Lestrade and the Sawdust Ring Read online

  He tugged off his boots, his bandana, his shirt; then climbed out of his leather trousers and peeled down his red combinations. When he was standing in only his hat, he hauled back the untidy covers on his equally untidy bed. A dark-skinned woman suddenly sat up, her long black hair framing a pair of large breasts whose nipples protruded over the sheets.

  ‘This is Rain-In-The-Butt,’ Carver explained, ‘half-Oglala, half-cut. She’s never gotten used to the white man’s fire water.’

  Lestrade leapt to his feet in astonishment, transfixed by the woman’s naked body and impassive features.

  ‘Ah know, ah know,’ the cowboy said, waving his hat at the sergeant, ‘ah said the last injun livin’ here was Pocahontas, but ah wasn’t includin’ ma good lady squaw. Won her in a poker game down in the ol’ Panhandle. Her English ain’t so good, but her ass is somethin’ else. Say, you wouldn’t care to . . .?’

  But Lestrade was an Englishman, through and through. He’d already tipped his hat and left.

  It rained all the next day, but the show went on regardless, as Sanger had insisted it should. Mr Oliver, the Boss’s agent, had done his advance bookings work well. Castleford was packed, the razzle-dazzle of the show in marked contrast to the misery of the South Yorkshire spring.

  Though it went against every rule in the book, they buried Joey Atkins quickly, on a grassy knoll outside the town, as the light of another dawn saw the circus-folk bare-headed and weeping and the wagons rolling again. Lestrade had found time, when the show was at its height, to steal into the wagon that doubled as a hearse, to see what story Joey Atkins had to tell.

  They’d stripped him of his coachman’s livery and dressed him in his best suit, his hands clasped over his chest. A little bunch of primroses lay in his cold fingers, with a card that said ‘From Angie. Sorry, Joey.’ He opened the jacket and prised up the waistcoat and shirt. A black hole, wiped clean of blood by the Women Who Do These Things gave Joey Atkins the appearance of having a second navel. With difficulty, Lestrade turned the corpse over. There was no hole in his back. The bullet must be lodged there, inside him. No point in trying to dig it out, especially by candlelight. The sergeant knew which gun had fired the fatal charge. And he knew whose finger had been on the trigger. Neither of those were questions at issue.

  ‘I hope I look as peaceful,’ a voice made Lestrade turn. A clown stood silhouetted against the distant naphtha flares, his hair protruding in manic tufts from a bald pate, his nose a little red ball. His eyebrows were painted halfway up his head and under the ever-smiling red lips, his own were drawn and tight. ‘Poor Joey,’ he said and placed a bouquet on the dead man’s chest.

  ‘You did that last night,’ Lestrade said, ‘in the ring.’

  The clown nodded. ‘I was supposed to give the flowers to the Lion Queen later,’ he said, looking at the body below him, on the black-draped table. ‘It came to me in a flash. You see, the show must go on, Mr Lister. Joey would have wanted that.’

  ‘Did they realize, do you think? The audience?’

  ‘No,’ the clown sighed, perching himself in his huge trousers on the corner of a stool. ‘The circus is not all it seems. It is illusion and patter – a veneer. Like a bubble – bright and magic – but one blow and it’s gone. If the audience had known that Joey was dead, the bubble would have burst. The magic would have gone.’

  ‘You’re Stromboli, aren’t you?’ Lestrade asked.

  The clown bowed, his tie whizzing round and his hair standing on end.

  ‘They say you’re the greatest clown in the world.’

  Stromboli chuckled. ‘They say you’re a newspaper man.’

  ‘What?’ Lestrade felt a surge of colour to his cheeks which he hoped didn’t show in the candlelight.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Stromboli said, ‘it’s just that I’ve never seen a newspaper man who did not make notes before. Where is your little black book?’

  ‘In the caravan,’ Lestrade said, neglecting to mention that it had the words ‘Metropolitan Police’ stamped on the front. ‘I’m not here to write about tragedy.’

  Stromboli lifted his head at the roar of the crowd above the band. ‘Comedy then,’ he said. ‘Tragedy tomorrow. Comedy tonight. That’s my cue.’

  ‘You aren’t Italian,’ Lestrade had not caught a trace of the accent he had heard in the ring.

  ‘No, I’m Swiss,’ Stromboli said, though that accent wasn’t apparent either. ‘Do you know what happened?’

