Lestrade and the Ripper Read online

  ‘You, boy, stop snivelling. We only allow men at Rhadegund. Remind me to expel you tomorrow. Ruffage, form a chain, man. Good, good. Rally on me, Rhadegundians. Rally! Rally!’

  Lestrade collided briefly with Bracegirdle and heard the games master mutter, ‘Listen to him! Thinks he’s umpiring a tennis match!’

  As Derry and Toms snatched buckets and passed them hand over hand along Ruffage’s thin white line, the Chaplain emerged on a parapet overhead, bawling incantations at the conflagration.

  ‘That’s what you call a hellfire sermon,’ George muttered to Lestrade.

  ‘Ah, Lestrade.’ The Headmaster had caught them with their trousers off. ‘Glad you chaps are lending a hand, but we can manage. Saunders-Foote!’ He hauled the little Latin master to a standstill before him. ‘Who have you sent for the Brigade?’

  ‘Er . . . Adelstrop,’ Saunders-Foote dithered.

  ‘Adelstrop! You blithering idiot!’ Lestrade thought Nails was going to fell the man on the spot. ‘He’s got a wooden leg. Rome could burn down before he reached anybody. Where’s young Snitterfield? A music master should be able to handle a gig.’

  ‘Don’t bother, Head,’ Bracegirdle reached him at this point, ‘the library will have gone by the time he hitches the horse. I’ll run.’

  ‘Splendid, Major, splendid. Take young Ovett with you.’

  ‘He’s got one of his off days, Head,’ Bracegirdle told him, and made for the drive, the Bursar running with him part of the way, carrying his coat.

  While the human chain fought doggedly into the dawn, exhorted every second by the Headmaster, and Matron and her staff helped the walking wounded to the san, overcome by exhaustion and smoke, the flames died back. In the light of day it was like a battlefield. Water, buckets and boys lay everywhere. Nails and Lestrade, like a General and his Chief of Staff, walked in the charred timbers that had once been Rhadegund’s great library.

  ‘Damnedest thing,’ Nails muttered, strangely muted now he was so hoarse from a night of shouting. ‘The Brigade not coming. I’ll play merry Hell with Bracegirdle when I see him.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Lestrade stumbled over something, hardly a rare occurrence.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Nails asked.

  Lestrade squatted over the coals. ‘It’s a body,’ he said.

  ‘A body in the library?’ Nails was incredulous. ‘Whose?’

  Lestrade prodded the blackened corpse with his Apache knife, turning the charcoaled limbs this way and that. ‘It’s a boy,’ he said, and then crouched lower, sifting the area under what had been the trunk. He fished out a little black metal container, curiously wrought He tried the top. It would not unscrew, fused as it had been in the heat. But he knew what it was. He had seen a similar one, not long ago, in the drowned hand of Maggie Hollis, the laundress.

  ‘Fire and Water,’ he mused aloud.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Nothing, Headmaster. Merely the elements of a classic mystery.’

  ‘Who was the boy, do you know? We must hold a roll call at once.’

  ‘Yes, do,’ Lestrade stood up. ‘If you’re a betting man, Dr Nails . . .’

  The Headmaster looked horrified.

  ‘. . . you’ll put your money on Cherak Singh Minor.’

  Barnaby and Burgho

  C

  onstable Toms had succumbed to the smoke as he fought the blaze in the library. He was resting now in the san, acutely embarrassed at being in the same dormitory as so many toffee-nosed children. It was no consolation to them or him that Mr Saunders-Foote, the classics master, was in there too. In Matron’s opinion he was suffering from nervous exhaustion. The death of Denton had hit him hard and the fire was the last straw. He lay shivering and mumbling in a bed behind a screen partition erected by Matron and her ladies.

  ‘How is my constable?’ Lestrade asked the Nightingale of St Rhadegund’s.

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘Is that neck of yours still giving you trouble?’

  ‘No,’ said Lestrade, to whom the slanted view had become yet another of life’s little hazards, ‘it only hurts when I stand like this.’

  He did so and winced. Matron sat him down and began to apply supple fingers to his back. The Inspector felt his spine tingle. ‘Have a care, Matron,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the beds. ‘We’re in mixed company.’

  ‘Oh.’ She cuffed him playfully around the head with a towel. ‘Sit back, Mr Lestrade and think of England.’

  He did so, but it was a dark corner of England that crept into his mind.

