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  Lestrade and the Magpie

  The Inspector Lestrade Series – Book Fifteen

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Lestrade and the Magpie | The Inspector Lestrade Series – Book Fifteen

  M. J. TROW

  Caveat lectorum – Let the Reader Beware! | From Police Constable to Political Correctness

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  ❖ The Sawdust Ring ❖ | 1879 | ‘In the circus, nothing is what it seems ...’

  ❖ The Sign of Nine ❖ | 1886 | ‘Hello, hello, hello ...’ | ‘Hello, hello, hello ...’ | ‘Hello, hello, hello ...’

  ❖ The Ripper ❖ | 1888 | ‘Oh, have you seen the Devil ...?’

  ❖ The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade ❖ | 1891 | ‘Such as these shall never look | At this pretty picture book.’

  ❖ The Brigade ❖ | 1893 | ‘And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade.’

  ❖ The Dead Man’s Hand ❖ | 1895 | ‘There was no 9.38 from Penge.’

  ❖ The Guardian Angel ❖ | 1897/8 | ‘And a naughty boy was he ...’

  ❖ The Hallowed House ❖ | 1901 | ‘Quid omnes tangit, ab omnibus approbetur.’*

  ❖ The Gift of the Prince ❖ | 1903 | ‘Lang may your lum reek, Lestrade.’

  ❖ The Mirror of Murder ❖ | 1906 | Beyond the mountains of the moon ...

  ❖ The Deadly Game ❖ | 1908 | ‘The Games a-foot’

  ❖ The Leviathan ❖ | 1910 | ‘To our wives and sweethearts – may they never meet!’

  ❖ The Brother of Death ❖

  ❖ Lestrade and the Devil’s Own ❖

  ❖ The Magpie ❖ | 1920 | ‘There was a Front; | But damn’d if we knew where!’

  ❖ Lestrade and the Kiss of Horus ❖ | 1922 | ‘Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’

  ❖ Lestrade and the Giant Rat of Sumatra ❖ | 1935 | ‘So, Sholto, let me and you be wipers | Of scores out with all men, especially pipers!’

  ❖ The World of Inspector Lestrade ❖

  Lestrade and the Magpie

  The Inspector Lestrade Series – Book Fifteen

  M. J. TROW

  Copyright © 2021 M. J. Trow.

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-913762-96-4

  First published in 1991.

  This edition published in 2021 by BLKDOG Publishing.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover art by Andy Johnson.

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  www.blkdogpublishing.com

  Caveat lectorum – Let the Reader Beware!

  From Police Constable to Political Correctness

  In 1891, the year in which The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade is set, Thomas Hardy had his Tess of the d’Urbervilles published in serial form by The Graphic, one of the country’s leading magazines. The editor was not happy with certain scenes which he felt would upset Hardy’s genteel readership. In one instance, when Angel Clare has to carry Tess over a minor flood, Hardy had to write in a handy wheelbarrow so that Tess and Angel had no bodily contact. When it came to Tess’s seduction by the dastardly Alec d’Urberville, the pair go into a wood and a series of dots follows ...

  Even with all this whitewash, reviews of the revised version were mixed and it was many years before some of the Grundyisms* were restored to their original glory and Tess of the D’Urbervilles was established as another masterpiece of one of Britain’s greatest writers.

  In the Lestrade series, I hope I have not offended anyone, but the job of an historical novelist – and of an historian – is to try to portray an accurate impression of the time, not some politically correct Utopian idyll which is not only fake news, but which bores the pants off the reader. Politicians routinely apologize for the past – historical novelists don’t. We have different views from the Victorians, who in turn had different views from the Jacobeans, who in turn ... you get the point. When the eighteenth century playwright/actor Colley Cibber rewrote Shakespeare – for example, giving King Lear a happy ending! – no doubt he thought he was doing the right thing. He wasn’t.

  That said, I don’t think that a reader today will find much that is offensive in the Lestrade series. So, read on and enjoy.

  *From Mrs Grundy, a priggish character in Thomas Morton’s play Speed the Plough, 1798.

