Lestrade and the Sign of Nine

by M. J. Trow

  A short man with wild hair and a barbed-wire tangle of beard arrived a little later. ‘Mr Lestrade?’ he said, extending a hand, ‘I’m William Morris. How may I help you?’

  Lestrade was grateful to stand up. ‘I’ll come straight to the point, Mr Morris,’ he said. ‘This is not a social call. I am conducting a murder enquiry.’

  ‘Good Heavens,’ Morris sat down heavily in a chair opposite Lestrade’s. It looked a damned sight more comfortable, but the Inspector was left with the painful one.

  ‘Do you know one Isaac Lewis, known as “Happy”?’

  ‘“Happy” Lewis. Yes, by correspondence.’

  ‘In what capacity?’

  ‘In my capacity as a Socialist.’

  Lestrade raised an Establishment eyebrow. ‘A what, sir?’ he said with a voice like gravel.

  ‘A Socialist, Mr Lestrade. Oh, I know it finds little favour in Gladstone’s England, but let me assure you, a time is coming – such a time.’

  ‘It’s later than you think, Mr Morris,’ Lestrade observed. ‘Have you kept Mr Lewis’s letters to you?’

  ‘I believe so, but there is only one.’

  ‘One letter?’

  ‘Yes. You must understand, Inspector, that many people write to me, mostly on artistic matters, but also to do with politics.’

  ‘Does the name John Guest mean anything to you?’

  Morris frowned, stroking the tangle beneath his chin. ‘Wasn’t he the owner of the colliery where “Happy” works?’

  ‘“Wasn’t he?” You use the past tense.’

  ‘Well, of course. I read the newspapers like everyone else, Inspector. John Guest was done to death, wasn’t he? I assume that is the murder enquiry to which you refer.’

  ‘That and others,’ said Lestrade, cryptically. ‘Does the name Amos Flower mean anything to you?’

  ‘It is true that mosses flower in their season,’ the nature lover told him. ‘But I much prefer sunflowers. Would you like to see my designs?’

  ‘Another time, sir’ Lestrade said. ‘Amos Flower wasn’t a work of art, at least not when I saw him he wasn’t. The back of his head had been destroyed. Which is precisely what happened to John Guest and three other gentlemen it has not been my pleasure to meet recently. Tell me, are you familiar with the East End?’

  ‘Sadly, yes.’

  ‘Were you familiar with it last September?’

  ‘September?’

  Lestrade was grateful to find a moment in the conversation when to lean forward would be appropriate. ‘Come now, Mr Morris, it can come as no surprise to either of us when I remind you that you were arrested last September in connection with a Socialist meeting in the East End.’

  ‘Indeed I was,’ Morris admitted. ‘And I think you’ll find I was discharged without trial.’

  Lestrade felt constrained to lean back. ‘You won’t find the English judicial system as lenient in a capital case, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Mr Lestrade,’ Morris sighed, ‘I am an artist, architect, designer, lover of nature, poet, even a dilettante if you will . . .’

  Lestrade was surprised to hear that, bearing in mind the attractiveness of Mrs Morris. ‘And murderer,’ he added quietly.

  ‘That is a slander, sir,’ Morris sat on his dignity. ‘There are those who say I murder art, which is unkind; that I murder poetry, which is unfair; but that I murder people is a gross calumny.’

  ‘What is this, Mr Morris?’ Lestrade played his trump card, the design of the board game.

  The artist-turned-Socialist looked at it. ‘Looks like . . . a rather uniform spider’s web,’ he said.

  ‘It could be,’ said Lestrade. ‘What else?’

  The architect-turned-poet reconsidered. ‘A plan, perhaps, of a barracks or villa.’

  ‘Or else?’

  The artisan-turned-interior-designer was stumped. ‘I am stumped,’ he confessed.

  ‘I am reliably informed,’ Lestrade told him, ‘that it is a board game called “Nine Men’s Morris”.’

  ‘Of course!’ Morris chuckled. ‘I haven’t seen one of these since I was a boy.’

  ‘Then you’re very fortunate, sir,’ Lestrade said. ‘I’ve seen four of them recently, all at or near the scenes of vicious murders.’

  Realization dawned in the great man’s gentle eyes. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘So are you interviewing everyone called Morris?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Lestrade assured him, ‘only you. You see, in my experience, if one name occurs more than once in a murder enquiry, that name should be investigated, scrutinized, held up to the light.’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ Morris said soberly. ‘The connection with Lewis and John Guest.’

