Lestrade and the Dead Man's Hand Read online

  ‘Right, sir. Mind ’ow ’e goes, won’t you? Only I ’aven’t forgiven ’em for the Peninsular War yet. My ol’ grandad lost his right leg in Badajaoz’s breeches, you know.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ said the tube and hung up.

  Goron was Head of the Sûreté. He had the mind of a thesaurus or some other ancient lizard, the memory of an elephant and the little pocket pistol which was the one he claimed killed Abraham Lincoln. In his headquarters in the Rue des Saussaies, he had a little suite of rooms known affectionately by all as his cookshop. There were no windows in the cookshop and the walls were very thick. It was rumoured that they were painted crimson so that the blood did not show and many was the silent scream that failed to puncture the Parisian night when M. Goron was asking the questions.

  ‘Le Strade.’ The Frenchman held out his arms and hugged the Inspector violently.

  ‘I thought for a moment you were going to kiss my cheeks, Goron,’ Lestrade said.

  The Frenchman frowned. ‘What do you zink I am – une Marie-Anne?’ he said. ‘’Ow long ’as it bin?’

  ‘Since the poisoned breakfast at the Grand? Four years.’

  ‘Ah.’ The Frenchman turfed Dew out of the only other comfortable chair and threw himself into it. ‘I am still, ’ow you say, a little comme ci, comme ça about ze full English breakfast since zat day. Ze other man who collapsed choking wiz me – Monsieur Bain de Coute – ’e is well?’

  ‘Very,’ said Lestrade. ‘Married now with two boys.’

  ‘Bien,’ nodded Goron. He leaned forward suddenly, earnest, humble. ‘I was sorry to ’ear about Madame Le Strade, Le Strade.’

  ‘Thank you, Goron,’ the Inspector said. ‘Walter, a cup of your best Darjeeling for the Head of the Sûreté.’

  ‘Sûreté.’ Goron felt compelled to correct the man’s lamentable pronunciation.

  ‘Now,’ Lestrade leant back in his chair, ‘what brings the great Goron to the Yard at this hour? In a few minutes you’ll have the pleasure of watching Constable Bromley turn into a pumpkin.’

  Goron fumbled in his waistcoat pocket. ‘’Ave you seen zis man?’ he asked. Lestrade took the artist’s impression.

  ‘This man has orange hair?’ Lestrade thought it best to double-check.

  ‘Damn Toulouse-Lautrec!’ snapped Goron. ‘I said to ’im, “Henri,” I said, “just ze basics, never mind all zat merde zat wows zem in Montmartre.”’

  ‘Well,’ Lestrade tilted the likeness to the light, ‘he is a little familiar. It’s not the Prince of Wales, is it?’

  Goron shook his head.

  ‘Sarah Bernhardt?’

  Clearly Lestrade was getting colder.

  ‘’E goes by several aliases or noms d’autres,’ Goron said, ‘Pierre La Touche, Henri Chauvon, the Abbe Fiennes, the Comte de la Warre. I of course know ’im as the Monster of Montparnasse.’

  ‘The Comte de la Warre?’ Lestrade repeated.

  ‘Ah,’ Goron beamed, ‘ze ringing of ze little grey bells. You know zis man?’

  Lestrade looked at the picture again. Clearly Mr Toulouse Lautrec had been given too much licence. ‘I did interview a man calling himself that,’ the Inspector said. ‘The likeness is not great.’

  ‘Pah,’ Goron dismissed the artist’s work. ‘What do you expect from a man who does not often reach women’s navels. ’E is always selling ’imself short. I am all oreilles.’

  Lestrade had never doubted it. Dew arrived with the finest bevy in the world and waited with pride while the World’s Greatest French Detective partook of the same. He wasn’t quite prepared for the grimace from Goron, but he’d faced worse disappointment in his life.

  ‘Why is it’, Goron asked through gritted teeth, ‘zat over zere,’ and he pointed vaguely in the direction of Paris, ‘all is la belle e’poque and over ’ere . . . zis? Ze pee of ze gnat. Never mind, M. Dieu, a brave effort, n’est-ce pas? As we say at the Sûreté, back to ze drawing-board. Now, Le Strade, de la Warre?’

  And Lestrade told him the tale of the skeleton crew at Earls Court and the curiously rough riders of Colonel Cody’s circus.

  ‘What has he done, this Monster of Montparnasse?’ the Inspector asked when he had finished.

  ‘What ’as ’e not done, mon vieux,’ Goron said unwrapping an expensive foreign cigar.

  ‘Walter!’ Lestrade snapped his fingers. ‘Monsieur Goron’s cigar. Look sharp, man!’