  ‘May I ask you something?’ she said suddenly.

  He raised a hand in acquiescence.

  ‘Is this fire connected with the . . . deaths?’

  Lestrade felt his neck tensing again despite the warmth of the nurse’s fingers. ‘Let’s say the game of hide and Sikh is over,’ he said.

  ‘Is that what it is, Inspector?’ She stared at the back of his head. ‘A game?’

  ‘Lestrade!’ The bedpans jumped and rattled as Dr Nails crashed into the san.

  ‘Stand by your beds,’ shouted a lad nearest the door and pyjamaed boys tumbled to attention.

  ‘You’re not on the parade-ground now, Montgomery. There’s a time and place. Matron, put the Inspector down. I need him,’ and he swept back through the door.

  ‘The Headmaster’s Voice,’ wailed Saunders-Foote behind his curtain and lapsed into delirium again.

  ‘Tell me, Matron,’ Lestrade was fastening his studs. ‘Have you found his bottle yet?’

  Matron looked shocked. ‘Mr Saunders-Foote?’ she gasped. ‘Never!’

  ‘I fear so,’ said Lestrade. ‘Try his gown. Inside pocket. Left side.’

  Matron vanished behind the screen in a flurry of disbelief, anxious to prove the Inspector wrong. She returned with a bottle, empty.

  ‘How did you know?’ she asked, suddenly aware of the boys and consigning it to the bin.

  ‘Ah, years of experience,’ smiled Lestrade. He glanced at the label. ‘Teacher’s, I see.’

  Matron hurried to him, pressing his arm. ‘Come back tonight . . . if you can. Turn left at the top of the stairs.’

  ‘Lestrade!’ Nails was not a man to be kept waiting.

  The Inspector looked deep into the clear blue eyes of the angel of the san. ‘Left at the top of the stairs,’ he repeated and followed his calling.

  Carman, the under groundsman, sat perched on the Rhadegund trap. Top-hatted within it was a pompous, fierce-eyed individual who reminded Lestrade of Lord Shaftesbury. Nails was perfunctory in his introductions, as they climbed aboard. ‘Lestrade, Gainsborough, my Second Master. Gainsborough, Lestrade.’

  The Second Master grunted and Carman applied his whip, the Rhadegund trap spinning towards the line of elms which marked the road.

  ‘May I ask where we are going?’ Lestrade buttoned his Donegal against the inclemency of the October weather.

  Nails turned to Gainsborough, then to Carman. ‘There’s a shilling in it if your customary deafness should return,’ he said to the driver.

  ‘Eh, sir?’ Carman replied, his whip hand snaking backwards to accept the proffered coin.

  ‘Right. Bracegirdle’s dead,’ said Nails.

  ‘Bracegirdle?’ Lestrade repeated.

  ‘Corps Commandant and physical training wallah,’ Gainsborough explained.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Lestrade. ‘How did he die?’

  ‘Good God, man,’ thundered Nails, ‘I don’t keep a dog and bark myself. You’re the professional, dammit. You tell me.’

  ‘Where is the body?’

  ‘Whoa!’ Carman hauled at the reins and the Rhadegund hack skidded to a halt.

  ‘Over there,’ Gainsborough pointed.

  The three men alighted and waded through the gusting leaves to a clearing above the stream. Major Bracegirdle lay on his back, staring sightlessly at the sky. An ornate officer’s sword jutted from his chest.

  ‘My God,’ muttered Nails. ‘How many more of
them?’

  ‘Who found him?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘I did,’ said Gainsborough, ‘on my morning constitutional.’

  ‘Didn’t I see you in the quad last night, coping with the fire?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘I did my bit,’ Gainsborough confessed. ‘Why?’

  ‘After a night like that, which you’ll agree was a little out of the ordinary, you still took a walk?’

  ‘Boys are creatures of habit, Lestrade,’ Gainsborough told him. ‘Most of them unpleasant. And so indeed are we. After all, what are we but overgrown boys?’

  Nails and Lestrade looked at each other. Clearly, they neither of them fully accepted that premise.

  ‘What time did you find the body?’ Lestrade mechanically checked the ground around Bracegirdle. If there were tracks there once, they were gone now under the swirling leaves and the swirling winds.

  ‘Oh, half-past eight or so, I was on my way back. Chapel isn’t until nine-thirty on Fridays. All was well after the fire. I didn’t think I’d be missed.’

