Lestrade and the Dead Man's Hand Read online

  What of the other guards, Lestrade had asked – the partners of those who had gone sick? Had they noticed Messrs Hudson, Gooch and Hackworth? Well, not really. The other guard was three carriages away and it was always dark on the Underground. All they saw was a peaked cap and a whistle and a pair of flags. And these were available in the supervisor’s office which was open day and night, and in any case there were replacements at every station to King William Street.

  And so, tired and old before his time, Inspector Sholto Lestrade crawled back to the Yard, beaten, if only for now, by the appalling lack of observation of his fellow men. Tube travellers saw nothing, heard nothing, said nothing. And the staff were no better. Incompetence. Amateurism. Lackadaisicalism. What a way to run a railroad!

  IT WAS A GRIM-FACED trio of bobbies who were lined up outside the office of Assistant Commissioner Nimrod Frost that afternoon. Constables Russell and Bromley in their brand-new detective serge, Walter Dew, an older hand altogether, his boater tucked into the crook of his arm.

  ‘Mr Frost says you’re to go in, sir,’ Dew mumbled.

  ‘Thank you, Walter,’ Lestrade said, ‘and cheer up. They haven’t taken away your pension yet.’

  ‘Guv’nor,’ Dew blurted while Lestrade’s fist was poised to knock the frosted glass.

  ‘What is it, Walter? I’m a very busy man.’

  The Constable thrust out a steadfast hand. ‘I just wanted to say, sir, that these seven years have been . . . well, good isn’t the word. You taught me all I know, guv, from petty larceny and safe-breaking to the most indigenous forms of murder. I shan’t forget that.’

  ‘Good God, Walter, has His Nims got a scaffold waiting for me inside?’

  ‘That goes for us too, sir,’ Russell said. ‘It’s only been as many weeks as Mr Dew has had years, but it’s been a joy to watch you working.’

  ‘Pure delight, guv’nor,’ Bromley said. ‘There isn’t a man in the Essex Force to match you.’

  ‘Well, well, Bromley,’ said Lestrade, ‘high praise indeed. Now, I’m very grateful for the guard of honour and the kind words. I daresay His Nims will give me the clock. In the meantime, haven’t you got any murders to solve?’ And he knocked and entered.

  It was not a gallows facing Lestrade but it might as well have been. The grey, pompous faces grouped around the room were infinitely more terrifying than Mr Berry the hangman or the Billingtons who had replaced him. There was even a vicar with his collar on back to front in lieu of the prison chaplain. Behind the great oak desk, with its ormolu inkwells and blue lamp, sat a stony-faced Assistant Commissioner and at his shoulder, like a self-satisfied parrot, the smug sidewhiskers of Chief Inspector Abberline.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Frost, ‘this is Inspector Lestrade who until today was conducting inquiries into the Underground murders. Lestrade, these gentlemen are from the City and South London and Metropolitan and District Railway Companies. They are here to express their concern.’

  ‘Good,’ said Lestrade. ‘Some two weeks ago I sent Detective Constable Dew to interview these gentlemen. They were, to a man, unaccountably busy and refused to see him.’

  ‘How dare you!’ a rubicund gentleman thundered, heaving himself to his feet. ‘I see what you mean, Nimrod, about insubordination. Six women are dead, sir,’ he rounded on Lestrade, ‘and what are you doing about it?’

  ‘You are, sir?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Bloody furious,’ the man retorted, and in deference to the clergyman, ‘begging your pardon, Bartholomew.’

  ‘I fully understand, Basil. Our Lord surely had in mind the acquisition of a profit when he changed water into wine and fed the five thousand.’

  ‘I mean,’ said Lestrade, undeterred by puffing bullies like Basil, ‘who are you?’

  ‘Don’t be impertinent, Lestrade,’ Frost snapped.

  ‘I believe I have a right to know my detractors,’ Lestrade snapped back.

  ‘Well,’ growled Frost, ‘we don’t have all day.’

  ‘I am Sir Basil Mott,’ the rubicund gentleman said, turning such a shade of magenta that he threatened to cross the rubicund, ‘resident engineer for the City and South London Railway. And to save you asking again, the clerical gentleman is the Reverend Bartholomew Dutts, principal shareholder and chaplain to the company.’

  ‘Charmed,’ lied Lestrade.

  ‘This,’ he indicated a foreign-looking gent with swarthy skin and a goatee, ‘is Mr C. E. Spagnoletti, consulting electrician to the company.’