  Dew looked as sharp as he could, but in the event it was young Russell who struck a light.

  ‘’E is a rapist,’ Goron said. For a split second, Lestrade flashed an unbelieving glance at Russell, but then realized that the Frenchman was talking about de la Warre. It had been a long night. And the chimes of midnight had yet to strike.

  ‘I want to talk to ’im in connection wiz eight unsolved rapes in and around ze Montparnasse district of Paris within ze last year. I nearly ’ad ’im zere, but ’e got away from one of my lads and took a ship from Dieppe. We lost ’im zere, but I ’ave reason to believe ’e was seen in ze London area.’

  ‘This is very interesting, Goron,’ Lestrade said. ‘You see, the lady of whom I spoke, Jane Hollander, is one of four such women who have died on the Underground since February. You don’t have an Underground in Paris, do you?’

  ‘Non,’ said Goron, ‘because ze boulevards of Paris are so wide, we do not need zem. But it is only a matter of time, I fear. ’Aussmann ’as a lot to answer for.’

  ‘Let me pick your brains, Goron,’ Lestrade said, helping himself to the Frenchman’s tea having finished his own. ‘Like our own Metropolitan trains, we’re going round in circles on this one.’

  ‘If ze astonishing intellect of Goron can be of service, Le Strade,’ said the unassuming Head of the Sûreté, ‘it is at your disposal. Fire away’

  ‘Tell him, Russell,’ Lestrade commanded. ‘Murder One.’

  ‘Sarah Culdrose,’ Russell said, wandering, if that was the right term in an office converted from a lavatory, before the wall chart of the Underground killings, ‘wife of George Culdrose, still on remand at Wormwood Scrubs Prison.’

  ‘Yes, we’d better get him out,’ Lestrade said, ‘before Mr Marshall Hall brings an action for wrongful arrest. That’s your job first thing next week, Dew. Get the necessary paperwork from Abberline, will you? He’s finished following me around now I think. Unless my memory serves me awry, you’ll find him at Number Forty-eight Fitzloosely Street, Penge, the home of one Mrs Cadogan, a divorcee of unusual accomplishments picked up by her when she was a bareback rider at Charlie Hengler’s Circus. Well, go on, Russell; we’re waiting.’

  ‘Er . . . right, sir. Mrs Culdrose was found strangled in a railway carriage at Liverpool Street station in the early hours of 14 February.’

  ‘Ah,’ smiled Goron, ever the romantic, ‘the Day of St Valentin, n’est-ce pas?’

  ‘The motive was not robbery, because her purse was untouched. Her clothing was in disarray, but there was no sign of forced entry.’

  ‘Does that fit the modish operandus of your man, Goron?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Non,’ the Frenchman said, ‘the Monster effects entry but ’e does not kill. At least ’e didn’t in Montparnasse. Still, doing it on a moving train demands timing and precision. I am not sure zat even ze great Goron could do it . . .’ He thought for a moment. ‘’Ow long between stations?’

  ‘Four, five minutes,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘It is a possibilité,’ Goron said. ‘In ze ’eady days of my youth, I made love three times between Survilliers and ze Gare du Nord.’

  ‘How far is that?’ Lestrade was astonished.

  ‘Seven, perhaps eight kilometres,’ Goron said.

  Lestrade was even more astonished. Dew, the upright family man, was appalled. Somehow he knew that the object of his affections was not Madame Goron.

  ‘Go on, Russell,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘L Division passed the case over to the Yard and Chief Inspector Abberline arrested the husband.’

  ‘Ah,’ Go
ron shook his head. ‘La Cour Ecosse is not what it was.’

  ‘Abberline never has been,’ Lestrade told him, unprofessionally. ‘Russell?’

  ‘Well, that’s about it, sir.’

  ‘Excellent, lad. You’ll go far. All right, Bromley,’ the Inspector turned his attention to the other rookie, ‘as someone who won’t; we’ll pass on Mrs Hollander. I’ve just told Monsieur Goron about her. Now you can give us your words of wisdom on Emily Bellamy.’

  ‘Murder Three,’ said Bromley, flashing out his middle finger in the tired old Essex tradition. ‘Miss Emily Bellamy, a spinster lady of twenty-five. Found strangled in a carriage on the City and South London at Elephant and Castle on Thursday last. Again, robbery doesn’t seem to have been the motive and there was no actual evidence of how’s your father.’

  ‘Comment?’ Goron broke in. ‘’Ow is your father?’

  ‘It’s an expression, Goron,’ Lestrade said, ‘rather a meaningless one in fact.’ He flashed a withering glance at Bromley. ‘Note the change of track, Monsieur – the first two women died on the Metropolitan line, the third on the City and South London.’