  ‘Precisely. Tell me, sir, what particular brand of Socialism do you use?’

  ‘My own,’ said Morris. ‘I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, Inspector.’

  Lestrade could not conceive how that appalling accident came about, but Morris swept on. ‘Marlborough, Oxford, I had all the advantages. Look around you, at this house, the beautiful things in it. Yet yards from here, in darkest Chiswick, is unimaginable drabness. And further to the east, in hell holes like Whitechapel and Bethnal Green, poverty beyond belief. Turn out your pockets.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Your pockets. Turn them out. Put their contents on that table.’

  So thunderstruck was Lestrade by the suggestion that he found himself complying. An omnibus ticket, his battered half hunter, three cigars, money to the tune of four and elevenpence ha’penny and his brass knuckles.

  ‘Take this, for example,’ Morris swept up the bus ticket. ‘Mass production at its very worst. Cheap, horrible. How much nicer if these were lovingly hand-crafted. And this, a shoddy watch for the mass market . . .’

  ‘My father’s,’ said Lestrade. ‘Of great sentimental value.’

  ‘I do not doubt it, Mr Lestrade, but how much nicer if it had been chiselled cold rather than dye stamped. And this . . . what’s this?’

  Lestrade slipped the brass knuckles over his own. ‘A companion of a mile,’ he said.

  ‘Quaint,’ nodded Morris. ‘Oriental design, isn’t it? Not perhaps what I would expect to be carried by an officer of the Metropolitan Police; however, how preferable if these rings were ornamented with vines and traceries.’

  ‘And how much more painful,’ Lestrade nodded. ‘Perhaps I’ll commission you sometime. What is the point of all this?’

  ‘The point, Mr Lestrade, is that we live in a machine age, an age of hooters and whistles and what may be termed mass-production. We move to the pace of machines, we have lost the ability to make by hand. I want to bring that back, to recreate Merrie England where the artisan was a craftsman and made beautiful things. But I want to add to that a society in which there are no Jacks and no Masters, no hierarchy at all, where we live in one grand Utopia without Poverty and without Want.’

  ‘Bravely spoken,’ said Lestrade. ‘Unfortunately, some of us have to live in the real world, not one that might be.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Morris agreed. ‘But that does not mean we should not try.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘The S.D.F.’

  ‘The . . . er . . .’

  ‘Social Democratic Federation.’

  ‘A large organization?’

  Morris shook his head. ‘Sadly, no,’ he said. ‘Our numbers are growing, it is true, but there are too many contending schools of thought. Henry Hyndman formed the Federation . . . what . . . five years ago now. Then there are the Trade Unions of course. And as for the Fabians . . . I myself am toying with creating a Socialist League, somewhat apart from the rest.’

  ‘The Fabians?’ Lestrade was lost.

  ‘Named after the Roman General Maximus Fabius whose delaying tactics apparently wore down the Carthaginians in whichever Punic War was going on at the time.’

  ‘Wore them down?’

  ‘Yes. They probably died of boredom. Typical of Annie Besant and the Webbs, though, to name th
emselves after a ditherer. My Utopia will only be achieved by a revolution, Inspector. As dear old Karl said “Working men of all nations, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win”.’

  ‘Tell me, Mr Morris,’ Lestrade said, ’do you by any chance have a list of these people, these Fabians and Federalists?’

  ‘I believe so,’ Morris told him. ‘But Mr Lestrade, I must ask you why you need it.’

  The Inspector stood up. ‘Mr Morris,’ he said, ‘when I arrived a few minutes ago, I must confess I intended to arrest you for the murder of John Guest, possibly others. Now that I’ve met you,’ he scooped up his belongings, ‘I’ll withhold that pleasure. Withhold, mind you, not forego. It occurred to me that one way to hasten your revolution of the riff-raff is to knock off pillars of the Establishment – a Rector, a prominent businessman, a publisher and a coal-owner.’ He looked at Morris’s deep chest, the powerful arms under the artisan’s smock. ‘And you’re strong enough, I’d hazard a guess. Then it occurred to me that the Nine Men’s Morris is a little obvious. That’s when it also occurred to me what a marvellous opportunity it would give to someone who didn’t like you, didn’t go along with your ideas.’

