Lestrade and the Ripper Page 20

  ‘Feet,’ said Derry. Clearly his years on the Force and in the Yorkshire Light Infantry had not been wasted.

  Lestrade kicked the nearest one with his own. ‘And one of them is made of wood,’ he said.

  ‘Adelstrop,’ they all chorused.

  ‘Yes, I remember him,’ Lestrade clambered upright, helped by his constables. ‘Head groundsman and boat-keeper.’ He crossed to Matron and held her heaving shoulders. ‘Madeleine?’ he whispered.

  ‘Oh, Sholto.’ She turned and sobbed into his neck, while the constables shifted from foot to foot, whistling.

  Lestrade glanced down. In her hand she held a rope, knotted in an odd way. ‘Madeleine?’ he said again. ‘What happened?’ She cried silently, clinging to him like a cricket-pad, unable or unwilling to speak.

  ‘Toms, where’s George?’

  ‘Asleep, sir.’

  ‘Asleep? But he sent me a telegram. “Unexpected developments” he said . . .Wait a minute. He couldn’t have meant Adelstrop . . .’

  ‘Indeed not, sir,’ said Toms. ‘The sergeant was referring to . . .’

  ‘Lestrade!’ An echoing shout rang around the inner quad, bouncing off chapel and policemen. ‘Put that woman down!’

  ‘Oh!’ Matron leapt away and the constables stood to attention.

  ‘Good evening, Dr Nails,’ said Lestrade. ‘I trust you are well?’

  ‘Well? Well? What is the meaning of this? Matron, was that you screaming?’

  ‘Yes, Headmaster,’ Madeleine whispered.

  ‘Carman?’ Nails raised a disapproving eyebrow.

  ‘Adelstrop,’ she told him.

  ‘Adelstrop?’ The Headmaster turned purple in the dusk. ‘Not your type, is he?’

  ‘Past tense, I fear, Headmaster,’ said Lestrade.

  ‘Don’t argue syntax with me, Lestrade,’ snapped Nails. ‘You haven’t the background for it.’

  ‘I mean, Headmaster,’ Lestrade explained, ‘that you will have to advertise for a new head groundsman. Mr Adelstrop is dead’ He pointed to the boots jutting from the bushes.

  ‘Good God!’ Nails stared in astonishment, ‘and he was no age. Matron, this is rather delicate, but were you and he . . .?’

  ‘I don’t believe Matron had anything to do with this, Dr Nails. Derry, Toms, I want him in the gymnasium now. This area to be roped off and patrolled.’

  ‘All night, sir?’ Toms groaned.

  ‘Naturally,’ answered Lestrade. ‘Headmaster, if you heard the scream, so have others.’ He looked beyond him. ‘I can see torches emerging as we speak. Please turn them back. There may be valuable evidence here.’

  ‘What are you saying, Lestrade? Do you mean Adelstrop is another . . .?’

  ‘Victim, Headmaster, yes I do. The sixth to be precise. May I suggest you close the school?’

  ‘Close the school?’ Nails roared. ‘Unthinkable!’

  ‘This happened,’ Lestrade kicked Adelstrop’s good leg, ‘with three policemen on the premises. I cannot be held responsible . . .’

  ‘Obviously not!’ snapped Nails. ‘But someone shall be. I’ve given it out to the press that we have diphtheria here. The whole place is in quarantine. That means we have no option other than to assume the murderer is one of us.’

  ‘Unless of course the murderer is illiterate, does not take the local paper or has had diphtheria.’

  ‘Lestrade!’ Nails roared.

  ‘Sorry, Headmaster, you are of course quite right. A conclusion I came to long ago. We shall talk in the morning.’

  ‘We shall indeed!’ and the Headmaster crossed the quad to drive his inquisitive school back to their dormitories.

  Lestrade turned left at the top of the stairs, steadying Matron as he went. In her rooms, he poured them both a medicinal brandy and flung his bowler on the sofa.

  ‘No,’ she stopped him as he was about to remove his Donegal, ‘leave it on. Please.’

  ‘Perhaps I should be going?’ he suggested.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she held the glass steady in both hands, ‘it’s just been a bit of a shock, that’s all.’

  ‘Of course. Do you feel like telling me what happened?’

  She crossed to the window and looked down on the scene below – the clutch of constables working by a bull’s-eye to rope off the bushes, and, stretching beyond them, the night.

  ‘You can see the spot clearly from here.’ Lestrade joined her.

  ‘I wasn’t in my rooms,’ she told him. ‘I’d just come from the san. Young Spencer and that custard. Well, cook did warn him.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘I don’t know, about half-past five, I suppose.’

  She shivered and turned from the window. Lestrade glanced down to see Sergeant George, now in charge below, give him a cheeky salute in the lamplight. He drew the curtains.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked her.

  ‘I felt like a stroll. There’s been an atmosphere here, Sholto, ever since Maggie Hollis died. Like a shroud hanging over the school, heavy, suffocating. I needed to breathe.’

  ‘So did Adelstrop,’ murmured Lestrade. ‘What then?’

  ‘I walked to the lake first. I like to watch the mallards on the water.’

  ‘Did you see anyone else?’

  ‘Ruffage and his prefects were doing the rounds.’

  ‘Is that usual?’

  ‘Yes. Especially now. They patrol under the auspices of Dr Nails.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Mr Mercer.’

  ‘Where was he?’

  ‘Going to his office. He often works into the night. He’s a lonely man now his wife’s gone.’

  ‘His wife?’

  ‘She died.’

  ‘Did he see you?’