  ‘An accident,’ Lestrade said.

  The clown looked at him, ‘And I’m Queen Victoria,’ he said. ‘This may be my first season with the Sanger circus, Mr Lister, but I know a murder when I see one. They’re playing my tune,’ and he half turned in the doorway, his bow-tie still whizzing, ‘I just called to pay my last respects to Joey. He was the best.’

  They had moved without him. Lord George Sanger, in his full ringmaster’s outfit, had stood over the grave in the rain as they lowered him to the flowers. ‘Good roads, Joey,’ he had said, throwing the earth. ‘Good times and merry tenting.’

  And Sholto Lestrade began to piece together, as he had already countless times before, the shattered fragments of a stranger’s life.

  ‘The man you are looking for, Mr Steele,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘is to be found in the pages of this book. Page eighty-three if my tired old eyes don’t deceive me.’

  He looked out across the lawns at Hughenden, to still – and always – rural Buckinghamshire, showing, as yet, few signs of spring and no signs at all of any fizz.

  The private detective was a handsome young man, about three hundred years Disraeli’s junior. He had a shock of black hair and glittering brown eyes and a jaw like the prow of a ship. ‘Lestrade,’ he read, ‘Constable Sholto Joseph.’

  ‘He’s aged a little, I suspect,’ the old Jew warned him. ‘That was taken on his admission to the Metropolitan Police; H Division, I believe. He’s grown a moustache, I have it on reasonable authority, and is of course now plain clothes. He won’t be wearing that rather silly pointed hat.’

  ‘May I ask, sir, why you want this man?’

  Disraeli fidgeted irritably with his rings. ‘Is the remuneration insufficient, Mr Steele?’

  ‘No, sir,’ the young man answered, ‘more than fair.’

  ‘And are your daily expenses being met?’

  ‘Most handsomely.’

  ‘Then what can be the need to ask questions, Mr Steele?’

  The detective smiled. ‘Forgive me for saying this, Lord Beaconsfield, but I have been in the business of amateur sleuthery now for eight years. Before that, I aided my dear old dad, Truaz, in many a covert operation. I am totally familiar with all his cases. No doubt you’ve read his memoirs, covering many years – Steele Eye Span?’

  ‘No,’ sneered Disraeli, who read no books but his own.

  ‘Well, in all my time and in all my dad’s time, neither one of us has been called upon to look for a policeman. We’ve both been called in to find people when the police can’t find them. But an actual policeman? Never.’

  ‘Get to the point, Steele,’ Disraeli drummed his fingers on the chiffonier.

  ‘I’ve already made it, sir,’ the man told him, ‘I’d like to know why you want him.’

  Disraeli turned, exasperated, to the French window and back again. He looked the dissolute young man in the eye and recognized something lurking there. True, there was no gardenia in the buttonhole, no deafening of the check in the suit; no chains dangling from lapel to lapel, but good taste aside, there was something of the young Disraeli peering out behind the charming smile.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’m going to take a chance on you, Mr Steele. Because I see in you a man much like myself. . .’

  ‘You flatter me, sir,’ Steele bowed.

  ‘Yes, I do, don’t I?’ the Prime Minister flashed a glance at the ceremonial trowel in the corner. ‘But never make the mistake, Mr Steele, of flattering yourself. We are men of the world, you and I. Unlike the poor prince
of Denmark, we know a hawk from a handsaw. And I suspect we have one special trait in common.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Disraeli smiled broadly, his foetid breath snaking out in the chill of his study. Somewhere, a clock stopped. ‘We are both, at heart, dishonest,’ he said.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Tell me, Mr Steele,’ the Prime Minister sat back on the sofa to take the weight off his gout, ‘where is the Prince Imperial at this moment?’

  ‘Er . . .’ Steele frowned, finally shrugging in defeat. It was rather like being asked to name the survivors of the Birkenhead. ‘Somewhere in Africa?’ he guessed valiantly.

  ‘Yes, that is what the papers keep telling us, isn’t it? Actually, he’s somewhere in England. Not terribly far, I wouldn’t imagine, from the base of the Old Cow Rock in Ilkley, Derbyshire.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me, sir.’

  ‘Yes, just as he has lost Lestrade. I avoided telling Mr Howard Vincent, Director of Criminal Intelligence at Scotland Yard, that the man found dead at the foot of the said Rock was the Prince Imperial. He, idiot though he is, and somewhat over fond of a rather repulsive reptile for my liking, has by now no doubt drawn the inference I intended he should and reasoned it out.’

