Lestrade and the Brigade Page 12

  ‘Lestrade,’ said Harnett. ‘You’d better come with me.’

  The inspector whipped the napkin from his collar and he and Charlo followed the general through the marbled hall. Lady Warwick reached the bottom of the stairs as they passed. She took Lestrade’s arm.

  ‘Not now, Daisy,’ barked Harnett. ‘A man is dead,’ and her hand fell away as the inspector walked into the sunlight.

  He lay on a handcart, head lolling back, grey hair sweeping the ground. He wore the leather gaiters of a labourer, a shabby waistcoat and rolled sleeves.

  ‘The others found him this morning.’ Harnett motioned to a knot of grim-faced labourers nearby.

  ‘Where?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Out by the Lower Meadow, sir,’ one of them answered. ‘Hedging we were.’

  ‘Is there somewhere I can examine the body?’ Lestrade asked Harnett.

  ‘Yes, of course. You men, take old Jim to the outhouse.’ Charlo wrapped his muffler around his face, presumably against the raw cold of the July morning and followed the bier and the pall bearers. ‘Lestrade.’ Harnett took the inspector aside. ‘It’s his heart, surely? Nothing suspicious, is there?’

  ‘Then why did you call me?’

  ‘All right, I must admit, it’s damned odd. If you’d have asked me last night to pick out the fittest man on my estate, I’d have said Jim Hodges, without a doubt. And yet this morning . . . It’s damned odd.’

  ‘How old was he?’

  ‘I don’t know. Sixty or so. Best damned hedger I had. The men used to joke about it – Hodges the Hedger, they called him. What will I do for a decent hedger now?’

  ‘I shall need your help, General.’

  ‘Of course, dear chap. Anything.’

  ‘I shall need to speak to your guests and to your staff. All of them. Can you arrange that?’

  ‘Er . . . I suppose so. But look, you can’t hold up my guests for long. Most of them will be going today. Some already have.’

  ‘Ask them to assemble in the drawing room, would you? And inform the local police force. I shall need constables.’

  Lestrade’s difficulty, apart from the scale of the investigation, was that technically, as far as anyone other than Nimrod Frost knew, he was under suspension. As such, he had no actual right to be making enquiries at all. If this was a routine sudden death, he decided, he would turn the whole thing over to a local sergeant and make a discreet exit. Charlo was chancing his arm too to be working with a suspended man. It was high time Nimrod Frost made up his mind about that. But Lestrade feared that this death would be far from routine. It fitted all too well the familiar pattern of those with which he had been involved over the past weeks.

  He locked the outhouse door and examined the body. When forced to, Lestrade relied on coroners’ verdicts for this work, but they operated too late in many cases, when valuable clues had gone. Besides, they didn’t know a great deal more than he did. Some of them a damned sight less. His attention was drawn to the cuts on Hodges’ left forearm, over a much older scar. There was a small amount of fresh blood on the arm, trickling down towards the wrist. On an impulse and checking first to see no one was around, he first sniffed the arm, then licked the scratches. He spat viciously, the taste bitter and acrid. No blood of his own ever tasted like that and, he suspected, neither did anyone else’s. He must get to a chemist’s as soon as possible. It was poison, he was sure. But what?

  As to its administration, that was easy, but ingenious. Lestrade went with the hedgers to the spot where they had found the body. The inspector checked the hedge – brambles, sharp ones with thick, purplish stems. He ran his fingers over their points and sniffed and licked while the labourers looked on in amazement. He spat again – the same bitter taste. He quizzed the labourers on the make-up of the hedge. They confirmed his townie’s verdict – bramble, with a threat of blackthorn. He had them hack off a few pieces for testing, although he knew he couldn’t take it back to the Yard. He would have to find a competent chemist in Manchester.

  Lestrade had not spoken to Charlo throughout. He had noticed him swaying a little as he watched his guv’nor examine the body. Now, in the sun, as the labourers returned to their work and their gossiping he took him by the arm.

  ‘Are you alright, Charlo?’

  ‘I’m not quite myself, sir. I’ve never really been one for the sights. It’s blood, you know. Brings me out in a rash.’