  Lestrade knelt beside the body. Stiff. Cold. A thin film of dew coated the bluish lips and matted the hair. The little moustache bristled no more.

  ‘When did you see the Major last?’ Lestrade glanced up at Nails.

  ‘Same time as you did. When he offered to fetch the Fire Brigade. No wonder the blighters didn’t turn up. I was all set to horse-whip the lot of them.’

  ‘Mr Gainsborough?’

  ‘I believe I saw him fighting the fire, like everybody else,’ the Second Master replied. ‘I must admit I wasn’t paying much attention to him.’

  ‘What is this?’ Lestrade pointed to the murder weapon.

  ‘It’s the Rhadegund Sword of Honour,’ said Nails, soberly. ‘Awarded each year to the most promising cadet. If you look at the hilt it bears the Rhadegund crest . . .’

  Lestrade held back the man’s arm and gingerly lifted the blade from the deceased’s ribcage. Brown blood had congealed a third of the way from the tip.

  ‘What are these names on the blade?’ He pointed to a series of engraved scrolls.

  ‘The recipients of the sword,’ explained Nails. ‘That nearest the point is the most recent.’

  Lestrade read the name. ‘So the sword is currently carried by Master Ruffage? Isn’t he your . . .?’

  ‘My Captain of School? Yes. Look, Lestrade, this is nonsense. I know Ruffage like my own right arm. Ruffages have been at Rhadegund for centuries.’

  ‘And how did he get on with Major Bracegirdle?’

  ‘That’s an offensive question!’ snapped Nails.

  ‘Headmaster, we must face facts.’ Gainsborough was calmer: ‘As bearer of the sword, Ruffage was one of three people who had access to it. The others were Bracegirdle and . . .’

  ‘And?’ Lestrade rose slowly.

  ‘And myself,’ said Nails, thereby saving Gainsborough the embarrassment of implicating his headmaster. ‘And, before you ask, I had nothing against Bracegirdle personally . . .’

  ‘And impersonally?’

  Nails seethed inwardly. ‘I do not allow myself to become involved with anyone, staff or boys, in anything other than a professional capacity.’

  Lestrade looked at the hard eyes, the antique whiskers. They gave nothing away.

  ‘Then I must talk to young Ruffage,’ he said. ‘Carman!’

  The man on the cab did not move, but remained staring fixedly ahead.

  ‘Would you ask your man to take us back to the school,’ Lestrade said to Nails. ‘He is to bring my sergeant and constables out here and he is to offer them every assistance. I want to talk to Ruffage and a lad named Dollery, not necessarily in that order.’

  ‘I see,’ said Nails.

  ‘And, Headmaster, I intend to see them alone.’

  ‘Do you now?’

  ‘Then I should like to see all your staff.’

  ‘Collectively?’ Nails was trying hard to keep his temper in check.

  ‘No,’ said Lestrade, making for the trap, ‘together would be best.’

  In the aftermath of the fire, the staff were anxious to continue as though nothing had happened. To that end, lessons were as normal, though Ruffage and Ovett had to take over Bracegirdle’s Swedish Drill and so it was that while George, Derry and the still-coughing Toms carried the dead Major to the Rhadegund trap and laid him down under a pile of Matron’s blankets, Lestrade used Gainsborough’s study to interview Dollery, T.U.R.D.

  ‘How well did you know Cherak Singh Major?’ he asked the lumpish blond-haired boy, sitting on the edge of Gainsborough’s chair in front of him.

  ‘Not very,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t in my House.’

  ‘Presumably, neither was his brother?’

  ‘No.’ Dollery was clearly ill at ease.

  ‘Atchhhhooooo!’ Lestrade suddenly roared as the sneeze surged through him, rocking him momentarily on his heels. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Must be winter coming.’

  ‘Sorrow,’ said Dollery, mournfully, shaking his head. ‘Bless you.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘It’s Friday, you see. Sneeze on Friday, sneeze for sorrow.’

  ‘Ah . . . tchhhoooo!’ Lestrade exploded again.

  ‘A wish,’ said Dollery. ‘Bless you.’

  ‘Bless you,’ said Lestrade. ‘I see it’s catching,’ and he sneezed again.

  ‘Bless you. Three times,’ said Dollery. ‘You will receive a letter.’

  ‘Well, that’s a fairly safe bet.’

  ‘You sneeze to the left, sir,’ Dollery moaned.

  ‘No, no really, it’s just that my neck . . . Why, what does that mean?’

