Lestrade and the Dead Man's Hand Read online

  William Sleigh sat his saddle patiently, the hunting rifle cradled in the crook of his arm. He tilted his bush hat, the one with the corks dangling from it, and scanned the flock one more time. Three thousand head of the bleating bastards. But all of them struck dumb as the February heat already climbed in the heavens and the scent of fire raked their ovine nostrils. A kookaburra jarred the moment, hopping among the jacarandas.

  The second stockman turned his pony into the wind and walked it through the yellowed scrub to Sleigh’s side.

  ‘Dingo in the wind, boss,’ he said, the flies buzzing around his broad, black nostrils and tightly frizzed grey hair.

  ‘I don’t see anything, Croajingolong,’ Sleigh said.

  ‘That easy for you to say, boss. But he about, boss,’ the herdsman grinned. ‘They smell ’im. I smell ’im.’

  Sleigh looked uncomfortable. Marlborough. Trinity. The Classics Tripos. And here he was outsmelt by an aborigine of dubious parentage and 3,000 sheep. What a country!

  ‘Who’s that?’ Sleigh gestured with his rifle to the growing dust.

  ‘Don’ know, boss,’ Croajingolong squinted. ‘I got the family nose. Don’t got the family eyes too.’

  A third stockman, lean, dusty, white, trotted over the rise to Sleigh’s right. ‘Who’s that bloody gallah? He’ll scare the dingo.’

  ‘Croajingolong can’t make him out, Tom.’

  ‘Course he can’t. Too much jungle juice at the bloody Korroboree. You watch I don’t point a bone at you, boy. Well, that bloody dingo won’t turn up now.’

  ‘He’s had thirty-six of my sheep, Tom. I’m not giving up.’

  ‘I’m not saying you should, Mr Sleigh. I’m just sayin’ no rogue dingo is goin’ to show up obligingly and play dead when there’s all this bloody activity. I dunnow, you don’t see another white bloke from one Christmas to the next and suddenly, it’s like bloody Bendigo Junction around here.’

  Sleigh steadied his horse as the rider took the slope below them. The peaked cap and the blue tunic caked with dust told the story. In the name of the Empress, this was the Overland Mail. He reined in his flagging mare, and the ewes, alarmed by the thudding, trotted away with the smaller lambs springing at their heels.

  ‘Mr Sleigh?’ the postman said, fighting for breath.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sleigh.

  ‘Mr William Sleigh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘G’day, Mr Sleigh. Telegram for you.’

  ‘Thanks. How did you find me?’

  ‘Passed your camp down by the billabong. Up came three squatters and told me where you was.’ He suddenly sniffed the wind. ‘’Ere, I smell dingo.’

  ‘Really?’ Sleigh was impressed. ‘Do you have any aborigine blood in you?’

  ‘Christ, no. Do you mind? Na, my old dad used to have a sheep farm over at Yarra Yarra. That’s ’ow I earned my pocket money as a kid, keeping watch on the flocks. Didn’t see no bloody Angel of the Lord, neither. Hey, you’re a pom, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m British, yes.’ Sleigh was slightly affronted. ‘But then, aren’t we all?’

  The postman winked at Tom. ‘You speak for your bloody self, mate. I knew you was by your whinge. That and the corks around your hat.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Sleigh had ripped open the buff envelope.

  ‘Not bad news, Mr Sleigh?’ Tom leaned in the saddle to read the news. He couldn’t what with the angle of the sun and Sleigh’s trembling hand – and the fact that he couldn’t read.

  ‘When was this sent?’ the Englishman asked.

  ‘From Melbourne three days ago. I’ve ridden bloody day and night, you know.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, thank you, Mr . . . er . . . ?’

  ‘Dundee.’

  ‘Mr Dundee. You’ll find some tucker in Croajingolong’s saddlebags.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ the postman grimaced. ‘I’ve gone right off locusts.’

  ‘Watch the stock, Tom.’ Sleigh rammed the rifle into the leather bucket. ‘I’ll be back.’

  ‘What? Where are you going, Mr Sleigh?’

  ‘Home,’ he shouted. ‘Don’t wait up.’

  ‘Eh? When will you be back?’

  ‘Octoberish, all being well.’ And he was gone, lashing his pony with his reins, thudding away in a cloud of red dust.

  ‘That’s all right,’ muttered Dundee. ‘Never mind my tip. I was right, then. Another bloody whingeing pom.’

  ‘Well,’ Tom steadied his animal. ‘Maybe he left the iron on.’