  Reviews for the Lestrade Series

  ‘THIS IS LESTRADE THE intelligent, the intuitive bright light of law and order in a wicked Victorian world.’

  Punch

  ‘A wickedly funny treat.’

  Stephen Walsh, Oxford Times

  ‘... M.J. Trow proves emphatically that crime and comedy can mix.’

  Val McDermid Manchester Evening News

  ‘Good enough to make a grown man weep.’

  Yorkshire Post

  ‘Splendidly shaken cocktail of Victorian fact and fiction ... Witty, literate and great fun.’

  Marcel Berlins, The Times

  ‘One of the funniest in a very funny series ... lovely lunacy.’

  Mike Ripley, Daily Telegraph

  ‘High-spirited period rag with the Yard’s despised flatfoot wiping the great Sherlock’s eye ...’

  Christopher Wordsworth, Observer

  ‘Barrowloads of nineteenth century history ... If you like your humour chirpy, you’ll find this sings.’

  H.R.F Keating, Daily Telegraph

  ‘Richly humorous, Lestrade has quickly become one of fiction’s favourite detectives.’

  Yorkshire Evening Post

  ‘No one, no one at all, writes like Trow.’

  Yorkshire Post

  The blackbird flies with panic,

  The swallow goes with light,

  The finches move like ladies,

  The owl floats by at night;

  But the great and flashing magpie

  He flies as artists might.

  ‘Magpies in Picardy’, T. P. Cameron Wilson.

  1

  H

  e watched him wandering the horse lines. Heard his boots crunch on frozen tufts of grass. He saw him stop by one tall grey and fancied he whispered something in the animal’s ear.

  A weak sun was struggling through the hedgerows, dancing silver on the cobwebs, the spider’s night of industry. He saw him glance once at the sun, then pull his fur collar closer. He saw the firm jaw, the tired eyes, the ramrod back and he felt, despite the numbing cold, his own left arm jerk up to catch the rifle. His woollen mittens struck his forehead, the best he could do by way of salute after a night’s watch.

  ‘Mr Dacres,’ his breath snaked out in the morning. ‘Welcome back, sir.’

  ‘Flight-sergeant,’ the officer returned his salute. ‘How’ve you been?’

  ‘Better, sir, thanks.’

  ‘Hun kept you busy?’ Dacres tugged a packet of Whiffs from his tunic.

  ‘Now and then, sir. They say there’s a big push coming. You haven’t heard anything? At Headquarters, I mean?’

  Dacres smiled. ‘There’
s always a push coming, isn’t there?’ He offered the flight-sergeant a cigarette and lit up for them both.

  ‘I’ve got a flask here, sir,’ the man said, ‘something for a cold morning.’

  The officer accepted the khaki-covered bottle and winced as the contents hit the back of his throat.

  ‘That’ll put hairs on your chest, sir – begging your pardon, of course.’

  ‘Orders of the Day?’ Dacres asked.

  ‘Stand to, sir. You know, the usual.’

  Dacres’ eyes levelled at the waiting line, ‘Mr Neville’s plane ready?’ he asked.

  ‘Camberwell Beauty? Champing at the bit sir. Did Mr Neville ...?’

  ‘I saw him earlier,’ Dacres cut in, ‘We had an early breakfast. I’m a bit rusty.’ He walked through the grass. ‘Thought I’d take a look at the Jerry lines. Reacquaint myself as it were.’

  The flight-sergeant ferreted under his layers of greatcoat for the flight sheet. ‘There’s nothing here about ...’ he began.

  ‘You cut along, sergeant,’ Dacres said. ‘This is off the record. All right?’

  He saw the flight-sergeant hesitate. The eyes flickered, the tongue flicked over the balaclava’d lips. ‘Well ...’

  ‘Oh,’ Dacres said, ‘I cantered over from Bapaume this morning. Look after these for me, will you?’ He dug into the pocket of his flying coat, the long brown leather with the fur collar, and produced his spurs. ‘Regulation 3416,’ he smiled. ‘Officers of the cavalry shall not wear spurs in the cockpit of their aircraft.’

