Lestrade and the Deadly Game Page 17

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘Quite, quite.’ Grey patted Lestrade’s knee with something approaching patriotic pride. ‘Too politic to say so, eh? Good, good. I like circumspection in a man.’

  Lestrade glanced down, wondering how Sir Edward’s diagnosis could be so wrong, with his hand so far away and all.

  ‘This is the Sultan’s way of getting his own back on us in the West. By wreaking havoc in the Games, he hopes to exact some warped revenge. Never trust a man in a fez, Lestrade.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t, sir,’ Lestrade assured him. ‘But I think this particular Turk wears a bowler.’

  ‘Ah, of course. Yes. A disguise. The ingenious little Moslem.’

  ‘No, sir, I mean, I think our murderer is an Englishman.’

  Grey sat bolt upright. ‘I don’t think you’ve been listening, Superintendent,’ he bridled. ‘At the very nearest, our man is a Persian.’

  ‘A Persian?’

  ‘You know the Shah has been reforming his Parliament, of course?’

  ‘Well, I . . .’

  ‘Well, there you are. Look, I can’t be too explicit, Lestrade. You don’t have the necessary clearance, you see.’ He patted the side of his strong, square nose. ‘Trust me, Superintendent, I’m the Foreign Secretary.’ He stood up and shook Lestrade warmly by the hand. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said. ‘The point at issue, Lestrade, is urgency. The Press is having a field day. They’re revelling in all this gore. It’s bad for the Foreign Office; it’s bad for Scotland Yard. Damn it, man, it’s bad for Britain. The Union Flag besmirched. Our Dreadnoughts are the pride of the world. HMS Indomitable took the Prince of Wales to Cowes last week at twenty-six knots. Twenty-six! That’s a lot of knots, Lestrade. We can’t lose this edge. We can’t let a lot of brown buggers get the better of us. We’ll be a laughing stock. Take my advice. You are looking for a Turk, the Younger the better. Or it may be a Persian.’ He shook the bewildered superintendent’s hand heartily. ‘I look forward to results in my Times any day now.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said Lestrade. ‘And give my regards to Lady Jane.’

  Lestrade wouldn’t have been seen dead taking a lady to the Coal Hole in the Strand. Least of all Miss Marylou Adams of the Washington Post. So it was with something approaching horror that he sipped his warm brown ale only to catch her earnest face reflected in the glass. He scrambled to his feet and whisked her into a quiet alcove, where there wasn’t too much sawdust.

  ‘Er . . . would you like a drink?’ he asked her.

  ‘What’s that?’ She pointed to his jug.

  ‘Beer.’

  ‘I’ll have one.’

  Lestrade clicked his fingers and mine host did the honours. It wasn’t many hostelries below street level that could boast a Scotland Yard superintendent as a regular. He was worth cultivating.

  ‘You’re looking well,’ he told her.

  She took in the tired eyes, the bruised cheeks. ‘You’re not,’ she said. ‘The last time I saw you, you were lying in a hotel room with an icepack on your head. God, that seems years ago.’

  ‘Actually, it was three weeks.’

  ‘And there’s been more killing since then.’

  He nodded gravely, the froth curling on his moustache.

  ‘I couldn’t get to you before,’ she said. ‘Your man Bourne told me at the Yard you’d be here. I hope you don’t mind. I guess you don’t have much time to yourself right now?’

  ‘Any news then, madam?’ he asked.

  ‘Look, isn’t it about time we got to know each other? My name is Marylou. Can I call you Sholto?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘Marylou. Any news then?’

  She smiled. ‘You guys never give up, do you?’

  ‘We never sleep,’ he shrugged. ‘Which reminds me, have you met Mr Maddox of the Pinkerton Detective Agency?’

  Marylou Adams’s smile vanished. She closed her eyes briefly. She looked small. Afraid. ‘No,’ she said. ‘At least, not this side of the Atlantic. But I do know him, yes.’

  ‘He’s over here to protect the interests of Carpenter, the American athlete. That means I’ve got a French, a German and an American copper, all falling over each other’s feet.’

  ‘Can’t they help?’

  He looked at her with horror. But he must make allowances. She was female and she was foreign. That must explain it. ‘Did you find a connection between Hans-Rudiger Hesse and William Hemingway?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘As far as I know, there isn’t one. I went to Reuters. I sent a telegram to Berlin. Nothing. The problem is that Rudi had been in the business for so long, most of his contemporaries are dead and gone. I remembered something though.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘In his earlier days he had something of a reputation as a crime reporter.’

