by M. J. Trow
‘Luckily for you, he’s had a stroke.’
‘The old man?’
‘Yes. He’s not expected to recover. In a coma.’
‘They buried the boy.’ Lestrade at least knew that.
Henry nodded. ‘They say it was the post-mortem that sent Bolsover over the edge. That and the shame of suicide of course.’
‘But it wasn’t suicide, sir,’ Lestrade told him.
‘Not?’ Henry frowned. ‘But I read Bland’s report. The locked room.’
‘I know,’ nodded Lestrade. ‘But I have a nose for these things sir.’ He patted the bandage. ‘At least, I did have. It doesn’t smell right.’
‘Well, it’s all that lint, Lestrade,’ Henry reasoned. ‘Are we talking about murder?’
Lestrade nodded. ‘And it’s just possible,’ he said, ‘that it was the first of several.’
‘Go on,’ Henry cut himself a cigar.
‘Anstruther Fitzgibbon, hurdler, is found shot dead in his bedroom in Berkeley Square. William Hemingway, sailor, dies of poisoning aboard an eight-metre boat in the Solent.’
‘Yacht,’ Henry corrected him.
‘No, I’m sure it was the Solent, sir.’ Lestrade was adamant. ‘Martin Holman, runner, collapses on the track at the White City and dies of poisoning.’
‘The connection?’
‘Obvious,’ Lestrade shrugged. ‘All athletes.’
‘And Hans-Rudiger Hesse?’
‘Ah.’
‘You see, I read your reports closer than you do, Lestrade. You said there was some connection.’
‘I believe there is,’ he nodded, though his report had omitted to say that it was Marylou Adams who had put the idea into his mind. ‘But he doesn’t fit the pattern. First, he was stabbed. Second, he was no athlete.’
‘So he’s nothing to do with the others?’
‘Well, he was over here to cover the Games,’ Lestrade said, ‘and he did come to see me for some reason.’
‘Nana Sahib.’ When it came to memorizing reports, Edward Henry had a great affinity with the elephants.
‘Nana Sahib,’ echoed Lestrade.
‘Four men dead,’ mused Henry. ‘Two by the same means. How far have you got on Holman?’
‘I’m continuing the hunt, sir. He was being blackmailed. The lady in question is currently having her vitals measured on her way to Holloway.’
‘Did she do it?’
‘I don’t think so. Although Holman was about to go to his boss and confess his embezzlement, I don’t think Miss Fendyke has it in her. Besides, she doesn’t know a fungus from her elbow.’
‘So where does that leave us?’
‘I have men at the White City night and day, sir.’
‘Who do you suspect?’
‘Everyone – and no one.’ Lestrade thought it best to play safe.
‘We can’t put a man into every team, Lestrade,’ Henry said. ‘They’d smell a rat.’
‘What about the Press, sir?’ the superintendent asked.
‘Are you mad? Give those people an inch and they’ll take a mile.’
‘I know, sir, but they can also be useful. They can snoop without raising suspicions. They also offer money where we offer handcuffs.’
‘Do you have anyone in mind?’
‘Two people,’ Lestrade said. ‘Miss . . .’
Henry held up his hand. ‘I don’t want to know,’ he said. ‘If it gets out that we’re making enquiries via Fleet Street, we’ll all be curating the police museum.’
‘I also have a friend who’s about to take part in the Olympic fencing,’ Lestrade said. ‘He’s not the brightest chap in the world, but I think he’d be useful.’
Henry nodded. ‘Very well, but all this is strictly hush-hush, Lestrade. This conversation has never taken place.’
‘What conversation is that, sir?’
Henry actually smiled. Then the telephone rang. ‘Yes?’ It squawked and clicked in response to his voice. ‘Where?’ He was suddenly stern. ‘When? How?’
He put down the receiver. ‘There’s been another one, Lestrade.’ He looked ashen-faced at the superintendent. ‘A member of the Ladies’ Olympic Team.’ He scribbled something on a pad. ‘This is the address. It’s becoming a bloodbath, Lestrade. I want it stopped.’
In those days, the manor of Touchen End could be reached only by road. Old Sir Theobald Touchen had been at Cuidad Rodrigo with Wellington and at the port with everybody else. The one thing guaranteed to get up the old soldier’s flaring nostrils was the groan and clank of rolling stock and the snort and growl of locomotives. Legend had it he’d shot one surveyor of the London and Windsor Railway Company and hanged another in his own chains. The accession of the young Victoria had mellowed him to the extent that he allowed a spur to reach to within eight miles. Any closer than that and he’d set the mastiffs on them.