  AND WHEN WILLIAM SLEIGH’S exhausted pony finally carried him into the dingy suburbs of Melbourne, the whingeing bloody pom found a post office and sent his own telegram. To South Africa.

  THE FLICKERING TORCHLIGHT lit the bearded faces that crossed the kraal. Arthur Sleigh stood half in shadow and watched them assemble. Some he knew. Farmers like himself. One or two of the men from the mine. He heard them muttering in guarded tones, the hum of conspiracy through the ages. Then he heard a rifle-bolt snick behind him.

  ‘Come along now, Mr Sleigh,’ a gruff voice called. ‘You shouldn’t be lurking in the bushes. You’ll have us thinking you’re a damned Boer.’

  Sleigh crossed the open space with his hands in his pockets, chewing the veldt grass with the stubbornness of a Durban cow. The rifleman crossed with him and tapped with his butt on the ramshackle door. Three thuds and a tickle. The accepted sign.

  ‘Yes?’ a low voice called from within.

  The rifleman lifted the latch and ushered Sleigh in. The knot of men he had seen outside had now formed a circle and some of them held knitting in their hands.

  ‘Arthur.’ A balding gent with a clipped moustache and the distinct look of an ambassador to Matabeleland stood up and shook his hand.

  ‘What a splendid cardie,’ Sleigh said.

  The ambassador chuckled. ‘You’re right. Not altogether a sensible cover, is it? Whose idea was it by the way, the knitting circle?’

  ‘I don’t believe you’ve met Christian de Wet of the Johannesburg Uitlanders?’

  ‘I thought we agreed, Dr Jim,’ the South African said in the tortured tongue of that country. ‘No real names.’

  ‘It’s all right, de Wet, Arthur Sleigh is one of us. Most of the chaps here I think you know. Except perhaps Mr Whitecross of The Times and Mr Tait, direct from Rhodesia.’

  ‘How is dear old Cecil?’ Sleigh asked. ‘Still asthmatic?’

  ‘Getting better,’ Tait assured him.

  ‘Well, then. To business,’ the ambassador said. ‘The Chartered Company means business, gentlemen. That’s why I’ve asked you all here tonight. I’ve got nearly five hundred men ready to ride at a moment’s notice and with de Wet’s Uitlanders in tow, I estimate that we can take the Transvaal in one or two weeks. Arthur, how many blacks can you muster?’

  ‘Thirty-three,’ Sleigh said. ‘But I’m not sure it’s their fight, Jameson.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ the ambassador assured him. ‘Who treats the blacks worse than anybody? Cronje and his damned Boers, that’s who. Lobengula has promised me a thousand of his warriors.’

  De Wet spat copiously on to his knitting. ‘Black levies!’ he snarled. ‘You can’t trust ’em, man. I remember the levies we had in the Zulu war. Ran away at the first whisper of Usuthu.’

  ‘Usuthu?’ The Times man repeated.

  ‘It’s a Zulu word,’ Jameson explained. ‘It means kill.’

  ‘Oh, I say,’ Whitecross put down his knitting and Tait dropped a stitch entirely, ‘I’m not sure we’re talking about violence . . . are we?’

  There was a silence. Jameson broke it. ‘I thought we agreed,’ he said, looking wildly around at them, ‘the Transvaal must be secured for Britain. These damned Boers have a lesson coming. We can’t teach them that with gentle reminders – or letters to The Times. I think, Tait, if Cecil heard you talking such nonsense as Whitecross here, he’d have you shot!’

  ‘Oh dear,’ gulped Whitecross, not exactly a leader of Empire at the best of times.

&nbs
p; There was a thud at the door, followed by two more and a tickle. Everyone but Sleigh snatched up their knitting again in the candlelight.

  ‘Yes?’ Jameson called.

  The rifleman popped his head round the door. ‘I’m sorry Dr Jameson,’ he said, ‘but there’s a fellow here with a telegram for Mr Sleigh.’

  ‘Who?’ Jameson tried the cool approach.

  ‘Mr Sleigh.’ The delivery boy emerged from the gloom, only the whites of his eyes and his pearly teeth flashing.

  ‘Get out of here, Kaffir!’ de Wet snarled.

  ‘No, no,’ Jameson interrupted. ‘This fellow is simply doing his job. Deliver away, Johnny.’

  ‘Thank you, Dr Jim,’ the Bantu said.

  ‘Er . . .’ Jameson did his best not to be surprised. Then he remembered that the Kaffir had heard the stupid guard use his name, so he calmed down.

  ‘Dis came all de way up de Limpopo, bwana,’ the Bantu beamed. ‘I rowed all de way myself.’