  ‘Yes, quite.’ Lestrade found himself wondering what Frost’s idea of a good boy was. Still, he’d tracked the inspector down to this neck of the woods; he must have some merit in him. ‘I shall need help in interrogation. Are you up to that?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir. Yes,’ and he gulped in the country air. ‘Now I’m away from . . . the deceased . . . I feel much stronger.’

  Lestrade and Charlo stayed at Ladybower for four days. On the first they and two local sergeants interviewed the thirteen guests that remained. Gilbert and Sullivan were as bitchy to each other and about each other as ever, each of them sure that the other was Lestrade’s man. Gilbert in particular said he felt sure the cause of death was listening to Sullivan’s music. Lestrade ruled them out as serious suspects. Bearing in mind that the guests were now prisoners at Ladybower, they held up remarkably well under questioning.

  Lestrade deliberately left Daisy Warwick until last.

  ‘I have kept you waiting, Lady Warwick. I am sorry.’

  Daisy noticed the new frostiness in Lestrade, but chose to ignore it.

  ‘That’s all right, Sholto. If I can help in any way in this dreadful business. That poor man.

  ‘Do you feel for the labouring poor, ma’am?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I do.’ Daisy was as arch as the inspector. ‘Although I’m not really sure I understand the question.’

  ‘Did you know the deceased?’

  ‘No. I didn’t.’

  ‘Are you familiar with poisons and their administration?’

  ‘Good Lord, no.’

  ‘The Prince of Wales left in a great hurry the other night, didn’t he?’

  ‘Sholto, you can’t possibly think that Bertie or I had anything to do with that poor man’s death?’

  Lestrade relented. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but you must appreciate I must have my suspicions, even about the heir to the throne. About the other night . . .’

  Daisy rose and held her fingers to her lips. ‘Old ghosts,’ she said and swept, as gorgeous as ever, from the room.

  The subsequent days saw Lestrade and Charlo doggedly questioning every tenant on Harnett’s estate. Jim Hodges had been popular, a practical joker, yes; but no one bore him a grudge. It was good, honest fun – like the time he had plugged the general’s hunting horn with tobacco and the time he’d tied the bootlaces of the visiting Bishop of Durham together as he dozed after tea. Well, yes, the old boy had lost three teeth when he stood up, but unless Lestrade was suggesting His Grace had vengeful, murderous tendencies, it was best left alone. Lestrade decided it was. Hodges had worked on the estate the best part of thirty years. His wife had died years ago. The marriage was without issue. Charlo coughed his way through dozens of cottages, declining tea and lemonade, staying in the shade whenever he could. The result of his meticulous and painful enquiries? Nothing.

  But what was of greatest interest to Lestrade, and he learned this when he checked the old man’s personal effects in his cottage, was that the link was established, at least between two of them. Wrapped in crimson cloth in a corner of a cupboard in Hodges’ cottage was a medal. It had a faded blue and yellow ribbon and a single clasp, ornate, like the label on a sherry bottle, which read ‘Balaclava’. The old ghosts had come home to roost.

  ❖ Soldier Old, Soldier New ❖

  I

  t had been a long time since Nimrod Frost had ridden on an omnibus. He regarded the stairs to the upper deck as a challenge and in the shimmering sun of the last day of July he slumped heavily into the seat. Summer in the city was no joke to someone of his girth. His shirt a
nd necessaries clung to him as if he had been wading through an Amazonian swamp. The buildings wobbled in the heat-haze as the horses, lathered and fidgety, swung left beyond the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street and on to the wider concourse of Cornhill.

  The scruffy man in the tropical-weight duster sat behind him, tilted the bowler back on his head and lit a cigar.

  ‘No shortage of cash then, Lestrade,’ murmured Frost out of the corner of his mouth. The men sat back to back, like bookends of Jack Spratt and his wife.

  ‘I could get used to suspension on half pay, sir,’ the inspector answered.

  ‘I was about to square it with Gregson,’ said Frost, ‘and reinstate you.’

  ‘I’m flattered, sir, of course, but frankly on this particular case, I can probably do more as a free agent.’

  ‘Less clutter from the Yard, eh?’

  ‘Well, sir, triplicate does have its disadvantages.’

  ‘Quite. Charlo’s been filling me in. He’s not a well man, you know. I wanted to assign him to other duties, a desk job. But he wouldn’t hear of it. That’s devotion, Lestrade. I like a man like that.’