  ‘No, no,’ Morris shook his head. ‘Burne-Jones and I are one in the Arts and Crafts Movement.’

  ‘I was not referring to art, sir,’ Lestrade said. ‘I was referring to politics. This Hyndman, these Webbs. Any of them could have the motive to put you in the frame, so to speak.’

  ‘Oh, no, Inspector,’ Morris was horrified. ‘We may have Socialist differences of opinion, but nothing more. I assure you, they are incapable of such a thing.’

  ‘Well,’ said Lestrade, ‘we shall see, Mr Morris. The list, if you please and . . . you won’t be leaving the country for a while, will you?’

  ‘No, no,’ Morris assured him. ‘I’ve done Iceland, I’ve done Italy. There’s nowhere else to go, really.’

  Donald Sutherland Swanson, ‘Gloria’ to his friends, had made Inspector after only fifteen years on the Force. The least obnoxious of the vast army of Scotsmen at the aptly named Scotland Yard, he had been known to put his hand into his deep pocket and buy somebody a chop in a chop house. That occasion was 2nd April 1886, a little after one thirty and the lucky recipient was fellow Inspector, Sholto Lestrade.

  ‘You got your man, then, Gloria?’ Lestrade was making free with the apple chutney.

  The heavily moustachioed Scot scowled under his beetling brows. ‘No doubt you’re referring to Percy Lefroy,’ he muttered. ‘And no doubt you realize that was four years ago.’

  ‘Good God,’ Lestrade chuckled, ‘was it really? Well, well, well. You must admit, it was a little foolhardy to let him pop back home to change after you’d arrested him. It’s still the talk of C corridor.’

  ‘I know that, laddie,’ Swanson refused to be ruffled. ‘I can only put it down to ma trusting Presbyterian nature. Anyway, we did recapture him.’

  ‘Four months later, yes,’ Lestrade said, readjusting the napkin under his chin. ‘Nice bit of lamb, this.’

  ‘It’s pork,’ Swanson told him.

  ‘Yes, well,’ Lestrade explained, ‘I’ve been travelling around the country for a while. What are you working on now?’

  ‘The missing Gainsborough,’ Swanson sampled the tea.

  ‘Kidnapping,’ Lestrade was impressed. ‘Who’s got him, d’you think?’

  ‘Not him, Lestrade, it. It. Gainsborough’s been dead for donkey’s years. It’s one of his paintings that’s gone missing.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ Lestrade dunked his bread and butter in the gravy. ‘That’s what comes of a classical education. Why did you leave teaching, Gloria?’

  ‘Because it was a dead end job. Look at W E Forster.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He of the first ever Education Act. I read in the paper only this morning, he’s about to meet that Great Examiner in the Sky.’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Lestrade grimly, ‘it comes to us all.’

  Swanson looked at him. ‘Look, Lestrade, you’re a decent enough sort of fellow in your own way . . .’

  ‘Oh, thanks.’

  ‘And I don’t mind in the slightest buying you this not inexpensive lunch, but I can’t believe you sought me out to discuss ancient cases.’

  ‘Ah,’ sighed Lestrade. ‘Never could pull the wool over your eyes, Gloria. But in fact, it’s precisely ancient cases I want to talk to you about; well, one, anyway.’

  ‘Not the Countess of Dysart’s jewels,’ Swanson beamed. ‘Ma pride and joy. Well, the countess said it to me, “Donald”, she said, just like that, “Donald . . .”’

  ‘No, not that one,’ Lestrade used his tiepin as a toothpick. ‘Pretty Boy Partridge.’

  ‘Ah,’ Swanson’s eyes lit up. ‘Now there’s an interesting tale.’

  ‘So I believe,’ Lestrade said. ‘Any pudding?’

  Swanson reluctantly clicked his fingers and the rather greasy dago waiter hobbled over. ‘What’s the cheapest thing on your pudding menu?’ he asked.

  ‘Cheese anda biscuits.’

  ‘Right. We’ll have one of those.’

  ‘You wanta Cheddar or Gruyere?’

  ‘Lestrade?’

  ‘Yes,’ the Inspector leaned back, content. ‘That’s fine.’

  The waiter hobbled off, mystified.

  ‘The point is,’ Lestrade leaned forward confidentially, ‘I missed out on Pretty Boy’s early career by being an errand boy at the time. I ran into a few of his lads of course in the City Force. Then I gather he perspired to higher things.’