  Sleigh slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Just like a Trinity chap, I shouldn’t wonder,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, Mr Tait,’ the Bantu grinned. ‘How is Sir Cecil? Got over his asthma, I trust?’ He turned to The Times man, standing open-mouthed with the others. ‘Mr Whitecross, how marvellous to see you, bwana. Did you get my solution to de Times crossword number three four one? I particularly liked de cheeky vulgarity of eighteen down.’

  ‘Who the bloody hell are you, Kaffir?’ de Wet growled, rounding on the little black man.

  ‘Good God!’ Sleigh had read the telegram and visibly paled in the candlelight.

  ‘Bad news on the wool supplies, er . . . George?’ Jameson attempted to keep the facade going.

  ‘Wool supplies be buggered,’ Sleigh snapped. ‘You’ll have to postpone the Jameson Raid, gentlemen. I have urgent business in London.’

  And he saw himself out.

  All eyes turned to the Bantu who held up his hands in submission. ‘Can I wind de wool for anybody, bwanas?’

  ❖ 2 ❖

  C

  hief Inspector Abberline’s favourite colour was flesh. Especially somebody else’s. Especially if that somebody else was the right side of thirty with a figure like the Venus de Milo; before her arms dropped off of course.

  Such a one, alas, was not Mrs Ermintrude Abberline, née Pargeter, of the Neasden Pargeters. She was decidedly the wrong side of thirty, but then it could be argued that Mrs Abberline was the wrong side of everything, especially Chief Inspector Abberline. And flesh was certainly not her colour. Indeed, the last time she had been pestered by the Chief Inspector he was a detective sergeant and Mr Disraeli was Prime Minister. That had been in 1874.

  She faced him that early April morning over the marmalade and the toast, wondering what on earth she had seen in the whiskered stranger moronically dunking his rookies in his soft-boiled egg. Once, perhaps, he had been a dashing, and undoubtedly white, sergeant, at a time when Dundrearies were still the height of fashion. Now he, and they, looked a trifle passé.

  ‘That Chinaman called yesterday with your shirts, Frederick,’ she said.

  ‘Hmm,’ he responded wittily, checking the obituaries in the Police Gazette.

  ‘Yes, he was very apologetic’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Abberline, ever one for the dry quip and the variety of response.

  ‘He said he and his family had been in the laundry business ever since the First Opium War and he had never known lipstick stains so stubborn.’

  ‘Lipstick?’ Abberline’s composure cracked at last. He would rather face the Yard’s rubber-truncheon room any day than Mrs Abberline at her most persistent. She made the Spanish Inquisition look like a casual inquiry.

  ‘Yes, Frederick.’ She had the pursed lips of the habitual lemon-sucker. ‘You know, it’s the pink stuff that young girls paint on their faces nowadays. In my day . . .’

  ‘In your day, Ermintrude . . .’

  ‘How dare you interrupt me when I’m making a moral and historical observation, Frederick!’ she thundered and the windows shook. ‘In my day, those females who wore lipstick were harlots. No better than they should be, Frederick. Creatures of the night.’

  ‘Come, come, dearest.’ The Chief Inspector folded the Gazette. ‘This is 1895.’

  ‘I am aware of the date, Frederick,’ she assured him, ‘but it does not give you licence to debauch yourself.’

  ‘Debauch?’ Abberline gulped the last of his coffee. ‘Ermintrude, I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Indeed?’ She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘So you’ve no idea how lipstick came to be on the collar of your number three shirt?’

  ‘None whatever.’ He’d decided to brazen it out. ‘If indeed it was lipstick.’

  ‘“If indeed it was”? I have just given you Mr Wu’s pedigree in the ancient Oriental Art of Cleansing and Starching. I imagine the man is thoroughly immersed in the whole sordid spectrum of stains, many of them of unmentionable origin.’

  ‘Some damn chink?’ Abberline grumbled. ‘Needs his own collar feeling, that bloke, I shouldn’t wonder. Think I’ll send a few of the boys round to cut his pigtail off.’

  ‘It was number three shirt,’ she reminded him. ‘The one you wore last Wednesday.’

  ‘Really?’ The Chief Inspector knew exactly when to look blank.

  ‘Last Wednesday.’ Ermintrude Abberline was clearly descended from a long line of terriers. ‘Surveillance at Penge, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘That’s precisely the question I would like you to answer, Frederick,’ she said.