  And despite the fact that Lestrade had only spent a few days in Charlo’s company, so did he. It was Frost’s turn to light up. ‘Damnably hot, isn’t it?’ For a while Lestrade thought he must mean the cigar and found the remark rather odd, but then the oppression of the city heat bore in on him too and he understood.

  The two men spoke in stifled monosyllables, blowing rings of smoke into the air at the approach of a fellow traveller. The bookends gave nothing away. At Knightsbridge, Lestrade deftly palmed the roll of notes passed to him by Frost and got off the ’bus. The huge placard bearing the legend ‘Nestles’ lurched away, topped by the lugubrious features of the Head of the Criminal Investigation Department.

  ONCE AGAIN, LESTRADE had had only time to meet his chief, collect a change or two of clothes (his salary would permit no more), leave a garbled note for Mrs Manchester and board yet another train. Why was it, he wondered as he sped north, that country air always made him sneeze? For all the heat, he loved the firmness of those city pavements, the sharp shadows of the Tower, the stench from Billingsgate, the endless suburbia of Norwood and Camberwell. It really was inconsiderate of the murderer to kill in the provinces. What were the criminal classes coming to?

  He passed the high, wild hedges of Deene and the little church, lost in the wilderness of spurge and rough cocksfoot. Not that Lestrade knew these terms. A blade of grass was a blade of grass to him. So, Jim Hodges had died of aconite poisoning. He chewed again on the information he had, teasing it, worrying it until it made some sense. The aconite, mixed, the chemist in Manchester had told him, from a compound of wolfsbane, must have been smeared on the section of hedge where Hodges had been working. Who then knew where he was working? Any one of a dozen or more of his fellow workers. But Lestrade had interviewed them. And he prided himself on knowing a dishonest man when he saw one. None of these salts of the earth was a murderer. How many labourers had access to wolfsbane? And how many of them had the knowledge to prepare it? There again, there were strange things in country lore. Stranger than he knew. He longed for the pavements again, and sneezed uncontrollably.

  Aconite. Aconite. Wolfsbane. The words ricocheted around Lestrade’s brain. Was the chemist right? It was a rare poison, he had said. It could be absorbed through the skin. Death could result in as little as eight minutes. But anybody could have been scratched by those brambles. It was a chancy killing – dicey, uncertain. And the chemist was more interested by the printing errors in the Guardian that morning than he was in Lestrade’s withered brambles. Still, this was 1893. The march of science in all its magnificence was at Lestrade’s disposal. The trap halted suddenly and the lathered horse broke wind, depositing its load with symbolic grandeur before the front door.

  Deene Park was a superb Jacobean building, a mellow grey in the heat of this first day of August. Her Ladyship, Lestrade was informed, was taking tea on the terrace. Would the gentleman care to join her? Lestrade had met Adeline Brudenell before – two years ago under rather odder circumstances. And so he was prepared for the sight that met him. A mature lady, still slim, still agile, wearing too much make-up, and a waistcoat of crimson laced with gold. On her head, at a rakish angle, a forage cap of the pill-box type. She offered tea to Lestrade.

  ‘Young man, we’ve met before,’ she began once the servant had bustled off about his duties. ‘I never forget a face. And I believe I was there when you lost the tip of your nose.’

  ‘Indeed you were, ma’am.’ Lestrade took the proffered chair.

  ‘Glorious weather, is it not? You know I sold my house in Highgate last year and I find Portman Square so depressing.’

  ‘Are you not in town for the Season, ma’am?’

  ‘Tsk, you naughty boy. I am heart-broken, of course, that you don’t remember, but I am disappointed that my notoriety does not seem to have filtered through to Scotland Yard. Who am I?’

  ‘You are Lady Cardigan,’ Lestrade replied. ‘A gracious lady indeed.’