  ‘What is ze significance of zis?’ Goron asked.

  ‘Er . . . quite,’ said Lestrade. ‘We’ll get to theories later. Get on with it, Bromley. Monsieur Goron is waiting.’

  ‘She lived in the Walworth Road and our inquiries there have turned up nothing. She seems to have been a very ordinary young woman who loved cricket and collected fire-irons.’

  ‘Such a woman is ordinary?’ Goron asked.

  ‘This side of the Channel, yes,’ Lestrade assured him. ‘Is that it, Bromley?’

  ‘At the moment sir, yes.’

  ‘Right. Walter. Verity True.’

  ‘About Miss Agnes True, sir . . .’ Dew’s Puritan instincts obliged him to bring up the subject.

  ‘What about her?’ Lestrade asked quickly.

  ‘Well, she’s sleeping on the couch in what was Public Carriages, sir.’

  ‘Yes, Walter, now tell me something I don’t know.’

  ‘But . . . well, it’s not for me to say, sir.’ Dew clammed up.

  ‘Correct,’ Lestrade told him, but he sensed that the eyes of four policemen looked to him for some sort of explanation. ‘Miss True is the sister of the dead woman, Murder Four, Goron,’ he said. ‘She is of a highly nervous disposition and is determined to track down her sister’s murderer herself. Rather than have that, I decided to keep an eye on her.’

  ‘Ah,’ smiled Goron, ‘she is a cracker, zis Miss True?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Lestrade lied.

  ‘Monsieur Russell?’ Goron fixed the young man with his cold, grey eyes.

  ‘Rather, sir,’ he admitted.

  ‘Well, I’d never noticed,’ Lestrade insisted.

  ‘It is a commonplace at the Sûreté.’ Goron finished his cigar. ‘I often ’ave several young ladies ’elping me wiz my inquiries. Especially after a ’eavy day. Of course, if Madame Goron ever found out . . . Merde! It does not bear thinking about.’

  ‘The deceased had no enemies that we know of,’ Dew said, attempting to keep the Rabelaisian detective on the straight and narrow. ‘She was prone to good works.’

  ‘Ah,’ Goron said, ‘you mean she ’elped ze working classes?’

  ‘Yes sir,’ said Dew.

  ‘Zere you are – it is one of zem.’

  ‘Zem?’ repeated Lestrade. He ever valued the Frenchman’s expertise.

  ‘What we used to call in my country ze sans-culottes, ze va-nu-pieds, ze Fronde. Zey are ze great unwashed, Le Strade – ze shirking classes. Anarchists, Socialists, Bohemians, Jews, members of ze Académie Francaise – I trust zem as far as I could throw zem. Zey are an ungrateful lot. Didn’t your Mr Disraeli give zem ze right to picket recently?’

  Disraeli had been dead for fourteen years, but Lestrade could not fail to be impressed by Goron’s grasp of once-current affairs.

  ‘What zat Jewboy did not know was zat it never gets better if you picket. Take my word for it, Le Strade. Your man is an ingrate of ze working classes.’

  ‘You mean – the real target was Verity True and all the others merely a blind.’

  ‘But of course.’ Goron produced a second cigar. ‘Delve deeper into zis Verity True,’ he advised. ‘Someone close to her is your man. Or woman . . .’

  ‘Woman?’ the English policemen chorused.

  ‘What do you know about zis Agnes True?’ Goron asked.

  All eyes turned to Lestrade.

  ‘Er . . . nothing much,’ he said. ‘She works part time as a librarian in Camberwell. She’s a very determined lady. Er . . . that’s about it.’

  ‘Zere you have it,’ Goron said.

  ‘What?’ Lestrade asked, not unreasonably in the circumstances.

  ‘Did I never tell you about Chantal LeClerc, the demon librarian of St Germain-en-Laye?’

  ‘Never,’ yawned Lestrade as Big Ben told the otherwise sleeping city that it was Tuesday already.

  ‘I was a very young coppaire,’ Goron said, ‘green as ze Bois de Boulogne. Chantal LeClerc killed thirteen people in ze St Germain district before we brought ze librarian to book – zat is a French policeman’s joke, by ze way.’

  Nobody had laughed at it in France either.

  ‘How did she kill them?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Prussic acid,’ said Goron. ‘Not only a murderer, but an unpatriotic one. You know ’ow we French feel about ze Bosch?’

  ‘Poison,’ said Lestrade.

  ‘Mais oui,’ said Goron.

  ‘Not strangulation?’

  ‘Non.’ Goron was patience itself. ‘I ’ave said, Prussic acid.’