So it was, with Theobald Touchen a-mouldering in his grave, but tradition dying hard, that Superintendent Lestrade alighted at Windsor, and hired a cab the rest of the way. The Fives Court had been the elephant house, a bizarre building full of odd arches and angles, originally the gift of a grateful nation to crusty old general who, before he stood in the breaches at Badajoz, had been very at home on a howdah. Lestrade fancied that the aroma of the great beasts still lingered in the paddock as he and Constable Hollingsworth entered by a side gate.
A statuesque lady in a figure-hugging sporting costume met them.
‘Superintendent Lestrade,’ he introduced himself. ‘This is Detective Constable Hollingsworth.’
‘Frizzie Dalrymple,’ she said in an accent bred of Roedean and Girton. Hollingsworth was mesmerized by the size of the lady’s frontage, the nipples straining against the linen like organ stops.
‘Look at the long-taileds on that,’ he whispered from the corner of his mouth.
Unaware of his inferior’s surprising grasp of ornithology, the superintendent swept on. ‘Good morning, madam. I understand the local police have been?’
‘And gone,’ said Miss Dalrymple, ‘save for one solitary idiot they’ve left guarding poor Effie. This is so undignified, Superintendent. Can’t we at least carry her indoors?’
‘Not at the moment, madam,’ Lestrade told her. ‘Perhaps you could wait up at the house? My colleague and I will join you later. Could you assemble the occupants?’
‘It was a man, of course,’ Miss Dalrymple snorted.
‘What was, darlin’?’ Hollingsworth asked.
She turned on him as though aware of a vague smell. ‘I am not your darling, you contemptible little man.’
‘Nor anyone else’s, I shouldn’t think,’ Hollingsworth muttered, but he caught the red-eyed gaze of the Super and let it go.
‘I am referring to the murder of poor, dear Effie,’ she said, returning to Lestrade. ‘It was a man.’
‘I’m sure it was, madam,’ Lestrade agreed. ‘Perhaps we could discuss it later?’
She spun on a finely tuned heel and sprinted across the paddock. Hollingsworth felt his eyes water. ‘Know what she needs, Super?’ he asked. But Lestrade had gone, making a beeline for the Berkshire constable who lolled on the gate.
‘Lestrade, Scotland Yard,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’
‘Constable Morse, sir.’
‘Who’s your guv’nor?’
‘Chief Inspector Challoner, sir.’
Lestrade raised an eyebrow. ‘Never heard of him. Where’s the deceased?’
Morse fumbled with a series of keys on the end of a long chain. He stuffed one into the keyhole of an old wooden door which reached his chin. Even Lestrade had to stoop just a little. Inside was a square court, bounded on four sides by walls of brick and stone. Jutting from the opposite angle was a buttress, newer than the rest, across which hung a white tarpaulin.
‘It’s under ’ere, sir,’ Morse said and peeled back the sheet.
Dear Effie lay on her back over the ridge of tiles. A beautiful girl, pale, deathly pale beneath the short-cropped black hair.
She wore the same sporting garment as Frizzie Dalrymple, reaching to just above a pair of dimpled knees. Hollingsworth walked around the body, chewing the tobacco he’d been saving since the station, and stopped short at the upper end of the torso. The same astonishing frontage met his gaze, although by virtue of the girl’s position, flanking her ears. The difference here was that the singlet was slashed brown with blood, in a double curve that crossed the ribs and trickled down over the breasts.
Gingerly, Hollingsworth tapped the rigid nipples. They hurt his knuckles.
‘Super,’ he frowned.
‘Hmm?’ Lestrade was still looking at the well-turned calves and the nailed shoes.
‘Does rigor mortis start in your extremities?’
‘I think it already has in mine,’ Lestrade grunted, squatting with as much grace as possible in a man who had faced a Gorgon not four hours before.
‘Have a look at this, guv,’ Hollingsworth suggested.
Lestrade came around the buttress and gazed on the pale face. He shook his head. ‘Tragic,’ he said. ‘What? Eighteen? Nineteen?’
‘More like forty-two,’ Hollingsworth observed and nudged Effie’s upper portions with his toe.