  ‘Bad luck.’ Dollery whipped out his rabbit’s foot, the one Constable Toms had mentioned.

  ‘Do I take it you are superstitious, Mr Dollery?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Good Lord, no,’ Dollery grinned. The effort positively hurt him. He stroked his rabbit’s foot. ‘Just careful.’

  Lestrade got up and walked round the room, watching the young man from the corner of his eye.

  ‘Margaret Hollis was pregnant,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘Oh?’ said Dollery. ‘Why are you telling me that?’

  ‘Was the child yours?’

  Dollery turned crimson. ‘Er . . . no . . . I don’t know how . . . er . . . no.’

  ‘Whose, then?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Lestrade scanned Gainsborough’s shelves. Not a Police Gazette in sight.

  ‘Did Mr Denton teach you?’

  ‘No.’ Dollery was beginning to tremble.

  ‘Saunders-Foote?’

  ‘Yes. In the Lower Fifths.’

  ‘Did he ever mention Denton to you? Talk about him?’

  ‘No, sir, that would be . . . unprofessional for a master. They don’t talk to us. Not in that way.’

  ‘What way?’ Lestrade was hounding his man, metaphorically driving him to the wall.

  ‘Well, personally . . . Isn’t that what you meant?’ Dollery’s lip was quivering. Lestrade snatched the rabbit’s foot. Dollery lunged for it, crying out, but the Inspector was faster and he bounced the boy’s head off Gainsborough’s desk. The cry brought Gainsborough’s head craning round the door.

  ‘Yes?’ hissed Lestrade, pinning the unfortunate boy beneath him.

  ‘Er . . . nothing,’ smiled Gainsborough, sensing the delicacy of the situation. ‘I thought there was someone with you.’ He exited.

  ‘Now.’ Lestrade pulled Dollery’s arms as the boy snatched the air for the rabbit’s foot, and hauled them across the desk and resumed his position in the chair. ‘I don’t usually resort to violence, young Dollery, but you know something. What?’

  Dollery twisted his fingers in Lestrade’s grip so that his thumb was erect between them.

  ‘What’s that?’ The Inspector asked.

  ‘A fig,’ hissed Dollery, ‘to ward off the evil eye.’

  Lestrade let him go. He allowed the boy to sit up again and to blow his nose. Then he ostentatio
usly lit a cigar and held his Lucifer to the rabbit’s foot.

  ‘No!’ Dollery lunged again, but Lestrade whirled away and held it at arm’s length.

  ‘Who put Singh Minor’s body in the library?’ he rapped.

  ‘I don’t know,’ sobbed Dollery. ‘I swear, I don’t know.’

  ‘He was missing for three days. You know where he was, don’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  Lestrade applied the flame, hoping Dollery would crack before his fingers roasted. The smell of burning rabbit and burning Lestrade were both reaching his nostrils.

  ‘All right!’ Dollery crumpled into a heap on the floor. ‘All right.’

  Lestrade blew out the match gratefully and waited, facing the window and dipping his fingers surreptitiously into a vase of flowers.

  ‘Ask Hardman,’ Dollery whispered. ‘Please, I can’t say any more. Ask Hardman.’

  Lestrade riffled through George’s depositions on Gainsborough’s desk. ‘Hardman, O.G.Q.,’ he checked.

  Dollery nodded.

  Lestrade threw the foot to the pathetic heap whimpering in the corner. He leaned over the desk and blew smoke into the young man’s face. ‘All I know about superstitions,’ he said, ‘is that if you tread in shit, that will bring you good luck. But it must be your left foot and it must be by accident.’

  Dollery nodded, momentarily impressed with Lestrade’s sagacity, despite his fright.

  ‘A lot of people round here,’ said Lestrade, stepping over him, ‘appear to be wading through their own.’

  Evening descended early on the Gothic turrets of Rhadegund, made even more irregular now by the weird charred columns that marked the library, black and gaunt against the stars. Lestrade stood before the fire, careful of course not to stand too close, in the Senior Common Room. Before him was ranged an odd, ragbag collection of misfits, a jumble of those who, in the phrase of a young Irish playwright totally unknown to Lestrade, could not and had therefore taught. A few the Inspector recognised. He had talked to them already. Tucked away in a corner, embarrassed by the yardage of academic gown, overawed by the presence of pedagogy, sat the three wise men: George, Derry and Toms.