  ‘That the dead man is the Prince Imperial?’

  ‘Quite so. Only he isn’t.’

  ‘Not?’ Steele frowned. ‘Look, sir, do you mind if I sit down?’

  ‘Be my guest,’ the old Jew proffered a cadaverous hand. ‘But before you do, Mr Steele, be so good as to empty your pockets.’

  ‘My . . .? Very well,’ and the detective did.

  ‘Place the contents on this priceless Louis Quatorze table, would you?’

  Steele scattered his belongings. Disraeli perused them. ‘Would you say,’ the Prime Minister asked, ‘that these items constitute your daily pocket contents?’

  ‘I should think so,’ Steele said.

  ‘Right. A bus ticket. Three pounds and elevenpence . . . three farthings. A piece of knotted string. And a watch. Inscribed?’

  ‘Plain,’ Steele shook his head.

  ‘No letters?’

  ‘No,’ Steele shrugged.

  ‘No handkerchief?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Steele admitted, a little shamefacedly. ‘I use my sleeve, I’m afraid – an old Bermondsey custom.’

  ‘Yes,’ Disraeli nodded, ‘I daresay sleeves were invented before handkerchiefs. Well, there you have it!’ And he sat back, as triumphant as he had been the year before, when he’d thrashed Prince Bismarck at Snakes and Ladders in Berlin.

  ‘I do?’

  Disraeli sat upright again. ‘The dead man at Ilkley was carrying a handkerchief monogrammed with the initial “N” – “Napoleon” – the cypher of the Buonapartes. He was carrying a watch which was a memento of one of Napoleon’s battles. The First’s, that is. The Prince Imperial’s dad was Napoleon III – he can’t possibly want to remember any of his battles. And he was carrying a letter addressed to him by name – Louis – and making mention of “The Shop” – in other words, the Artillery School at Woolwich where he trained for the British Army. If you were found at the foot of the Old Cow Rock, Mr Steele, from the contents of your pockets, no one would know you from Adam. Any more than they would me – except that, like the Queen – God Bless Her – I never carry any money. He might as well have blazoned in firework letters five feet tall “I am the Prince Imperial”.’

  ‘But the face,’ said Steele, ‘your face, for instance . . .’ and he lost his nerve.

  ‘Ah, quite. It’s not everyone with such a rare profile – the aquiline nose, the Apollonic lips, the fairy hair. No, most people are like you and the Prince Imperial, Mr Steele – very ordinary indeed. Unless they carry papers that pertain to their identity, no one would know them. But you see, the man at the foot of the Old Cow Rock had no face left. It had been smashed to a pulp.’

  ‘My God.’

  ‘Indeed. But a better reaction would have been to ask why.’

  ‘Why?’ Steele complied.

  ‘To make us believe that the Prince Imperial is dead. Some innocent passer-by of approximately the right age and height was done to death and the handkerchief, the watch and the letter were planted on the body, so to speak, to send the police off on a wild goose chase.’

  ‘I see,’ said Steele, ‘so where is the Prince Imperial?’

  Disraeli stumbled with his stick and his gout to the rain-streaked window again. ‘When I first met the little abortion,’ he said quietly, ‘he was no more than ten years old. He was wearing a little uniform and carrying a little sword and he was swinging it backwards and forwards, much after the fashion of German students in what they call the Schlägerei, the duel. When he saw me, he said, “Mr Disraeli, Mr Disraeli” – always an excitable child – “Mr Disraeli,” he said, “Mama and Papa have taken me on the most wonderful outing of my life. We’ve been to the circus. When I grow up, I’m going to join the circus.”’ Disraeli turned to the seated detective, ‘I don’t know where Lestrade is,’ he lisped, ‘but I know where the Prince Imperial is. He’s with the circus.’

  One half of the Monteverdi family was padding down the road that leads to Pontefract under a sullen, Yorkshire sky.

  ‘Can you imagine,’ he was saying in a somewhat muffled way to the man from the Graphic, ‘what it’s like to keep putting your hands in puddles?’

  Lestrade couldn’t, but then he wasn’t tottering upside down, his feet nodding level with the sergeant’s head. ‘You couldn’t . . . sort of . . . walk the right way up?’ he suggested. ‘That way, only your boots would get wet, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Probably,’ Monteverdi said, ‘but I need the practice. I’m forty-seven next month. The old biceps are going a bit. Got to toughen ’em up.’

