by M. J. Trow
‘What the hell,’ she said. ‘It was all on expenses.’
Valentine continued to scribble feverishly.
‘You visited Martin Holman of Worplesdon Harriers. He wasn’t much of an artist. And he wasn’t much of an embezzler. But he was a damned good runner. That is, until you noticed the colour of his mushrooms. He had a weakness for a pretty ankle, did Holman. The confessions of Miss Fendyke in the cab to Bow Street were very revealing. The till wasn’t the only place his fingers had been.’
Walter Dew gasped involuntarily.
‘What did you do?’ Lestrade asked her. ‘Cook his breakfast?’
‘My hash browns are the stuff of legend,’ she said.
‘Your next problem was a tough one. The Bolsover Boy who was a girl. Perhaps you’d seen the metal whatsits the Ladies’ Team wore under their thingies. After all, on your own admission you’d spent time with them. Ingenious to smear Effie Jennings’s thingummies with chrome. Running a risk though, weren’t you, playing squash with her?’
‘It was early morning, wasn’t it?’ she asked. ‘No one around.’
‘Then, of course, Hilary Term went badly wrong, didn’t it?’
‘You tell me.’ She shrugged resignedly.
‘I will,’ he said evenly. ‘You got as close as you could to the fencing teams, but there was no opening. So you broke into Prince’s Club the night before the bouts, intending to smear poison on Leotard’s sword. You knew in advance which was his. Each fencer has his own favourite weapon. That you’d already checked. You filed down the point. Probably carried the file in that bag there.’ He pointed to it. ‘But the coach, Hugo, surprised you. You shouldn’t have been there at that time of night. He probably recognized you from the previous days. How could you explain your presence? You couldn’t, so you used your “back-up” for the first time – that natty little pistol you carry – and you shot him. The poor old Besançon did his best to let me know who’d done it. He wrote the letter “J” in his own blood.’
‘Is Miss Adams Jewish then, sir?’ Dew asked.
‘No, Walter,’ Lestrade said. ‘Miss Adams is a journalist. “J” for journalist. Only he died before he could write any more. The irony of course was that Term would have died the next day anyway, because Leotard’s sword broke. Which brings us to Tyrrwhit Dover.’
‘And how did I kill him?’ Marylou asked.
‘Again,’ said Lestrade, ‘by poetic means. Oh, you had your little pea-shooter just in case, but you’d filed down a sword already. Why not an arrow? You who’d written a thesis on crusaders. All very romantic, really. You’d visited the archery club and talked to Dover and the other Lincolnshire Poachers. You knew he often practised late, even on moonlit nights. Fleet Street is full of almanacs. You picked your night and arrived. But it’s my guess you didn’t expect Millie Blanchard to turn up. That was a little peccadillo your newshound’s nose hadn’t dug up. Still, with her there, inspiration came to you. By killing Dover in her presence you might be able to implicate her. You overheard their argument. The woman was an archer. Fragrant and radiant no doubt, but a woman scorned. What more natural than that she should pin him to a target for jilting her? You little old romantic, you.’ He clicked his teeth.
‘And then?’ she yawned.
‘Then, Richard Grant had a bright idea. He tried to catch our murderer by tricking him, by printing a false murder in the paper in order to draw out the murderous – what is it you Americans say, “Son of a gun”?’
‘Bitch,’ she corrected him. ‘Son of a bitch.’
‘Well!’ Bourne bridled.
‘That’s where you finally slipped up, Marylou,’ Lestrade said. ‘You should have played along with it. You should have faked a letter from a maniac, ranting on about copycat killings or why that idiot Dew should be put on the case – sorry, Walter . . .’
The chief inspector shifted uneasily.
‘But you didn’t. You let it go. And only three of us in the world knew the false story about Martin Sheridan. You, me and Richard Grant.’
She nodded slowly. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘You’re right.’
‘Linlithgow Morris was a bit of an anti-climax, really, wasn’t he? I haven’t even finished investigating him, but I’ve got enough on the others. You had to kill him because he was the last of Bolsover’s Boys. You poisoned him – rather dull of you to choose prunes again – and put him in a boat. Like that woman. The lady with the onions. These little poetic, female touches. They’ll get you every time.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘have you done?’
‘For now,’ he said. ‘Constable Bourne here will accompany you to the station.’