  ‘Did he?’ Lestrade’s ears pricked up.

  ‘Is that a clue?’

  ‘The Yard doesn’t deal in clues, Marylou. Only in evidence. That’s what I need. And that’s what I can’t get. But I’ll tell you something. I think you’re right. Hesse, Hemingway, Fitzgibbon, all the others, were killed by the same hand. And you were right, too, about the “back-up” as you call it.’

  ‘I was?’

  ‘The death of Besançon Hugo taught me that. He got in the way and was shot. He wasn’t the target at all – Hilary Term was. Hugo happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘So . . .’ Marylou was frowning as the pattern unfolded before her. ‘The murderer usually kills by . . . what? Poison?’

  ‘Usually. But he didn’t in the case of Anstruther Fitzgibbon.’

  ‘Or Rudi – the paper-knife.’

  ‘Or Rudi,’ nodded Lestrade. ‘But he doesn’t fit the pattern for another reason. And it has to do with him coming to see me.’

  ‘Why?’

  Lestrade shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘but I may know more after I’ve travelled to Dorset.’

  ‘Dorset? Where’s that?’

  ‘It’s a little county in the south of England, Marylou. I have to meet a hero of ours I spoke to not a month ago.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ she chirped. ‘I love heroes.’

  He raised an eyebrow.

  She tapped him with her handbag strap. ‘I thought the idea was we were working together,’ she reminded him.

  ‘All right,’ he smiled. ‘But I don’t want to read this in the Washington Post in three or four weeks’ time. General Baden-Powell. Heard of him?’

  ‘The Hero of Mafeking, wasn’t he? I was at school at the time.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Lestrade had no need to be reminded of his mortality. He had been an inspector, going on superintendent. For him, not much had changed.

  ‘Is that where Baden-Powell lives, Dorset?’

  ‘No. He’s holding some sort of camp affair on Brownsea Island. With lots of little boys.’

  ‘Is that what national heroes do in England?’ she asked.

  ‘This one does, apparently.’

  ‘How is he connected?’

  ‘I’m not sure. But in my experience, if a name crops up more than once in a case, it’s significant. Anstruther Fitzgibbon was his ADC . . .’

  ‘His . . . oh, you mean his exec?’

  ‘Er . . . yes, I suppose so. And he was on more than a nodding acquaintance with Hilary Term.’

  ‘What will happen to the Frenchman Term was fighting?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, at the moment, it’s manslaughter. But we’ll have to see when the bandages come off.’

  She fell silent. ‘There’s talk in Fleet Street of your resignation,’ she said. ‘That there’s to be a sacrificial offering.’

  He patted her hand. ‘I may be an old goat,’ he said, ‘but I’m not out to pasture yet. There’s been talk of my resignation in Fleet Street since Domesday. I’ve got a train to catch.’

  She stood up suddenly. Fiercely. ‘I’m coming with you,’ she said.

  ‘Now, Marylou . . .’ He raised a finger.
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  She grabbed it. ‘You can tell Baden-Powell I want to do a story on him for the folks back home. Maybe I’ll get more out of him than you would.’

  Lestrade sighed. Perhaps she was right. There again, the Hero of Mafeking was camping on Brownsea Island with lots of little boys.

  Lestrade ought to have known that if he went down to the woods that day, he was sure of a big surprise. Brownsea Island stands in Poole Harbour, a beautiful tract of sand and woodland in that still and sultry August. They crossed by rowing boat, the detective and the lady, while the gulls wheeled above them in the cloudless blue. He watched her reflection in the mill-pond surface and flicked the guano off his sleeve. She twirled her parasol and smiled at him. The pilot slid his oars into his rowlocks, but he was all right and helped them both on to the white sand.

  ‘You’ve got an hour,’ he growled. ‘After that I goes. ’Ow you gets back is your own affair.’

  ‘Charmed,’ Lestrade sneered at the man, who suddenly closed to him and whispered in his ear.

  ‘The best place,’ he said, ‘is about three hundred yards that way.’ He jerked his head to the west.

  ‘Really?’ said Lestrade. ‘What for?’

  The pilot frowned and looked at him strangely. ‘It’s none of my business,’ he shrugged. ‘You’re old enough to be ’er father, anyway,’ and he clumped back to his boat.