  ‘Saluti.’ The little Wop managed an icy grin.

  ‘These are Messrs Hanbury, Hubbard, Robinson and Grenfell, directors of our company . . . and theirs.’

  ‘We have elected Sir Basil as our spokesman,’ Grenfell said, ‘because although Sidney here,’ he tapped Hubbard on the shoulder, ‘is our elder chairman, he’s not as compos as he was. Doesn’t follow trains of thought. Do you Sidney?’ he bellowed into the man’s ear trumpet.

  ‘A cup of tea would be lovely,’ the old man agreed.

  ‘Thank your lucky stars,’ Grenfell told Lestrade, ‘we left his dad at home this morning.’

  ‘We haven’t time for niceties, Charles,’ Mott burbled. ‘The point is that Bartholomew has hit the nail on the proverbial head. Profits. We are losing money to the tune of some . . . what is it, Bartholomew?’

  ‘Three hundred pounds a day,’ the vicar told him.

  ‘Exactly.’ Mott paced Frost’s carpet in front of Lestrade. ‘Nobody’s riding the line any more. We used to carry fifteen thousand people a day. Now that deluge has slowed to a trickle – what is it, Bartholomew?’

  ‘An estimated eight and a half thousand,’ the Reverend intoned.

  ‘Precisely’ Mott was in full flight.

  ‘This fellow,’ said Grenfell, ‘this murderer chappie, seems to come and go like a will-o’-the-wisp. No one sees him. No one hears him. And the first we know of it is another grisly report in the morning papers. Sidney,’ Grenfell flicked the elder chairman with his coat tail, ‘don’t do that.’

  And the elder chairman desisted, at least for the time being.

  ‘I am doing all that I can,’ Lestrade explained, ‘but you must appreciate the scale of the problem. With fifteen thousand people a day – even eight and a half thousand – to watch, my men are stretched pretty thin. I feel sure that Mr Frost has already pointed this out.’

  ‘Frost carries the can,’ Mott thundered. ‘We’re all senior executives here; we know the score. If something was amiss in my electrics, I’d expect to offer my head to the headsman. As would Bartholomew, if all was not well in his vestry. But. . .’ and he closed to his man, ‘at the same time I’d personally roast the underling who crossed the wrong wires – just as Bartholomew would excommunicate the curate who’d fouled the ecumenical nest; wouldn’t you, Bartholomew?’

  ‘It would certainly be a case of unction in the extreme,’ the principal shareholder nodded.

  ‘Well, there you are,’ Mott subsided. ‘Six women dead, profits vanishing. Any more of it, and I’ll go to the Central London, as God is my witness – oh, saving your presence, Bartholomew.’

  The clergyman nodded with a holier-than-anybody look on his face.

  ‘That’s enough!’ Frost bellowed. He had been silent for a while and the explosion, when it came, moved mountains. The lamp shook and the pens jumped in their glass housings. Even Abberline moved away from the shock waves. ‘We’ll have no more talk of heads rolling,’ he said. ‘I may be a public servant, but by God,’ and he made no apology to the clergyman, ‘that’s only a figure of speech. If I ran my detective force like you gentlemen run your railway, there’d be anarchy, gentlemen, chaos. This is still the safest city in the world thanks to men like Lestrade.’ Frost was on his feet, easily out-Motting Sir Basil, thumping his blotting paper for extra effect. ‘This man you see before you, gentlemen, is the very soul of integrity. A master of wit and repartee. Don’t believe a word of the scurrilous nonsense written about him in the Strand Magazine. It’s
all patently untrue. And the fact that he has not taken out a writ of libel against Doctors Watson and Conan Doyle is testimony enough to the kind of man he is. He has faced knives, bullets, coshes, bricks in the line of duty. He has stared down some of the nastiest bastards known to man, solved the most ingenious of crimes, baffled the brains of the Underworld. The Struwwelpeter murders, the Brigade Case, the affair at Rhadegund Hall, the Pillow Case are the iceberg’s tip of his triumphs, gentlemen. Now he has another job to do. And the best that the likes of you and I can do is to stand by and give him every assistance. Give him the tools and he’ll do the job. Won’t you, Sholto?’

  Lestrade’s mouth, like that of every other man in the room, was hanging open. He didn’t realize that Frost even knew he had a first name, let alone that he might use it. ‘Yes, sir,’ was all he could find to say.

