Lestrade and the Deadly Game

by M. J. Trow

  ‘I’m getting you out of here, Sholto.’ She began to haul him upright.

  ‘No, no,’ he said weakly. ‘The General is only scouting for boys.’

  ‘We have a law against that in Washington DC.’ She scowled at him. ‘And we don’t have officers who wear frocks.’

  ‘Oh?’ sneered Baden-Powell archly. ‘I’ve heard one or two things about John Pershing, I can tell you.’

  ‘Marylou.’ Lestrade snatched her arm before the steam came out of her ears. ‘Perhaps you can find your way to the boat? I’ll join you in a few moments.’

  ‘I’m not sure I ought to leave you alone with this degenerate,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ Baden-Powell assured her, ‘though I’m grateful for your concern.’

  ‘General,’ Lestrade sat up as best he could, ‘could you point Miss Adams in the right direction for the beach?’

  Baden-Powell crossed his arms over, fingers pointing everywhere. ‘Which one, Lestrade? We’re on a bally island don’t you know?’

  ‘Don’t bother!’ Marylou said, abandoning all hope of setting her hat on straight. ‘I’ll find it myself,’ and she crashed off through the undergrowth, pulling leaves from her hair.

  ‘Sorry about that, Lestrade.’ Baden-Powell squatted beside him. ‘Woodcraft, you see. These boys, Lestrade, most of ’em are from your neck of the woods – the East End. Never seen a blade of grass in their lives. I’ve seen thousands of them – boys that is, not blades of grass – hunched-up, miserable specimens, smoking endless cigarettes, many of them gambling. I’ve got ’em trekking, rubbing sticks together, signalling with flags and so on. Seeing old ladies across the road.’

  ‘Why did they pounce on Miss Adams?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Ah, yes. Obviously, in the gloaming, mistook her for me. Easily done at a distance. I remember old Squeaky Auchinleck in India. Completely mistook the shape of a charging Brahma bull. Well, you only get the one chance, Lestrade.’

  Both men nodded sagely, combining as they did one hundred and five years of experience.

  ‘Well,’ said Lestrade, ‘might I have a word before . . . er . . . tiffin?’

  ‘Of course. Something more about poor young Fitzgibbon?’

  ‘Not exactly. Poor young Term this time.’

  ‘Term? Lord, yes. I read it in the paper. Young Tonto swims across every day to get one from Poole. Bally odd, that. Poor bugger buying it in full view of everyone.’

  ‘Young Tonto? Isn’t that usually how you buy newspapers?’

  Baden-Powell looked at him oddly. ‘No, young Term. Getting killed, I mean. Of course, I hadn’t seen him for some time. But I’d heard he was quite a good fencer. Still, there it is. No cavalry training, you see. Gets ’em all in the end.’

  ‘In the throat, sir.’ Lestrade was a stickler for accuracy. ‘The wound was in the throat.’

  ‘Quite, quite.’ Baden-Powell leaned back against a handy trunk.

  ‘Rather odd that two young men of your acquaintance should die by violence in the space of two months, sir?’ Lestrade ventured.

  ‘Hmm.’ Baden-Powell nodded in agreement. ‘Did you get back to old Bolsover as I suggested?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Lestrade had to confess that it was the last thing on his mind in the helter-skelter of the past weeks. ‘But I understand he is at death’s door.’

  ‘Oh, at least,’ said Baden-Powell. ‘Probably half-way through it by now. Have you tried the Circle?’

  ‘Many times, sir,’ Lestrade told him. ‘Although of course since that fire in Moorgate Station . . .’

  ‘Eh? No, no, my dear chap. I mean the Poetry Circle. Can’t abide the bally stuff myself. Namby-pamby, but young Term was a member.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I remember his pa telling me about it. Neither of us approved, of course.’

  ‘Was this at Cambridge?’

  ‘Probably began there. Namby-pamby bally place. But I think they hang out in Bloomsbury now. There’s another namby-pamby place, by the way.’

  ‘Thank you, General.’ Lestrade staggered to his feet.

  ‘Has it been of use?’ Baden-Powell asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I hope so. In the meantime, you aren’t planning to leave the country, are you?’

  ‘What?’ He of the Big Hat winked. ‘In this dress?’