  ‘My point,’ said Lestrade, ‘is that poison is the traditional murderess’s weapon. It is relatively easy to administer and the time factor means that the murderess herself can be miles away from the death scene, thereby not only giving herself a perfect alibi but avoiding anything messy.’

  ‘Zo?’

  ‘So strangulation is altogether more brutish, nasty and short,’ Lestrade explained.

  ‘Non, non, non, ze method is of secondary importance, mon vieux,’ the Frenchman said. ‘Consider ze life of a librarian. Hours wiz nothing to do but read. To pick up all kinds of dangerous and unhealthy ideas – Voltaire, Rousseau, Descartes – perverts all – and have nothing to do wiz zose ideas but to plot. Zen zere is ze strain.’

  ‘The strain?’

  ‘Zis is ze age of ze strain, Le Strade,’ Goron told him. ‘Can you imagine going through your professional life allowed only to whisper? You long to scream, but you may not. You are, as a great Frenchman once said, “Cabin’d, cribb’d, confined.” Zat was ze motive of Mademoiselle LeClerc – ’er carefully concocted cocoa was her scream of revenge. ’Er cri de coeur.’

  ‘What happened to her?’ asked Lestrade.

  ‘She ’ad a rendezvous wiz death,’ Goron said. ‘A meeting wiz Madame Guillotine. Now, I suppose, she is in zat great library in ze sky.’

  ‘A moment ago you said it was one of the working classes,’ Lestrade observed. ‘Now you appear to be fingering Miss Agnes True.’

  ‘We ’ave a saying at the Sûreté,’ Goron said. ‘Leave no stone unturned. Keep your options – and your bowels – open. I am merely offering zuggestions, Le Strade. After all, I am not in full possession of the facts.’

  ‘Are any of us?’ sighed Lestrade. ‘All right, Dew – Theory One.’

  Dew cleared his throat of Darjeeling. ‘Theory One,’ he said, ‘is as Monsieur Goron has indicated – one murder cloaked by four.’

  ‘Problems with that, gentlemen?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Er . . . the risk, sir.’

  ‘Excellent, Russell. Go on.’

  ‘Four times the murders; four times the risk.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Lestrade. ‘The mad mathematician’s equation.’

  ‘If your man is mad,’ said Goron, ‘ze risk will not bother ’im. Ze impulse to kill knows no boundaries. C
rime knows no frontiers – which is why I am ’ere.’

  ‘Theory Two,’ Lestrade said. ‘Bromley.’

  ‘Er . . . there’s a maniac loose. A random killer of women.’

  ‘What do we know about him?’ Lestrade asked, then flashed a glance Goron’s way and added, for the sake of making the entente a little more cordiale, ‘Or her?’

  ‘Strong,’ said Russell.

  ‘Good boy,’ said Lestrade.

  ‘Crafty,’ said Bromley.

  ‘Obviously,’ said Lestrade.

  ‘Knows the Underground,’ said Dew.

  ‘Does he?’ Lestrade asked. ‘Or she?’

  ‘Enough to kill at the end of the line, on the last train, when he knows he’s not likely to get caught.’

  ‘That will stop now that we’re wise to that one,’ Lestrade said. ‘Both the Metropolitan and the City and South London have increased their guards and Superintendent Tomelty has drafted every available man on to that shift.’

  ‘Even the Graffiti Squad?’ Dew asked.

  ‘Even the Graffiti Squad,’ Lestrade said. ‘A Constable McMurdo, the Railway Police’s answer to vandalism. What that man can do with a bucket and mop would bring tears to your eyes, Goron.’

  The Frenchman didn’t doubt it.

  ‘Theory Three,’ said Lestrade. ‘Dew?’

  ‘Well, guv. It was Corporal Schiess.’

  ‘Who?’ Goron asked.

  ‘Tell him, Walter.’

  ‘Well, sir, we had an anonymous letter to the effect that a man had been seen getting off the very train aboard which Miss True died. The anonymous informant’s name, it expires, was one Frederick Hitch – a war hero . . .’

  ‘Thank you, Walter,’ Lestrade interrupted.

  ‘Hitch had won the VC for the defence of Rorke’s Drift.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Walter.’

  ‘In the Zulu War.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ muttered Lestrade, briefly burying his face in his hands.

  Goron rose slowly to his feet. ‘You mean you gave men ze VC for zat débâcle?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Dew stood his ground. ‘For the defence of Rorke’s Drift.’

  ‘You are aware,’ Goron stood level with the Constable’s tie-knot, ‘zat our great and glorious Prince Imperial was killed by ze cowardly and incompetent behaviour of a British officer whose name I will not soil my lips wiz?’