  It was Mott who found himself first. ‘Well, Nimrod,’ he said, ‘you and I go back a long way – when my father used to shop at your father’s grocer’s in Grantham. All I can say is, I hope you know what you’re doing. You know I know the Commissioner, don’t you?’ And he raised a deadly eyebrow.

  ‘Well, that makes two of us, Bazza, old boy. So bugger off!’

  The clergyman dropped the top hat he was balancing on his knee.

  ‘Come on, Sidney’ Grenfell helped the old codger to his feet. ‘We’ve just witnessed the downfall of the Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the elder chairman, ‘I’ll settle for coffee if you have no tea, I wouldn’t want to be a nuisance.’ And they helped him out.

  The glass door slammed with a crash as the last of the railwaymen left.

  ‘I’d just like to say, sir . . .’ Lestrade began.

  He was jabbed in the ribs by a stubby, exasperated finger. ‘Don’t, Lestrade. Don’t say anything. Because if you do, I’m likely to commit detecticide. And with Abberline standing here, I probably wouldn’t get away with it.’ He looked at the Chief Inspector. ‘Oh, I don’t know, though. What I gave them is the same load of tosh I’d give Fleet Street. Confidence in my men, best man for the job, no stone unturned, etcetera, etcetera. In fact, Lestrade, this investigation of yours has been a bloody shambles from beginning to end. You’ve got constables and inspectors dressing up as women, pointless warnings to the passengers. You’ve been harassing librarians, fighting with ballet dancers . . . You tried to drown a writer the other day. And,’ he lifted a wad of paper from his desk, ‘I’ve got hospital bills coming out of my ears! Well, it’s over, Lestrade. You may have missed my opening rejoinder when you arrived, so I’ll say it again. You were, until this morning, in charge of the case. Now you’re not. Abberline is.’

  And the Chief Inspector couldn’t resist a smirk at Lestrade’s expense.

  ‘Under my instructions, he will place uniformed men at every station and he will put a uniformed man on every train.’

  ‘With respect, sir . . .’ Lestrade began.

  ‘Respect, Lestrade?’ Frost roared. ‘Respect? You don’t know the meaning of the word.’

  ‘That will only drive our murderer underground.’

  ‘Oh, very droll, Lestrade,’ Frost snarled. ‘This isn’t the Police Revue, man. This is murder. Worse, it’s multiple murder. I’m talking about prevention. We owe it to the public to keep them safe.’

  ‘Then shut the Tubes,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘Are you mad?’ Abberline shouted.

  ‘Shut up, Abberline.’ Frost cut him dead. ‘I’ll question people’s sanity around here. Are you mad, Lestrade?’

  ‘That’s the only way you’ll stop him. Blanket policing can’t do it. If you cover the City and South London, he’ll just strike on the Metropolitan and District. Cover that and he’ll hit the Central London. Cover that and he’s back to the City and South London again. You don’t have enough men to cover more than one line at a time. You know that and so does he.’

  ‘Why do you think they built the Underground in the first place, Lestrade?’ Frost was calmer. ‘Because without it, you couldn’t move on the streets. Man, you’d grow old crossing Whitehall. If we shut the Underground now, even for a day, it would stop the life of London. The metropolis would be dead inside a week, choking on its own stagnation. This is 1895, Lestrade. We are the Workshop of the World. The very existence of the Empire would be seriously threatened. Civilization as we know it would come to a squealing stop. The government would move to Birmingham.’

  ‘So what do you suggest I do?’ Lestrade asked.

  An evil grin spread over the walrus features of the Assistant Commissioner. ‘Ho, ho, for a moment there, Lestrade . . .’ Then the grin vanished, and he held out his hand. ‘What you will do is hand me your warrant card. I am suspending you without pay for the duration of this case.’

  ‘Why? Because I haven’t caught a murderer?’

  ‘Don’t presume to ask me for reasons, Lestrade.’ Frost was almost inaudible in his fury. ‘You don’t have the rank for it. No, for the record, it is not because you have signally failed to catch the Underground murderer. It is because you allowed a female civilian, to wit one Agnes True to sleep . . . yes, sleep, Lestrade, under this very roof on no less than two occasions last week.’

  ‘She did sleep alone, sir,’ Lestrade pointed out, glaring knowingly at Abberline.