‘Good God,’ Lestrade said. ‘Morse, has anybody examined this body?’
‘I don’t believe so, sir.’
‘Who found her?’
‘Er . . .’ The constable consulted the back of his hand. ‘Lost my notebook, sir,’ he mumbled, by way of explanation. ‘Mr H. Bandicoot.’
Lestrade stood up sharply. ‘H. Bandicoot?’ he repeated. ‘Tall bloke? Blond, curly hair? Good-looking in a fairly simple kind of way?’
‘Yeah, that’s ’im, sir,’ Morse replied.
‘Do you know ’im then, guv?’ Hollingsworth asked.
‘Never heard of him,’ Lestrade said. ‘Are you a married man, Morse?’
‘Yes, sir. After a fashion.’
‘You, Hollingsworth?’
‘’Fraid so, guv,’ he grunted. ‘We’ve been together now for fourteen years and it don’t seem a day too much.’
‘Quite. Right then, gentlemen, you won’t be too shocked by . . .’ and he grabbed the singlet in both hands, tearing it apart in one fluid movement. ‘My God!’
All three policemen stared. Above the angry gashes across the diaphragm rested a contraption known to few women and even fewer men.
‘Your best guess, then?’ Lestrade it was who first had the presence of mind to speak.
‘They’re colanders,’ said Morse. ‘My wife strains cabbage in them.’
‘She’d strain a lot more than that,’ Hollingsworth commented. ‘This pair has killed this one.’
He was right. The blood lay congealed and brown on the curled rim below each breast. It was crusted too, on the buckles at each side. Hollingsworth moved to run his fingers over the colanders with their aerated nipples the size of golf balls.
‘Don’t.’ Lestrade tapped his hand away.
‘You’re right, guv.’ Hollingsworth looked shamefaced for the first time in his life. ‘Not decent somehow, is it?’
‘Decency be buggered,’ Lestrade said. ‘Look at that face.’
Hollingsworth did.
‘Now the hands.’
Hollingsworth did. Lestrade held them up to reveal ulcers along the fingers and palms.
‘Got a handkerchief, Morse?’ the superintendent asked.
‘Yes, thank you, sir. Oh, I see,’ and the constable whipped it out.
Lestrade wiped away the brown blood from the chest wound. More ulcers came to light. ‘Thank you, Morse.’
The constable could not bring himself to return it to his pocket and stood with it dangling rather stupidly.
‘Chrome sores,’ said Lestrade. ‘Bichromate of potassium. What do we know about this lady, Morse? Did she work in the dyeing trade?’
‘You only do that once, sir,’ Hollingsworth grinned, but the attempt at levity fell on deaf ears.
‘I don’t believe she worked at all, sir.’
Lestrade checked the hands again. Beneath the sores, the skin was soft and gentle.
‘Right, gentlemen. I want the body taken to the mortuary at Windsor. Is there a telephone in the house, Morse?’
‘Yes, sir. I believe so.’
‘Right. Hollingsworth, make the arrangements. And before you and the lady part company, I want you to unbuckle that halter thing she’s wearing. And when you do, wear gloves. Unless you want to end up like her.’
Lestrade questioned the servants first. He knew the lore of country houses. The master paid the bills and rode the grounds, but those really in the know lived below stairs and they had a propensity for wearing starched white and tugging their forelocks. It was a dreary day, however, until he interviewed the head-groom-turned-chauffeur, crisp in his plastron-fronted tunic and peaked cap.
‘Now, I’m not one to talk,’ he assured Lestrade.
‘Of course not . . . er . . .?’
‘Mansell, sir. His Lordship’s driver.’
‘His Lordship?’ Lestrade had neglected to ask the most obvious question.
‘Lord Bolsover. ’Course, ’e’s on ’is way out now.’
‘The Marquess of Bolsover owns Touchen End?’
‘’As for years,’ Mansell told him. ‘’Is dad bought it off of old General Touchen before ’Aldane was in the militia. Owns most of Berkshire, ’e do.’
‘’Aldane?’
‘Bolsover.’
‘So who was the host for these few days?’ Lestrade began a new tack.
‘That stuck-up cow Miss Frizzie, I suppose. But they’re takin’ it in turns while these games is on. Few days Touchen, few days Tranby Croft.’
‘Who? The athletes?’