  ‘Quite right, sir,’ the flight-sergeant grinned, taking the cold steel in his mittens. ‘How long will you be, sir?’

  ‘Well,’ Dacres looked up at the propellers and struts of the Pup, ‘if I’m not back in half an hour, start the war without me.’

  He clambered up on to the Beauty’s aileron and, ducking to avoid the wing, swung himself into the cockpit. Mechanically, he checked the switchgear, momentarily resting his gloved hands on the twin butts of the Lewis gun. In the event of trouble, he prayed that the new Kauper gear would work. It was cold enough on the ground. It would be freezing up there. But the visibility was getting better. He’d be able to pick up the painted ladies of von Richthofen’s Circus before they saw him and the sun, like God, was on his side.

  He raised his thumb to the men of the ground, who swung on the propeller. Nothing. He glanced at the officers’ horses champing away the frozen, silver tufts. Then he remembered something. He unbuttoned his tunic with a clumsy, gloved hand. He felt the butt of his Webley, nestling near his armpit and pulled something from his inside pocket. A shaft of sunlight caught the locket as he held it, and illuminated her face for a second. His Emma, laughing with that merry tinkle of hers, the golden hair swept up for the studio portrait, away from the soft neck, the warm cheeks.

  Then the engine spluttered to life in front of his knees. He stuffed the locket back, pulling the goggles down over his eyes. The propeller was an invisible blur before him, the Pup vibrating and pulsing as he eased the throttle. The men on the ground scrambled away, holding on to headgear and coats.

  He taxied forward, the Beauty lurching to the right a little as she left the lines, eighty horsepower thumping under his feet. The wind took his breath away as it always did and the dials rocked and swivelled in his view. One glance at the flight-sergeant, still holding his spurs, and he turned the Pup into the runway for the take-off. The tents flashed white as he passed them, easing the stick, bracing his legs. He saw the horses, startled, pull on the ropes and shy, his own grey among them. His stomach dropped, as it always did and the rattling of the struts and the roar of exhausts suddenly died and he was up.

  In the sky in the morning, he climbed above the wisps of cloud, turning in the sun like a great insect, gilded, armoured. In five minutes, he would be six thousand feet up, with the world before him. He saw the patchwork of fields, criss-crossed with barriers, scarred with trenches and gouged with craters. He saw the sun tumbling on the frosty steel of his own lines and the dark, dead woods around Bapaume where trees still stood in the morning, frozen upright in death.

  The Beauty screamed as she turned in air, hurtling flat over France and he heard the distant thud-thud as enemy anti-aircraft guns spotted him and opened up. Would von Richthofen waken his gentlemen of Jasta II in pursuit of one Pup? In his heart, Dacres knew he would, for von Richthofen was a junker of the old school, all sabre-scars and saddle-sores – a man born to the hunt. He wouldn’t – couldn’t – leave it alone. A Pup in the air was to von Richthofen like a slap in the face. Dacres looked at the fuselage below the leather trim of his seat at Lieutenant Neville’s six kills. It gave him some comfort that at least the Beauty knew what she was doing. Was it Neville who had scored those hits? Or his machine? And what was von Richthofen’s total? Sixty? Seventy? Odds enough, he thought.

  The flight-sergeant stamped his feet, the butt of the Whiff damp and soggy in his mouth. He squinted, shading his eyes from the glare. The ground crew had scurried back indoors for breakfast, leaving him alone. Even so, the sound of his own voice startled him, ‘Careful now, Mr Dacres, you’re flying too close to the sun.’

  ANOTHER COLD JANUARY. Another young man in a fur-collared coat. Tom Hutchings, cub-reporter on the Mirror, wedged into the lift at Scotland Yard. He’d gone the wrong way twice today already and found himself up to the eyebrows in the shoe boxes that called themselves proudly the Criminal Record Office. After that he’d backed out and found himself following a labyrinth of cream-painted pipes back to the river.

  ‘Wapping’s that way!’ a Bluebottle had called to him from the bobbing deck of a police launch. ‘Want a lift?’