  ‘I don’t care if she slept with the entire Yard Glee Club and the Walthamstow Dog Handlers! The point is that Miss True is a) a civilian and b) a woman. We aren’t a hotel, Lestrade. Neither are we a doss-house. What on earth were you thinking of, man?’

  ‘She wanted to help, sir. Her sister was one of the Underground victims.’

  ‘I know that, man,’ Frost bellowed. ‘Just because I am Assistant Commissioner doesn’t mean I am a complete idiot. How could she possibly help by sleeping at the Yard?’

  ‘Grief takes people in mysterious ways, sir,’ the Inspector told him. ‘I believe she needed to be kept busy. Her job at the library is very intermittent.’

  ‘Yes, well, you’ll be busy for a while too, Lestrade,’ Frost snatched the warrant card from Lestrade’s grasp, ‘thinking up reasons why I shouldn’t kick you back into uniform. Good afternoon.’

  The Inspector spun on his heel. He’d been in this position before. It wouldn’t break his stride.

  ‘Oh and by the way,’ Frost stopped him, ‘that was a lie I told the railwaymen about not believing what Conan Doyle says about you. The only bit he’s wrong about is that you’re the best of a bad bunch!’

  LESTRADE THREW HIS spare collars into his battered Gladstone, exchanged a few short words with Dew and Russell, brought himself to nod to Bromley and stepped out on to the Embankment. It was the afternoon of a glorious day in June. The sun danced and dazzled on the water and the happy shouts and laughter of the day trippers on the pleasure steamers drifted across the city. Knots of little girls with frothy dresses and wide-brimmed straw hats came running down the walkway as he wandered the water-wall.

  ‘Inspector Lestrade.’ A voice made him turn.

  ‘Mr Lavender,’ he said.

  ‘This is a coincidence,’ the museum man said, ‘meeting you outside Scotland Yard and all. How is it going?’

  ‘Badly, thanks,’ Lestrade said. ‘How are you on electrocution?’

  ‘Er . . . rather vague, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Look,’ Lestrade had hit upon an idea, ‘there’s something I have to check. Do you mind accompanying me to the morgue?’

  LESTRADE HAD HOPED that it was Igor’s day off. Sadly, he was mistaken. The old mortuary attendant of Old Montague Street showed the gentlemen into the cold recesses of his lair. After the glare of the pavements above and the drone of the blue-bottles around the horse manure, Igor’s basement was a welcome relief.

  ‘This won’t be pleasant, Mr Lavender,’ Lestrade warned the railway expert, not for the first time on this case. Igor, at a word from the Inspector, hauled back the linen shroud.

  Lavender sucked in his breath and turned away. ‘Good God,’
he mumbled.

  ‘Are those wounds constituent with hitting a live rail?’ Lestrade asked him.

  ‘I would think so.’ Lavender declined the glass of water that Igor had thoughtfully provided. Like Lavender, it did look a little green.

  ‘I am making the assumption,’ Lestrade said, ‘that she was pushed off the end carriage of the last but one down train near the Stockwell gradient last night. That would make sense, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so. The conductor rail carries, I believe, a current of five hundred volts.’

  ‘Enough to kill a woman?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Two hundred and fifty volts or less can do dat, Mr Lestrade.’ Igor was polishing somebody’s teeth. ‘But of course it depends on de condition of de skin – moist or dry, de material vich de lady vas vearing, und zo on.’

  ‘I had no idea you were such an expert, Igor.’

  ‘All forms of death interest me,’ the mortuary attendant sniffed. ‘It goes viz ze job. It won’t be long before ve are executing our criminals viz Old Sparky de vay de Americans do.’

  ‘Do they?’ Lavender had had to sit down.

  ‘Oh, yah,’ Igor told him. ‘Dey pin a man into a chair, not unlike de one you are sitting in.’ Lavender stood up immediately. ‘Dey put his feet into a bowl of water und place wires on to his head. Dey say it takes eleven minutes to die. Und all de lights go out.’

  ‘The smell must be awful,’ Lestrade commented.

  Igor sniffed, a martyr to mucus. ‘I probably would not notice dat.’ He joined Lestrade by the corpse of Fanny Chattox. ‘Post mortem’s tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Vaste of time, really. Dere will be numerous subserous ecchymoses und capillary haemorrhages in de brain. De cytoplasm of de nerve cells vill hev undergone marked changes. De immediate cause of death will of course be cardiac fibrillation, I shouldn’t be at all surprised.’