  ‘Higher indeed,’ said Swanson. ‘Well, if my encyclopaedic knowledge of the East End roughs serves me aright, he was born back in the ’twenties in the Ratcliffe Highway. His old man was a suspect, briefly, I understand, in the Pear Tree murders in 1811.’

  ‘Runs in the family, then?’

  ‘Och, aye. Yon Pretty Boy would have killed his granny for three ha’pence. Matter of fact, that was his first known crime.’

  ‘Killing his granny?’

  ‘Stealing three ha’pence. He was four.’

  ‘Lucky he wasn’t hanged in those days.’

  ‘Aye,’ Swanson reminisced, though he didn’t go back that far. ‘The good old days. Pretty Boy went on through the usual street crime, picking pockets, garrotting. Became a gang leader at the age of nineteen. Led a group of social deviants called The Blind Beggars, mostly racecourse thieves, bit of burglary on the side.’

  ‘That’s right – and they were still there in ’seventy-three when I joined the City mob. He was a bit long in the tooth by then, wasn’t he, for a gang leader?’

  ‘Aye, but at some point during Mr Gladstone’s first ministry, Pretty Boy must have realized that he had a brain.’

  ‘Aha.’

  ‘He got involved in some nifty West End burglaries.’

  ‘That’s right – Hanover Square, Buckingham Palace.’

  ‘To name but two,’ Swanson said, lighting his pipe. ‘Specialized in diamonds, then bullion. Must have been a millionaire by the time he disappeared.’

  ‘Which was when?’

  ‘Er . . . ’eighty-one. No, I tell a lie. Tail end of ’eighty.’

  ‘What’s your theory on that?’

  ‘Aye, well that’s what makes it all so fascinating. Somewhere along the line, Pretty Boy acquired quite an education – even more staggering because he’s been nowhere near Scotland. He wrote articles on music for various learned journals and poetry which he got published.’

  ‘He did?’

  ‘Aye, but we think he had something on the publisher.’

  ‘And the disappearance?’

  ‘He’d booked into the Metropole under the alias of Sir Algernon Pilsbury, a soubriquet he’d used since at least 1869. We’d got an eyewitness to the Abercorn Diamond lift and at last a watertight case.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I sent my best lads to the hotel . . .’

  Lestrade saw by Swanson’s face that
all had not been well. ‘You didn’t give him time to change?’

  ‘Dammit, of course not, Lestrade!’ Swanson was ruffled. ‘What we didn’t know until too late was that he was a master of disguise. Walked straight past my lads in full clobber as the Maharajah of Gwalior, burnt cork and the lot.’

  ‘Didn’t they challenge him?’

  ‘Of course,’ Swanson said. ‘But this was C Division. Speakers of fluent Hindoostani were a mite thin on the ground. I kicked myself afterwards of course – and them. A minor miracle had however been achieved and there is now a course of Ethnic Dialects for Metropolitan Policemen. Been on one yet?’

  ‘Not being often in Dorset, I don’t really feel the need,’ Lestrade shrugged. ‘Good God, what’s that?’

  The Yard men peered simultaneously at the mysterious dish the waiter had just left. Lestrade poked the Gruyere.

  ‘It’s off. I’ll take it back,’ offered Swanson.

  ‘No, don’t worry. And after the Metropole?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Swanson shrugged. ‘As they say in the Penny Dreadfuls, “He vanished without trace”. There was an article that turned up last year in The Cripple on the value of prosthetic pinkies written by a P B Partridge, but I checked it. Pure coincidence.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Aye. Petronella Beatrice Partridge was a bedridden spinster of Stow-on-the-Wold who had lost an arm in a bicycling accident. Oh, I know what you’re thinking, but not even Pretty Boy had that much of a mastery of disguise.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Let’s put it this way. I deliberately tipped half a cup of tea over the old lady’s front and while her maid was sponging her down, I behaved like an absolute cad and leapt back into the room, having vacated it earlier so that said sponging could take place.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I narrowly escaped a damned good smacking from the Assistant Commissioner. At least I proved one thing – Miss Partridge’s appendages were most definitely her own. Not, at seventy-three, anything to get excited about, but native to her chest, certainly. Surgical cosmetics have not yet attained the miraculous.’