  That Friday was damnably hot. The flags hung limp in the stillness below the giant bastion of Windsor Castle. Fifty-six men, trim and eager in the sporting combinations of their nations, strained at the leash. The King himself mourned the fact that he was not to run with them. Perhaps forty years and fifteen stone ago. Now he could barely make the rostrum. A roar went up from the crowd as he raised the handkerchief – an old one of Mrs Keppel’s – and brought it down with a sudden gesture. The marshal squeezed the trigger and the Olympic Marathon began.

  Through street and lane the race meandered, elbows nudging elbows, sweat streaming down foreheads, spittle splashing on moustaches. The pride of Europe ran under the blazing summer sun to the enthusiastic cheers of the crowd. Little boys and dogs scampered with them, snapping at the heels of the runners. Some of the dogs were just as bad. Cyclists pedalled alongside, roaring encouragement, passing canteens of water and refreshing, invigorating cigarettes. Flags and bunting fluttered on the route, toffee apples and candy floss and popcorn wafting on the little breeze that blessed the moment.

  Price and Lord took the lead in sunny Southall, fifty yards ahead of the appallingly unpleasant South African, Hefferon, and a diminutive candy-maker. Lord glanced back.

  ‘Don’t rate the Eytie, Price.’

  Price glanced back.

  ‘Rank outsider. What about the African?’

  ‘Amateur written all over him. Cigar?’

  ‘No, thanks, I’ve just put one out. I say, what a cracking gel back there. Chest like a roll-top.’

  ‘Now, now, old man. Keep your eyes on the road. Still sixteen miles to go, you know.’

  ‘It’s not the sixteen miles that bothers me,’ Price admitted. ‘It’s the three hundred and eighty-five yards the blighters have tacked on the end.’

  ‘Wasn’t like this in St Louis, was it?’

  ‘Lord, no,’ said Price. ‘Mind you, they had bloody Kaffirs running in that one, didn’t they?’

  ‘Yes, I seem to remember they did. This chappie behind’s probably had them shot. Athens was a bit much though, wasn’t it? The damned Greek cavalry as escort.’

  ‘Yes. The running shoe hasn’t been made that can stand up to horse shit.’

  They high-stepped up the High Street to the cheers of the crowd.

  ‘Good old Pricey!’ shouted one.

  ‘Lordy, Lordy!’ cheered an American.

  They waved back. ‘Did you hear about poor old Tyrrwhit?’ Lord asked.

  ‘Tyrrwhit Dover?’ Price began to squeeze his waist to ease the stitch.

  ‘Yes. He was found dead this morning, you know.’

  ‘No.’ Price didn’t break his stride. ‘Well, I never. Accident?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so. Had an arrow in his back.’

  ‘Good Lord.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Suicide?’

  ‘Tricky, I would have thought.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. He was a damned good shot, you know.’

  Hefferon suddenly loped alongside, his jaw set firm, his arms sawing through the Southall air.

  Price nudged Lord and nodded in his direction. ‘Kronje was a stinker!’ Lord shouted.

  ‘Baden-Powell wears a frock!’ Hefferon countered.

  The British athletes fell silent. It was fair comment, really.

  Hefferon loped through Ealing, his lungs agony inside the huge brawny chest. And the little Italian was at his heels the whole way, a cyclist wobbling beside him.

  ‘Eh, Dorando,’ the cyclist called, ‘my bum, she hasa gone to sleep.’

  ‘I gotta my own problems,’ the little candy-maker hissed and, with a supreme burst
, trotted past the South African.

  ‘Hey,’ Hefferon grunted, ‘King Victor Emmanuel sleeps with his mother.’

  ‘Basta!’ hissed Dorando, flicking his thumb with his teeth. ‘President Kruger hasa the personal body odour.’

  And in the streets of Willesden, it was true of many of them.

  The little man with the huge eyes and ludicrous cap couldn’t believe it as the stadium of the White City rose like an elephant before him. He glanced back. Hefferon had gone. Price and Lord had gone. Only the dogged American, Hayes, was on the skyline, but he looked a long, long way away. Dorando’s pacemaker wheeled with his deadened derriere into the stadium and swung his machine to the left under the archway to begin the final lap around the track.

  ‘That’sa it, Dorando. We’ra nearly there. Only a few more metres. Dorando? Dorando?’ He screeched to a halt in the dust and his jaw fell as he glanced back. The little candy-maker was running the wrong way. The crowd were on their feet, whistling, stamping, pointing.