  Hutchings shook his head and doubled back. Stern and silent assistant commissioners stared at him from sepia photographs: the Honourable F. T. Bigham, who wore his CB like a halo; Sir Basil Thomson, outshining Bigham with his KCB; F. S. Bullock, whose name said it all; Major Sir E. F. Wodehouse, sporting a KCVO and still it seemed, from the vexed look on his face, denying knowledge of anyone called Jeeves or Wooster. But it was not these luminaries that Hutchings sought. He was after slightly less eminence. After all, he worked for the Mirror.

  ‘Yes?’ a senior detective with gold-rimmed glasses passed him in the upper corridors.

  ‘Mr Wensley, isn’t it?’ Hutchings said.

  The detective stopped, folding his briefcase to his chest for a moment. ‘Mr Hutchings, Daily Mirror,’ he said in the soft Dorset brogue that years in the East End had failed to destroy.

  The reporter stood open-mouthed. ‘I’m amazed,’ he said.

  ‘I never forget a face, laddie.’ Wensley resumed his long stride along the passageway, the sharp light of the new year dappling his suit as he went. ‘You covered the Voisin trial three years ago.’

  ‘“Blodie Belgiam”, eh?’ Hutchings scuttled at the man’s heels.

  ‘Bloody, indeed,’ murmured Wensley, ‘“And the wind blowing over London from Flanders has a bitter taste”.’

  ‘Er ... I’m sorry?’ The detective had lost him.

  ‘Nothing,’ Wensley said. ‘Just something somebody wrote in a trench one day.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I was a little young for that show. Unfortunately.’

  Wensley stopped. ‘How old are you, boy?’ he asked.

  ‘Twenty-one, sir.’

  Wensley shook his head, ‘No, you weren’t,’ he said. ‘You were too bloody old. Well, what do you want at the Yard?’

  ‘Ah,’ Hutchings fought to regain his equilibrium. ‘The paper is running a story on Nearly Famous Policemen. I was looking for ...’ he checked his notes, ‘Superintendent Lestrade.’

  Wensley stopped again. ‘Who?’ he said.

  ‘Sup ...’

  ‘He’s gone, boy,’ Wensley said softly. ‘We shall not see his like again. But if you seek his monument, look around you.’

  ‘But I ...’

  There were no buts with Fred Wensley. ‘Mr Venzel’ to the Chosen People of his beloved East End knew
how to end a conversation with the Gentlemen of the Press. He just walked through a door, careful, as Superintendent Lestrade had not always been, to open it first.

  Hutchings walked on. Through the grimy post-war windows of Norman Shaw’s Opera House he saw the black lighters on the gravy-brown sludge of the river, nodding in time as they had done for a century or more. He tapped on the next door he came to.

  ‘Mr Kane?’ The Mirror employed men who could read door signs in those days.

  The harassed detective-sergeant at the desk pointed to the next office.

  ‘Mr Kane?’ Hutchings asked anew.

  ‘That’s me.’ The youngish inspector put down the magnifying glass.

  ‘Gosh,’ Hutchings grinned inanely, ‘do you chaps really use those things?’

  Kane frowned, ‘When I have a particularly small splinter in my thumb, yes. Who are you and what do you want? I’m a busy man.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, yes of course. Hutchings. Daily Mirror. I was looking for Superintendent Lestrade.’

  ‘Lestrade?’ John Kane resumed the search, leaving no loop or whorl unturned in his quest for inner peace. ‘You’re too late, I’m afraid. This time last year ... His office was up on the next floor.’

  ‘Could I have a look, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. What’s all this about?’

  ‘Well, it’s an article. Er ... an obituary, I suppose.’

  ‘An obituary?’ Kane looked up.

  ‘On Nearly Famous Policemen. We’ll be doing Brigadier Horwood next month.’

  ‘Not before time,’ Kane nodded slowly. ‘Close the door on your way out.’

  Hutchings did. He took the sharply twisting spiral to his left, along that dingy passageway that Shaw had planned as the Opera House’s lavatories until they found another use for it. In letters of gilt on the only obvious door, slightly scraped and subtly peeling, he read the legend ‘Inspector Blevvins’. Not much of a legend, really.