  He looked at her under his shifty lids, taking in the lariats of fake pearls around her throat, the throat he longed to squeeze. He focused briefly on the pile of hair, grey as barbed wire and twice as tangled, balanced high on the cranium he longed to split with the axe he kept carefully honed in the garden shed.

  ‘Wednesday!’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Of course. I remember now.’ The frozen grin was a mark of his desperation. ‘Detective Constable La Rue.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘La Rue wears lipstick?’

  ‘Oh, only in the course of duty, my dear,’ he smiled. ‘Nothing funny about La Rue, I assure you. I can’t tell you too much, of course . . .’

  ‘Of course not, Frederick,’ she had the grin of a basilisk, ‘lest you incriminate yourself. Why was La Rue wearing lipstick?’

  ‘We’re on to the Penge flasher,’ he told her.

  She shuddered. ‘Revolting!’

  ‘Quite, my dearest, quite. This is why I don’t tell you these things. It is not for the fair sex,’ and it had positively hurt him to force his lips to form the words, ‘nor for the faint-hearted.’

  ‘You haven’t explained how La Rue’s lipstick ended up on your collar.’

  Ah, well, yes, now, let me see . . . May I trouble you for a little more of your delicious coffee, heart?’

  Her lips almost disappeared into her huge, grey face, like a prune that’s been too long in the sun. With the speed of a salamander in full rut she poured it all over his hand.

  He screamed and leapt upright, bandaging the raw fingers in his handkerchief.

  ‘Tsk, tsk,’ she smiled. ‘How very careless of me. And just as you were about to invent a rather unconvincing explanation about the lipstick.’

  ‘It happens to be true, Ermintrude,’ he assured her. I was just giving La Rue his final instructions, checking the half brick in his handbag, that sort of thing, when the damned bus lurched forward; horse startled by a velocipede, I shouldn’t wonder. La Rue and I collided. Fair damaged my gardenia, I can tell you.’

  ‘Bunkum,’ snorted Mrs Abberline. ‘Sit down, Frederick, and tell me the truth.’

  The cavalry arrived just then for Frederick Abberline and it came in the form of a sharp rap at the door. ‘Ah,’ the Chief Inspector was already fighting his way through the aspidistras that choked the conservatory, ‘that’ll be the postman. He always knocks twice.’

  ‘More of a rap, I’d say,’ she told him.
‘I’ve told that idiot about that. He’s definitely rapping again. And remember.’ Her circular-saw-like tones held him rigid in the hallway. ‘I open the post in this house.’

  ‘Of course you do, my pet,’ he hissed and closed the conservatory door.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Mr Abberline,’ the postman clipped his peak.

  ‘Who did you expect?’ Abberline snapped. ‘Spring-Heeled Jack?’

  ‘All right, all right,’ the postman said, ‘keep your ’air on.’ But he realized that advice came far too late. ‘Uh-huh.’ He withheld the letters as Abberline snatched at them. ‘Mrs Abberline and I have a little arrangement.’

  The Chief Inspector’s heart missed a beat as he saw the pale turquoise envelope with the Penge postmark. ‘All right,’ he whispered. ‘Two bob?’

  The postman grinned and pocketed the silver. ‘Sorry as ’ow you ’ad no post today, Mr Abberline. My mistake.’ And he stuffed the letters into the Chief Inspector’s hand and vanished.

  ‘Well?’ Ermintrude’s reminder rattled the elephant’s foot umbrella stand. The Chief Inspector steadied it and snatched his hat. ‘No, it wasn’t the postman, dear,’ he called, briefly inhaling the heady perfume of the Penge letter. ‘It’s the Yard. Urgent business. God knows when I’ll be back. Don’t wait up.’

  And he didn’t stay to hear Ermintrude scream after him. He was only sure she had because at the end of the road a gas lamp had shattered.

  THE HOME LIFE OF DETECTIVE Constable Walter Dew was altogether different. The inside of his little wooden locker in the back basement of Scotland Yard was testimony to that. A lovingly photographed sepia portrait of Mrs Dew and the two little Dews, right next to the tripe sandwiches she made him every morning with her own fair hand.

  The Constable still had brown hair in those days and the immortality he was to acquire on the case of Dr Crippen lay murderous years ahead. Even so, he had been a detective of sorts now for some little time. Time enough certainly for him to give the once over to the two rookies who now stood before him in the latrine-turned-office on the first floor. It was only five years since the Metropolitan Police had obtained this building, designed as an Opera House, and Constable Dew still winced to read the sign ARTISTES THIS WAY in the corridor. Whenever he passed it, he strode with a particularly manly bearing; lest someone should equate him with an artiste, he thought it best to walk that way.