  ‘And Dorando’s down, ladies and gentlemen.’ Kent Icke took up the commentary over the loud-hailer. ‘Like a latterday Philippides, he’s fallen over. And he’s not wearing armour either. But you don’t want to know about my enormous classical background. There are people rushing to him, officials, doctors. He’s up. Somebody’s dousing him with water. I think . . . Yes . . . I see his shoes smouldering in this intense heat. We’re all glowing rather, this afternoon. He’s up. Dorando’s up. This is astonishing, ladies and gentlemen. We are seeing history made here, today, this very afternoon at the White City. Remember where you heard it first. Oh no, he’s down. Dorando’s down. They’re carrying him now. I’ve never seen such enthusiasm in a crowd. Come on, Dorando! Come on, you little Italian bugger . . .’ And the loud-hailer suddenly hiccupped, but the roar was too great for the faux pas to be noticed.

  So they carried him across the tape, newspapermen jostling with straw-boatered officials and sprinting policemen. The little knees buckled and he went down for the last time.

  It was the American, Hayes, of course, who got the gold. Unfortunate that the officials had been over-zealous and not a little partisan in their aid. But Dorando was sponged down, fanned with towels and given a bottle of Chianti to keep his pecker up. Then they put him into his suit and hauled him back out to the Royal Podium for a special accolade. Twice that day, Dorando passed into history. And Mr Irving Berlin sat down at his tinkling ivories and wrote a song about him.

  ‘So, let me see if I’ve got this straight, Paddy me boy. This wop – what’s his name?’

  ‘Pietri. Dorando Pietri. Only those wonderful sports commentators of ours persist in calling him Dorando as if it was his surname.’

  Lestrade shrugged.

  ‘You can shrug, Lestrade.’ Superintendent Quinn was ever one for putting colleagues at their ease. ‘But it buggers up my files no end. Do I put his dossier in D for Dorando or P for Pietri?’

  ‘Hmm,’ Lestrade nodded. ‘Life is full of little ups and downs, isn’t it, as the calligraphy expert once told me.’

  ‘It’s not a laughing matter, Sholto,’ Inspector Gregory told him.

  ‘No, Tom,’ Lestrade sighed. ‘I suppose it’s not.’ Nothing Tom Gregory said ever was. ‘So you arrested Pietri or Dorando or whatever his name is because he ran the wrong way in the Marathon?’

  ‘No, no, Lestrade,’ snapped Quinn, reaching for his hip flask, ‘you haven’t been listening. I arrested him because of his irrational behaviour in front of Her Majesty this afternoon.’

  ‘Really? What did he do?’

  Quinn bridled. ‘I’m sorry, that’s classified.’

  ‘Superintendent,’ said Lestrade quietly, ‘I have spent most of the evening and night on a very crowded train, jolting and rattling all the way up from Poole. I get to the Yard to check my mail and what do I find? A note from Mr Henry insisting that I work closely with you on a brand new case. Well, let me tell you, Mr Quinn, that I am up to my braces in cases at the moment and I need another one like an orang-utan bite. And will you please tell me how what happened in a stadium full of people can possibly be classified?’

  Quinn screwed up his moustache. His nose was still a dull cherry colour from its close encounter with the dapper boots of Mr Mervyn Tiny-Teeny and it was three in the morning. ‘Very well,’ he muttered. ‘As it happened, my stenographer, Constable Venables, was on the spot. Got a mind like a mynah bird. Able to repeat everything anybody says.’

  ‘Get to the point, Patrick.’ Lestrade tried to make himself comfortable in Quinn’s exceedingly spartan furniture.

  ‘Right. Picture the scene. The wop is disqualified because he’s virtually carried over the tape by officials. Oh, and one of Gregory’s bobbies here.’

  ‘I’ve had a word with him, Sholto. He won’t do it again.’

  ‘Since they don’t intend to hold another one here until 1940, Tom, I don’t suppose he will. Go on, Quinn.’

  ‘But the Queen – God Bless Her – took some sort of shine to him. Plucky little bleeder et cetera. Et cetera. So she decided to present him, there and then, with a gold cup.’

  ‘Well, after he’d washed and dressed, of course,’ Gregory observed, a stickler for orthodoxy.

  The others withered him with their glances.