‘What about motive?’ she asked. ‘You’ve got your method – right, I’m sure, in all cases – and I’ll concede I had the opportunity. Why did I do it?’
He closed to her so that they stood face to face. ‘That’s what threw me,’ he said. ‘All your victims, with the possible exception of the first, were too damned ordinary. So ordinary I overlooked the most obvious thing.’
‘Which was?’
‘The oldest motive in the book,’ he said. ‘Financial gain. Bolsover’s Boys weren’t worth much alive, but dead, the entire Bolsover fortune would be yours. As long as they died before he did – that’s why you had to work so fast. The papers carried regular bulletins on old Bolsover’s health. He couldn’t last long. Half Berkshire, town houses wall to wall, a gallery full of priceless paintings, objects of virtue one of which alone would keep Bourne here in fol-de-rols for ever.’
‘And how was I supposed to collect this amazing fortune?’
Lestrade stepped back. ‘Tell her, Walter.’
Dew flipped open his notebook, but unlike the eagle-eyed Valentine he couldn’t read it by the light of the moon, so he had to rely on that rare companion of the policeman, his brain. ‘We’ve been sending telegrams all day, miss,’ he said. ‘And receiving a few, too. Constable Hollingsworth here has been up to his armpits in Somerset House. Between us we’ve come up with a few interesting facts.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as, your real father was the late Marquess of Bolsover.’
‘What?’ she faltered.
‘Come on now, miss,’ Hollingsworth said. ‘No use coming the wide-eyed innocent. You’re in this up to your Princess of Teck.’
‘Bolsover?’ she repeated dumbly. ‘Wait just a second. You’re telling me that the Marquess of Bolsover is my father?’
‘Was,’ said Lestrade. ‘He died last night. Ironic that, Marylou. You very nearly made it. You were born out of wedlock, it’s true, but your natural father was prepared to finance you eventually – but only after his Boys, his chosen athletes. It was a silly notion of his dotage – to leave his vast fortune to a group of young hopefuls who only had one thing in common: they were good sportsmen. Oh, and one woman. Only after that would you inherit.’ He closed to her again. ‘It’s funny,’ he said. ‘Whatever I saw in your eyes, it wasn’t pounds. Or dollars.’ He straightened. ‘Marylou Adams, I am arresting you for the murders of . . .’
‘No!’ A voice rang around the stadium, echoing and re-echoing through the rows of empty seats. From the darkness of the Royal Podium, a shadow dashed across the lawn. ‘You can’t do it, Lestrade. I can’t let you.’
‘Mr Grant,’ Lestrade said, ‘please stay out of this.’
‘You can’t prove a thing,’ he said, holding the uncomprehending Marylou to him.
‘Yes, you’ve told me that,’ Lestrade said, ‘but you’re wrong. I’ve got enough here for a conviction. And if not, I can always hand Marylou over to Superintendent Quinn. He’s got a way with women.’
‘Sonofabitch!’ Another voice rang through the dark. Marylou screamed and flung herself sideways as a shot rang out. She was thrown backwards into Grant’s arms and he toppled with her. ‘Christ, no!’ The voice sounded again.
The policemen flung themselves to the ground, Lestrade landing on his good arm.
‘Where is he?’
Valentine hissed, his nose in his notebook.
‘Who is he?’ Dew panted, scrabbling for his boater.
Hollingsworth looked up. ‘Bugger me,’ he said, ‘it’s that American bastard.’
‘Maddox?’ said Lestrade. ‘Well, gentlemen, that’s one reason I asked you all along tonight. I must admit I half expected our constabulary colleagues from France and Germany as well.’
‘What the hell’s goin’ on, for Chrissake?’ Maddox snarled, jabbing the gun back into the holster. ‘Who the hell’s that?’ He pointed to the sprawled form of Marylou.
‘You’ve just killed a fellow countryman of yours, Mr Maddox.’ Lestrade staggered to his feet. ‘Congratulations.’
Maddox’s eyes narrowed. ‘I didn’t mean it,’ he said. ‘My finger just sorta . . .’He went closer. ‘Marylou? Marylou?’
‘You know her?’ Lestrade asked.
Maddox nodded as Grant rolled clear and laid the matted head down carefully. ‘She’s my wife,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t over to cover no goddamned Games. I came over to find her. She left me. I was following Lestrade ’cos I figured he knew where she was. I came for what’s mine.’