  ‘What part of Italy are you from, Mr Monteverdi?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Ramsgate.’ Monteverdi said, ‘and my cousin Giacomo’s from Wigan. Nothing in the circus . . .’

  ‘. . . is quite what it seems,’ Lestrade chimed in. ‘Yes, I’m just beginning to understand that. Tell me about Joey Atkins.’

  ‘Ah, poor Joey,’ Monteverdi paused to wipe his nose, not an easy task in his present predicament. ‘You will let me know, won't you, if those bloody llamas are getting too close, only they’ll pee on anything, you know. No respect at all, they haven’t got.’

  ‘I will,’ Lestrade promised. ‘Er . . . Atkins?’

  ‘Ah, poor Joey. He was the best, you know.’

  Yes, Lestrade knew.

  ‘Been with the Boss now, nigh on fifteen year. Did a spell with Powell’s and Clarke’s before that. All rounder, was Joey – slack wire man, clown, even did a bit of fire-eating for a while.’

  ‘He gave that up?’

  Monteverdi nodded, though it may have been to avoid camel-droppings steaming on the road. ‘Gave him heartburn,’ he said. ‘But as a cudgel man he had no peer.’

  ‘Was he married?’

  ‘Nah,’ he spat something out of the corner of his mouth, ‘’cept to his job, of course. Mind you, there was a bit of bother a couple of years back.’

  ‘Oh?’ Lestrade kept glancing across for the man’s facial expression. He was to be disappointed however – his hobnailed boots gave precious little away. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Dorinda, the Bearded Lady, set her cap at him.’

  ‘That caused bother?’

  ‘Yes, because Tinkerbelle did too.’

  ‘Tinkerbelle?’ This all began to sound like a fairy story.

  ‘The Strong Woman. It all got a bit nasty. Fur flying in all directions.’

  ‘Are they both still with the circus?’ Lestrade had been warned already about Dorinda, but Tinkerbelle was new to him.

  ‘Larger than life,’ Moneteverdi said, ‘but I doubt they’ll tell you much. You may as well ask the Pig-Faced woman.’

  They camped that night on the low hills that ringed the broken bridge for which Pontefract was named, under the black outcrop of the castle in w
hose dungeons Richard II was said to have come to a sticky end, and not by eating Pontefract cakes. Tomorrow they would parade for the first time in the tenting season; all the glitter of the greatest show on earth. But first, Lestrade had three ladies to talk to.

  He crossed the park where they held race meetings every third Thursday and reached Tinkerbelle’s modest two-horse wagon. Blazoned across its side, Michelangelo Philbrick, the circus painter, had captured a vast woman with pectorals the size of tallboys. And he wasn’t exaggerating, for a giantess opened the door to Lestrade’s knock. He had indeed come to the mountain.

  ‘Yes?’ her voice was surprisingly shrill for a woman with the build of a dray horse.

  ‘Lister – of the Graphic,’ Lestrade lied, tilting his bowler backwards much after the manner of Fleet Street. ‘Could I ask you a few questions, Miss Tinkerbelle?’

  ‘Come in,’ she stepped back to reveal a pretty chintz interior in Cartland pink. A wizened old crone sat knitting in the corner. ‘Mummy, this is Mr Lister. He’s from the newspapers. Mr Lister, this is Mummy.’

  ‘Charmed,’ smirked Lestrade, but there was something about the old girl’s pipe he didn’t care for.

  ‘Take the weight off your bollocks, sonny,’ she trilled, ‘Tinker was just about to do ’er exercises, wasn’t you, Tink?’

  ‘Now now, Mummy,’ the large girl blushed, ‘Mr Lister doesn’t want to see . . . all that.’

  Lestrade could see at a glance there was an awful lot of that to see. ‘No, no,’ he said, ‘I’d be delighted. But at the moment I’m writing a piece about the late Joey Atkins.’

  The blue eyes of the Strong Lady suddenly brimmed with tears and she ripped a spangled costume dangling on a hook with her bare hands and began to sob uncontrollably.

  ‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry,’ Lestrade said, fumbling for a handkerchief. Then he remembered he’d lent it briefly to half of the Monteverdi family after their little chat; and he quickly put it away. He was about to offer her Miss Clare’s, the token she had given him long days before in Harrogate; the sign that said he was her champion. He put that away too.