but he had gone. It didn’t matter. Lestrade caught up with him at last in the ornate conveniences with the swivel washbasins at the home of the Royal Victoria Yacht Club. He had no element of surprise for he came upon Hunloke in the act of washing his hands and the said Hunloke had seen his adversary in the mirror – an odd-looking ferret of a man in a ridiculous jaunty cap and pea jacket.