  ‘Twaddle!’ Adeline rang her handbell. ‘Yes, yes, I know, the relict of the Seventh Earl, the hero of Balaclava and I keep his memory alive by wearing his old uniforms. But in my day. Ah, Inspector, when Cardigan brought Adeline Horsey de Horsey to town, everyone knew it. God, how the heads turned.’ She alarmed Lestrade a little by lighting up a Havana and puffing viciously at it. ‘I remember the carriages, the glitter, the rides in Rotten Row and the Steyne.’ Then she laughed. ‘The Queen, God rot her, didn’t like me. Actually, it was Albert, the sanctimonious old Prussian. I was not considered – am not considered – polite society, Inspector. Time-honoured phrases like “No better than she should be” et cetera, et cetera. Do you know, he actually resigned the colonelcy of my husband’s regiment rather than be a party to me? And Her Majesty, she of the poppy eyes and elephantine girth, had herself painted out of a portrait of James explaining Balaclava to His Royal Highness! Small wonder I didn’t get an invitation to the wedding.’

  ‘Wedding ma’am?’

  ‘Come, Inspector. Where have you been?’

  ‘Manchester, ma’am.’

  ‘Ah, I see, that explains it. George and Mary – a charming couple. I wasn’t sorry to see Clarence go. I never liked him. Fancy not fighting his own duels! I never forgave him for that. Still, George will never be king. Victoria will outlive us all. I doubt if Bertie will get a chance.’ She sighed. ‘It’s a terrible thing, longevity.’

  A servant arrived, wheeling a bicycle.

  ‘We have a guest, Meldrum,’ she pointed out and the servant scurried off in search of another machine. ‘You do ride?’ she asked.

  ‘Let us say I am safer in the saddle of one of these than a horse, ma’am.’

  ‘Good. A pity though one can’t ride to hounds on a Waverley. It’s the five-barred gates that are the problem, you see. I never miss my morning ride, so you’ll have to come with me.’

  Meldrum brought a sturdy, black-painted Raleigh and Lestrade, stripping to his waistcoat at Her Ladyship’s insistence, straddled it manfully and away they sped. He hadn’t expected Adeline to take the steps down the terrace, but down she went, like a church. It was a physical fact, however, which Lady Cardigan may have forgotten, that for a gentleman to ride a bicycle down steps requires a great deal more courage and agility than Lestrade could, at that short notice, muster. There were twelve steps. Lestrade counted every one of them, inwardly and with feeling. Had Adeline cared to glance behind her she would have seen an altogether older and paler man.

  She pedalled furiously along the lawn, dust flying out behind her, skirts billowing in the breeze and the sun flashing on the lace of her forage cap. From the hedgerows, here and there, as they crossed into the fields around Deene, labourers popped up, saluting briskly at the sound of Her Ladyship’s bell. Was it the country air, Lestrade wondered? His cramped journey in the trap? His recent near-emasculation on the steps? Whatever it was, he
found it very difficult to keep up with Adeline and she seemed to be increasing her pace the whole time.

  It was to his intense relief then that having crossed the lake (he was pleased to see she did it via the bridge rather than by skimming the lilies) Adeline screeched to a badly oiled halt by the summer house. She waited for Lestrade to catch up.

  ‘It was here he used to bring his maidservants,’ she said. ‘He used to take an evening constitutional on the terrace and wander in this direction. Minutes later you would see a woman in white, his chosen companion for the evening, scurrying across the lawn.’ She became distant, with a smile on the faded lips, etched in deepest crimson. ‘But,’ she regained the present, ‘you did not come here to reminisce.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, Lady Cardigan, I did.’

  And the inspector and the dowager sat in the shaded bower of the summer house, while Lestrade attempted to jog old memories.

  ‘I understand that one of your late husband’s orderlies in the Crimea was one James Hodges of the Eleventh Hussars. Did your husband ever speak of him?’

  ‘My husband spoke of many people, Inspector. Most of it was malicious and disparaging. But that, I fear, was the sort of man he was. Oh, brave as a lion – and vain – but not gracious. He did not suffer fools gladly. Hodges. Hodges. Yes, of course. I remember now. Hodges was his favourite orderly. Something of a practical joker I was given to understand. But James hadn’t seen him since the Crimea. That would have been eighteen fifty-four, shortly after Balaclava. His Lordship was bronchitic, you see. He had to come home. But why these questions, Inspector? I would have thought Hodges would have been dead by now.’

  ‘Indeed he is, ma’am. And by the hand of another.’

  ‘Murder?’ Lady Cardigan was incredulous.

  Lestrade nodded.

  ‘Inspector, my husband has been dead for twenty-five years. Do you assume he has reached out from his grave to kill this Hodges? Or do you think I had a hand in it?’