‘Well,’ said Hollingsworth, ‘you’ve got ’er now, ain’t you, shitface? You see,’ he crouched next to the kneeling Pinkerton man, ‘that’s the reason we don’t carry guns in this country. They tend to go off too bloody easy.’ He stood up and, without warning, brought his boot back and drove it hard into Maddox’s head. The big American went down as his lights went out. ‘Sorry, Super,’ said Hollingsworth, tending his throbbing toe, ‘but he had it coming.’
Lestrade nodded. There was a moan behind them all and Marylou Adams stirred on the grass. They ran to her. Lestrade, for all his paraplegia, got there first. He lifted her head. ‘Well, I’m damned,’ he said. ‘Bhisey’s Improved Bust-Improver.’ He tapped the metal thingummies and Marylou breathed again. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘I . . . I think so,’ she said.
‘It’s all right,’ he told her. ‘Your husband’s bullet knocked you off your feet. You’ve got a little Indian gentleman to thank for being alive.’
‘And I’ll thank you,’ she said, ‘to take your hand off that.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Lestrade hastily withdrew it. ‘Now then, Miss Adams, if you’re ready. Constable Bourne?’
They helped the newspaperman to her feet. Bourne flicked out the handcuffs. ‘No,’ said Lestrade, ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Richard?’ she held a hand out to him. ‘Richard . . .’
He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Marylou,’ he said, ‘I can’t help you now. But we’ll fight this. We will. I’ll have all Fleet Street on your side. Wait for tomorrow’s editions.’
She let her hand fall.
‘Bourne,’ said Lestrade, ‘it’s back to Lost Property for you tomorrow, remember.’
Bourne smiled. ‘I know, guv’nor,’ he said. ‘Actually, Betty’s rather pleased.’
‘Who?’ asked Lestrade.
‘Betty, Superintendent. My intended.’
‘Your what?’ Four policemen had asked the question simultaneously.
‘Well, actually, I’ve named the day.’
‘Have you?’ blinked Lestrade.
‘Well, what with the three boys and all, we thought it was about time, really. You know what people are like.’
Lestrade nodded, then remembered to close his mouth. ‘Tell me,’ he said as Bourne took Marylou away, ‘Betty is . . . er . . . a woman, isn’t she?’
‘Lord love you, Superintendent, of course she is.’ Bourne smiled. ‘Who do you think I make all those frocks for?’
‘Oh,’ said Lestrade, ‘I thought for a moment it was General Baden-Powell.’
Valentine hauled up the unconscious form of the Pinkerton man and carried him from the field. Dew and Hollingsworth walked a little way behind. Lestrade and Grant brought up the rear.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Lestrade,’ the Mail man said, ‘I shouldn’t have come.’
‘I guessed you would,’ the superintendent answered. ‘In your position, I’d have done the same myself.’
‘Will she . . . what will happen to her?’
‘Marylou?’ Lestrade stopped, leaning on his stick and fumbled for a cigar. ‘Oh, she’s pretty and she’s American. If she can find an old crusty judge . . .’
‘Don’t patronize me, Lestrade,’ Grant said, standing still.
The superintendent puffed, looking straight ahead. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘She’ll hang.’
There was a silence. ‘I should never have invited her over,’ Grant said.
Lestrade turned slowly, a wry smile on his face. ‘Thank you, Mr Grant,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d never admit it.’
‘I shouldn’t have said that, should I?’ he said.
Lestrade shook his head. ‘No more than you should be wearing those gloves in this sticky weather. I’ll wager they’re covered with traces of black powder. You see, wiry as Marylou probably is under that newspaper exterior, she couldn’t have pulled a bow back with the force to pin Tyrrwhit Dover to a target.’ He watched Bourne and Marylou disappear through the gates where Dorando had staggered a fortnight before. ‘Neither could she make a convincing enough man to make love to Effie Jennings in the woods the night before she died – the one that Mansell, the chauffeur, saw. That man was you, Mr Grant. You gave Effie that contraption. Pity for you that the Ladies’ Team gave Marylou one as well. Fitting, really. Everyone else was giving Effie one, after all.’
He heard the click of a safety catch near his ribs. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘your little back-up. The same calibre, I’ll wager, as Marylou’s. That’s where you were really clever, wasn’t it?’ He saw Valentine vanish at a jog into the darkness, the prone Pinkerton over his shoulder.
‘Was I?’