  Marylou linked her arm with Lestrade’s, lifting her skirts over the driftwood. ‘Where would he be?’ she asked.

  ‘Baden-Powell?’ Lestrade shaded his eyes with his boater. ‘In the thick of it, I suppose.’ He fumbled in his pocket. ‘Heads we go left. Tails right.’ He flipped a coin. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Left it is.’

  They left the beach and the rowing boat swaying gently with the tide and made for the way through the woods. After a hundred yards, however, it became clear that there was no way through the woods. The path ended in a tangle of brambles whose needle thorns scraped the skin and clutched at clothes. There was a stillness here. Eerie. Odd. Out there was a blazing summer afternoon, but in the woods, under the oaks and the silver birch, all was dark, except where the sun dappled through on the rustling leaves.

  ‘Is that where we came in?’ she asked.

  ‘Er . . . I don’t know,’ he admitted.

  ‘Let’s face it, Sholto.’ She threw her hands on her hips. ‘We’re lost. I don’t believe it. We only left the boat a minute ago and now we’re lost.’

  ‘You’re the pioneer, Marylou,’ he reminded her. ‘Aren’t you all backwoodsmen where you come from?’

  ‘It’s not particularly difficult to find your way around Washington, Sholto. Or Manhattan. Or Berlin. We could shout, of course.’

  ‘Shout?’

  ‘Why, sure. The island can’t be all that big. If there’s a camp here, somebody would hear us.’

  ‘If there was a camp here, somebody should be visible,’ said Lestrade.

  There was a ripple. Was it laughter? Was it the wind? Every shimmer of the trees made them turn and wonder.

  ‘Is anybody there?’ called Lestrade.

  The birches answered, sighing, but no one else. He checked his half-hunter. ‘Ought to be tea-time,’ he said. ‘Show me a British officer who doesn’t stop for tea and I’ll show you a . . .’ but he never finished his sentence. He suddenly jerked backwards as though about to go into a foxtrot with unusual vigour. His right leg came up and his shoulders went down and Marylou sprang back in terror as Lestrade hurtled in the air, with foliage flying in all directions, dangling by a liana from one of the larger elms. His head swung with a crunch against the rough bark and the thud was followed by a groan. Marylou’s scream ended in silence as the bushes around her closed in and dragged her down. Lestrade saw nothing but stars at first, then he was aware of the bushes growing out of the ground above him as he twirled upside down. The creaking of the rope finally stopped. He strained his head up but the pressure on his neck was too great and he lolled back again. The rope now began to twirl, uncoiling against his weight. As though on some mad merry-go-round, Lestrade twizzled through three hundred and sixty degrees. His life, as well as Brownsea Woods, flashed before him.

  ‘’Ere,’ he heard a voice squeak, ‘this isn’t the General.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The General ain’t got a pair of these. Has he?’

  ‘I sincerely doubt it.’ Lestrade heard Marylou’s voice, tarter than usual, and it was followed by a slap and an ‘Ow’.

  There was a great deal of rustling and smoothing down of clothes. ‘And give me that!’ he heard her demand. ‘You disgusting little ruffian. I’ll put you across my knee.’

  ‘Sorry, missis,’ a ruffianly, but rather shamefaced, voice said.

  ‘So you should be. Now, will you please cut that gentleman down? He’s gone a very funny colour.’

  ‘Lor’,’ giggled another bush, ‘so ’e ’as. ’Ere. He’s redder than me woggle.’

  ‘Who strung him up?’ another voice asked.

  ‘Dibbens.’

  ‘I never.’

  ‘It was Dobson then.’

  ‘No, it bloody wasn’t.’

  ‘Well, what sort o’ knot is it?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to apprehend,’ said the biggest bush. ‘As sixer, it’s my duty to keep you lot in place. Who tied the bloody thing?’

  ‘You bushes . . . er . . . you boys,’ Lestrade croaked, a little strangulated by now, ‘please remember there is a lady present.’

  ‘What I can’t understand is why these boys mistook me for a general,’ Marylou said.

  ‘Not a general, miss,’ Dobson told her. ‘The General. We’re woodsmen, we are. We wouldn’t mistake you for any old general.’

  ‘Dib, dib, dib?’ a voice boomed through the verdure.

  ‘Yes, General.’ A bush clicked to attention.