Mansell nodded. ‘Athletes, my arse,’ he growled. ‘They’re only down ’ere for the bubbly and the ’ow’s yer father in the woods.’
‘How’s your father?’ Lestrade repeated.
‘Dead these donkey’s years,’ Mansell told him. ‘That Miss Effie, she was a one. Not that I’m one to talk, mind yer.’
Lestrade loosened his collar and stretched his legs. He offered one of his best Havanas to the man. It must have been the warmth of the library and the glass of port with his luncheon.
‘A one, was she, Miss Effie?’ He blew careless rings to the Inigo Jones ceiling.
‘One? Two at a bloody time more like. Went like a Silver Ghost.’
‘Quiet runner, was she?’ Lestrade turned his back on the chauffeur and flicked open the locked tantalus with his switchblade. ‘Brandy?’
‘Well, I’m not a drinking man,’ muttered Mansell, ‘but seein’ as it’s Wednesday . . .’
‘It’s Thursday.’ Lestrade thought it best to set the record straight.
‘Seein’ as it’s Wednesday I don’t drink, I’ll ’ave a small one.’
‘Was there anyone in particular in Miss Effie’s life?’ Lestrade partook of the amber nectar himself.
‘’Ow about the Second Battalion the Gordon ’Ighlanders?’ Mansell sniggered, quaffed the glass, cleared his throat and held his arm out for more. Lestrade obliged. ‘No, straight up. I seen ’er in the woods only yesterday.’
‘Go on.’
Mansell looked around to make sure the oak panelling could keep a secret; to check that the books were mum.
‘I’m not one to talk, you understand.’
Lestrade tutted and shook his head in support.
‘It were a man.’
Lestrade collapsed back in the library chair. ‘No,’ he said.
‘They were well away. Didn’t notice me, of course.’
‘You were alone?’
‘No, old Smithers the gamekeeper were wi’ me, but ’e’s blind as a goat and deaf as a ferret, so ’e didn’t twig what was goin’ on.’
‘What was going on?’ Lestrade leaned forward.
‘’E ’ad her fol-de-rols off.’ Beads of sweat formed along Mansell’s upper lip.
‘Did he?’ Lestrade whispered. ‘Wh
o?’
‘Miss Effie.’ Mansell began to doubt the basic intelligence of the Yard man.
‘No, I mean who was removing the fol-de-rols?’
‘Dunno. Couldn’t see ’im. It’s dark in the woods of an evening’. Nights be drawin’ in.’
‘Could you hear any conversation?’
‘Few “oohs”. Some “aahs”. One or two “ugghs” unless I’m mistaken.’
‘They weren’t ones to talk either, then?’ Lestrade commented, refilling the chauffeur’s glass for the third time. ‘Would you say that the man was one of the guests here, at the house?’
‘Now you’ve asked me,’ Mansell stroked his chin, ‘I knew Miss Effie by ’er whatsits.’ He held his hand in front of him. ‘I’d never seen ’is thingummies afore.’
‘Did you make a habit of looking at Miss Effie’s whatsits?’
Mansell was sharp for all his three brandies and he perhaps sensed charges in the wind. ‘She left ’em out all over the place,’ he complained. ‘Full-blooded bloke like me can’t ’elp but notice.’
‘And Mrs Mansell?’ Lestrade arched an eyebrow.
‘She ain’t got none to speak of. Leastwise I ain’t seen ’em since 1879.’
‘So she had her blouse off, in the wood the other night?’
‘And her corsets.’
‘Was she trying something on?’ Lestrade asked.
‘’E was the one tryin’ something on,’ Mansell told him.
‘If you had to plump for one of the guests,’ Lestrade tried to pin his man down, ‘who would it be; the man with Miss Effie?’
‘Now you’ve asked me,’ Mansell realized again, ‘prob’ly that big blond bugger, that Bandicoot. ’E looks as if ’e puts it about a bit.’
‘Put it about a bit, do you, Harry Bandicoot?’ Lestrade strolled on the verandah.
‘What?’ the big blond bugger puffed on his cigar.
‘Let’s walk by the river. I’d like to see the Fives Court again.’
They left the verandah to the moths of the July evening, dancing and fluttering in their blind quest for the light. The plaster shone white on the nose of the straw-hatted man in his grey serge, so that the watchers from the house thought it was a will-o’-the-wisp against the trees.
‘I’m sorry, Harry, I’ve had to leave you to the end.’