  ‘Her Majesty said, “You brave little Italian. Please accept this gold cup in gratitude for a valiant feat.” The wop then looked at his feet. He was shaking all over. It was the damnedest thing. He took the cup. Then he gave it back. “No, no,” said Her Majesty, “you don’t seem to understand. That’s for you.”

  ‘Dorando: “No, I cannota accept it. I killed Dover.”

  ‘Her Majesty: “Yes, I know you keeled over, but it doesn’t matter. We only count falls in wrestling. Don’t we?”

  ‘Here she turned to her equerry for advice. He obviously wasn’t very up on wrestling because he had to ask somebody else.’

  ‘Dorando: “No, no, Your Majesty. You don’ta understand. I did it.”

  ‘Her Majesty: “Indeed you did, you plucky little man. Congratulations. That is why we are giving you this cup.”’

  ‘Then what happened?’ Lestrade asked, on the edge of his seat with boredom.

  ‘The damned Eytie started blubbing. He grabbed the Queen’s hand screaming hysterically.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Poleaxed the little bastard, of course. My boys were on him like a ton of bricks. He was pretty wobbly after the race, anyway. And of course, he’s virtually a midget.’ Quinn stroked his nose at the mention of the word.

  ‘What did Her Majesty do?’

  ‘Well, if you knew the Queen like I do, Lestrade, you wouldn’t ask that question. Her Majesty just smiled graciously and sipped her afternoon tipple from the end of her cane. But you could see as she signed the autographs, she was totally overcome by it all. I asked her how she felt and she said it must be almost four o’clock. Well, it’s the heat and the strain.’

  ‘I still don’t see why I’m here,’ Lestrade said. ‘Deranged Italians are quite rightly your providence, Quinn. As I said, I’ve got my hands full already.’

  ‘Don’t you read the papers, Lestrade?’ Quinn snapped, hurling the Evening Standard at him.

  Lestrade saw it. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought you meant newspapers.’

  ‘There!’ Quinn tapped the item. ‘Famous Archer Found Murdered.’

  ‘Archer?’ Lestrade asked. ‘Any relation to the Archer-Shees?’

  ‘Bless you, Sholto,’ Gregory chimed in.

  ‘Sorry, Tom,’ Lestrade said, ‘I’d forgotten you were there.’

  ‘Dover,’ said Quinn. ‘Tyrwhitt Falconhurst Dover. One of the British toxophilites.’

  ‘A poisoner?’ Lestrade must have misheard.

  ‘An archer, damn it!’

  Lestrade had misheard. ‘Ah, I see. You interest me strangely. Go on.’

  ‘Well, that’s where Gregory comes in. That’s his case.’

  Lestrade re
ached for his half-hunter. The lights never seemed to have burned so late at the Yard. Or was it his half-century and a bit beginning to take its toll? ‘Go on then, Tom,’ he said.

  Marylou Adams stood in the moonlight, framed by the French windows. He crossed to her, still holding the wine glass, though its contents were gone. He reached her in a few strides and took her hand, whispering her name.

  She turned from him slowly. ‘I’ll be going home soon,’ she said.

  ‘Will you?’ he asked and turned her face back to him.

  She nodded. ‘When I’ve found the man who killed Rudi Hesse.’

  He shook his head. ‘You’re a newspaperman to the core,’ he said, smiling. ‘How is Lestrade doing?’

  She sighed and wandered into the garden. The rhododendron bushes were bright under the fullness of the moon and they cast sharp, blue shadows across the lawn. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He seems to think he’s looking for a mass murderer. He thinks whoever killed Rudi killed all the athletes as well.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you think?’ He strolled beside her to the rose-garlanded archway. ‘I thought you gave him the idea in the first place.’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she said. ‘It is a woman’s prerogative, you know.’

  ‘But not a newspaperman’s,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Lestrade spent most of today dangling upside down from a tree. I just don’t think he’s the man for the job.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘let’s forget him, then.’ He looked up at the clear sky and led her into the bower formed by an angle of the privet. ‘The night is young, Marylou,’ he whispered.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ she argued, smiling. ‘That’s a cliché that a writer like you ought not to be using.’

  They laughed in the stillness. From somewhere, an owl swooped and hooted, ghostly white against the woods. ‘I’m glad you came,’ he said and took both her hands in his. She gazed into his eyes and saw there sadness like her own.

  ‘Richard,’ she said, ‘I’m not free.’

  ‘Are any of us?’ He rested his forehead on hers. ‘Are any of us free?’