  ‘Dob, dob, dob?’ The boom came again.

  ‘Here, General.’ Another bush stood at the ready.

  ‘Dibbens, Dobson, which one of you tied the knot?’

  Lestrade tried to twist himself to see who was talking by clawing at the brambles that brushed his fingertips. All he could see from that angle was the beatific face of Marylou Adams transfixed in disbelief. Her eyes and mouth were equally wide.

  ‘Good God,’ he heard her whisper.

  With a superhuman effort, he wrenched himself round and saw the inverted form of the Hero of Mafeking, his clipped military moustache and steely eyes contrasting oddly with the sweeping velvet day dress he was wearing above the khaki slouch hat.

  ‘Ah, brilliant,’ Baden-Powell said. ‘Dibbens. Dobson. Well done.’ He glanced admiringly at the purple-faced detective. ‘The Mysore Tiger Trap. Excellent execution.’

  Lestrade swallowed – an odd sensation when upside down. It wasn’t exactly his tiger that was sore. And he seriously doubted the excellence of the whole thing.

  ‘And,’ said the Lieutenant General, ‘who in fact did tie the knot?’

  ‘It was me, General,’ Dibbens admitted. The General cuffed him smartly round the head, so that, with Marylou’s backhander as well, the boy looked like a poppy.

  ‘What was the knot?’ Baden-Powell asked.

  ‘A timber-hitch, sir.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Baden-Powell scrutinized it around the trunk of the tree, tantalizingly out of Lestrade’s reach. ‘Dobson, your views?’

  The boy in the foliage peered at it. ‘Blackwall hitch, sir,’ he said. Baden-Powell slapped him heartily round the head. ‘Idiot,’ he said. ‘Tonto,’ he addressed the sixer, ‘are you carrying your trusty Swiss Army knife?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did I ever tell you boys the story of the Gordian knot?’

  Lestrade gave a strangled cry.

  ‘Would you please release that man?’ Marylou was at her patience’s end.

  ‘Please, madam.’ Baden-Powell frowned at her. ‘There are important lessons to be learned here. I am going to give these boys the benefit of centuries of wisdom. Besi
des,’ he hauled up his skirts and squatted on his bony haunches, ‘tigers last for up to three hours in that position.’ He cleared his throat. ‘There was once a great soldier called Alexander,’ he told the boys. The bushes fanned out to form a circle around him and sat cross-legged at the great man’s haunches.

  ‘Was ’e as great as you, General?’ Dibbens asked.

  ‘Nearly, my boy.’ Baden-Powell patted him on the head. ‘Nearly . . .’

  There was suddenly a noise Lestrade had never heard before. It was the sound of the snapping of the tether of a full-blooded American lady. Marylou Adams grabbed the Swiss knife from the sixer and hacked at the taut hemp. Baden-Powell looked on in horror as the whole trap quivered and then Lestrade crashed heavily on to his shoulder, the rope flying upward like a whip to wrap itself around the hapless Tonto.

  ‘For the record,’ Marylou said, folding up the clasp knife and stuffing it into the lad’s pocket, ‘it was a clove hitch,’ and she stooped to tend the swinging detective.

  Baden-Powell stood up and thwacked the bewildered Tonto round the ear. ‘That’s for failing to handle the six,’ he said. ‘Come along, boys. We’re late for tiffin. Get that camouflage off now. Last one to get his chow is a cissy.’

  And the bushes scrabbled away through the undergrowth.

  ‘Well, well.’ Baden-Powell crouched beside the pair. ‘We’ve met, haven’t we?’

  ‘Superintendent Lestrade,’ said the Mysore Tiger. ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions, sir.’

  ‘Can you walk?’ Baden-Powell asked.

  Together, they found out that he could, but only after a fashion.

  ‘Your little hooligans might have killed him.’ Marylou turned on the Wolf That Crouches.

  ‘Now, Marylou . . .’ Lestrade tried to intervene.

  ‘Marylou, nothing.’ Marylou stamped her foot. ‘What are you doing with these children? Teaching them to kill animals and people? And why is a Lootenant General in the British Army wearing a dress?’

  Baden-Powell stood up sharply, stung by the rebuke. ‘I don’t care for your tone, madam,’ he said. ‘I would like you to leave this island at once.’

  ‘It’s all right, Marylou.’ Lestrade patted her arm. ‘Look, I can stand – really,’ and he toppled over sideways.