‘Yes.’ Lestrade turned to face him. ‘You heard me explain the murders to Marylou just now. It all fits equally well for you. You had access to all the athletes, just as she had. I daresay that if I put you into an identity parade, and could persuade Captain Őverland to pay a visit from Norway, he might pick you out as the man with the prunes on Ryde Pier. Mansell might even identify you as the man wrestling with Effie Jennings. If Besançon Hugo were here, he’d certainly finger you as the journalist he was trying to warn me about. It’s poor old Hesse I feel sorriest for. He liked you, didn’t he? Well, I suppose we all did. He confided in you, about the Beck case? The locked room? Nena Sahib? Ironically, he was confiding in the very man it was fatal to confide in. Tell me, where did you learn your poisons?’
‘Imperial College, London.’ Grant positioned himself between Lestrade and the exit. ‘Before my career in Fleet Street took off, I tinkered in laboratories. It was there I learned to play fives.’
‘Hmm,’ mused Lestrade, ‘you’re pretty good. At poisons, that is. I can’t speak for your game. But then you were playing the deadliest game of all, weren’t you? That’s why you called yourself Victor Ludorum when you bought Effie Jennings’s whatsit – the Winner of the Games.’ He glanced beyond Grant as Dew and Hollingsworth passed into the great outside world. His heart sank. Now he was alone with Fate. And Richard Grant. ‘You had the whole thing planned from the start, didn’t you?’
‘Did I?’ he asked mockingly.
‘Oh yes. You see, what dear old Walter didn’t explain to Marylou was that his telegrams yielded something else. You were a Bolsover Boy too. But a real one. You were the son of a servant girl – the wrong side of the ticking. It’s my guess the old man didn’t acknowledge you. Blot on the Bolsover escutcheon as you were.’
Grant grinned. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘The miserable old bastard kept me as a boot boy – his own son scraping the shit off his shoes. I couldn’t stand it. I ran away. He had me tracked down. I never understood why. Couldn’t bear to lose something that was his, I suppose. Oh, he paid for my education – a cheap crammer and Imperial. But alongside his wealth, that was mere loose change. There was more. And I wan
ted more. So I went to see him. Not as Richard Fitzgibbon, eldest surviving son of the Marquess of Bolsover, but as Richard Grant, of the Mail. The old duffer hadn’t seen me for twenty years. As I thought, he didn’t recognize me at all. He kicked me out as soon as I got there – couldn’t stand journalists, you see. But not before I’d got my hands on a very interesting document – the list of Bolsover’s Boys. All those bone-headed nonentities who were going to inherit in the event of the death of dear old Anstruther. I don’t want to think about what I had to do to get into his bedroom, by the way. Imagine my chagrin, then, when on the bottom of the list, before me – oh yes, the sanctimonious old bastard had put me in his will, except that I’d have been dead before I could reap the benefits – there was the name of a little bitch he’d sired on some American tour when he was still young enough to follow the Games himself. Well, I’m a newshound, Lestrade, and a good one. It didn’t take much to find out she was now called Marylou Adams. And, irony of ironies, she worked in that woebegotten country on the Washington Post. Naturally, I invited her over to work on the Games. Naturally, she came.’
‘And you created the Martin Sheridan story to implicate her.’
‘Exactly. It almost worked, didn’t it?’
‘Almost,’ admitted Lestrade. ‘I must admit, when I came here tonight, I honestly didn’t know which one of you it was.’
‘Well,’ said Grant, ‘now you do. I’m sorry about the histrionics at the Wig and Pen, by the way. In my experience, a few well-timed tears created by sharp squeezing of the crotch can work wonders. That and flagrant challenge.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Lestrade remembered. ‘That I couldn’t prove a thing.’
‘That’s right, and essentially, you still can’t. Oh, yes, I’ve confessed, I know, but that’s just between you and me, isn’t it? You and me and all this vast arena. Thank you, Lestrade, for the news about old Bolsover. I’ve been so busy on the final touches I haven’t kept abreast of the Stop Press. At least,’ he held the muzzle up to Lestrade’s head, ‘you’ll have the satisfaction of being killed by one of the richest men in England. There’ll be blood on the tracks tomorrow, Lestrade. And I’ll do the story on it. It will say how that madman Maddox – who was in on his wife’s onslaught on our athletes – tried to kill us all. Sadly, his bullet found Superintendent Lestrade of Scotland Yard.’