  ‘No . . . I don’t think so. Then I came back.’

  ‘Via the shrubbery?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She sat down suddenly, with the look of a startled hare.

  ‘I mean, did you come back via the shrubbery?’ Lestrade didn’t know how else to put it.

  ‘Yes.’ She stood up. ‘It was then that I . . . found him.’

  ‘Adelstrop?’

  She nodded. Then flung herself suddenly into his arms, sobbing into his neck. He put the glass down and stroked her hair.

  ‘Who’s next?’ she whispered. ‘Sholto, I’m so frightened.’

  He held her at arm’s length. The oil-lamp glowed warm on her tear-stained cheeks. He undid the silver clasp and her cloak fell away. Then the braided hair cascaded across her white bodice. She closed to him, looking up into the steady, sad eyes.

  ‘We’ll get him,’ he said, ‘and it will be soon.’

  He pressed hard on her trembling lips and they sat together on the sofa.

  ‘I wasn’t out there to meet Carman,’ she said.

  He smiled. ‘I didn’t say you were,’ he said.

  ‘There are those who will. Cruel tongues, hostile eyes.’

  ‘It isn’t true, then?’ he asked.

  ‘It was,’ her eyes lowered as she unlaced the apron and belt, ‘but it’s over. I’m my own woman now.’

  He nodded and made to remove the Donegal again.

  ‘No,’ she said urgently, ‘make love to me, Sholto, and leave the Donegal on.’

  He blinked, but this was no time to ask questions. She loosened his tie and opened the waistcoat, her warm fingers tracing patterns under his shirt.

  ‘Is it so awful of me to want you?’ she breathed. ‘After all, this is eighteen eighty-eight.’

  ‘That’s progress for you.’ He kissed her again. ‘Watch out for the . . . arrgghhh!’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She sat up.

  ‘It’s all right. They’re brass knuckles. Quite useful at times. No! For God’s sake don’t touch that catch. There’s a concealed blade. I wouldn’t be much use to either of us, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh.’ She smiled coyly. ‘I don’t believe that,’ and she breathed in to allow him access to her stays. Slowly she lowered herself backwar
ds. Praying his neck would not click again, he moved with her until he felt the skirt fall away and the chemise ride up. He hadn’t expected the garter in Rhadegund House colours and wondered momentarily what she had been awarded them for, but thought it best not to pry too closely. Expert medical fingers released his braces and his hopes soared. In a moment his hands were roaming freely over Madeleine’s naked body. She shuddered as he brushed her breasts full and proud in the lamplight, and she clamped her mouth on his. The sweet scent of her hair, warm and rich, tumbled over him. His neck was forgotten, his case was forgotten. Even dead Adelstrop in the gymnasium. Then he hesitated for a moment. The old doubts and fears returned. He was a Yard man and he was on the job.

  ‘Don’t stop now.’ Her voice was barely recognisable. ‘A little more. That’s it. Aahh!’

  ‘Sorry,’ he apologised, ‘I keep meaning to get that tear mended.’

  She began to move under him, slowly, rhythmically, the springs of the battered old sofa groaning with them both. Faster and more urgently as the folds of the rough Donegal fell like a tent over her heaving hips. A knock at the door shattered the moment. Lestrade’s neck locked on an upstroke.

  ‘Mr Lestrade, sir,’ he recognised Derry’s voice, ‘can you come right away?’

  The Matron and the Inspector looked at each other. ‘Not now, Constable, I’ve got my hands full,’ he said.

  ‘Sergeant George’s compliments, sir,’ Derry went on. ‘Something’s come up.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ muttered Lestrade. ‘Cut along, Derry. I’ll join you directly.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’ They heard Derry salute and the steel shod boots clatter away down the stairs.

  ‘First Hardman’s fag, now George’s,’ Lestrade muttered. ‘It’s moments like these I start to believe in conspiracies.’

  ‘Oh, Sholto,’ she moaned. ‘Don’t stop. Come back to me.’

  He raised himself up, kneeling over her, then rummaged for his trousers. ‘Duty,’ he sighed, then closed to her. ‘Madeleine. It wouldn’t have worked. Believe me. I was . . . weak tonight. Tired. I shouldn’t have . . .’

  She stopped him with a kiss, rising with him and twining her strong legs around his. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, you should. I understand. It’s the case. These terrible murders. Your men. You’ve got too much on your mind at the moment. It’s not fair of me. It’s just that I was so frightened. So very frightened.’

  ‘And now?’ He wrestled with his tie.

  She stepped back so that the light fell full onto her jutting breasts and the curve of her thighs. ‘Not now,’ she said. ‘Not any more.’

  She passed him back his bowler, a little out of shape now with their weight. ‘Come back to me soon.’

  He smiled, twisting his neck. ‘I will,’ he said.

  By the light of the bull’s-eye, Lestrade broke the circle around the head groundsman. Adelstrop had been a man of indeterminate age, silver hair and beard.

  ‘Apparently he lost his leg in a threshing accident,’ Toms said, his voice echoing around the darkened gymnasium.

  George looked at Lestrade. ‘Terrible thing, threshing,’ he said, ‘especially about.’

  Lestrade ignored him. ‘That sounds like one of Dr Nails’s attempts to rescue the honour of his school. He lost the leg in a riot, here at Rhadegund. All right, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘Time you won your spurs. Derry, cause of death?’

  ‘Strangulation, sir.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Ah, we’re on to motive now.’

  ‘No, I mean how do you know he was strangled?’

  ‘The lips, sir – and the ears – blue. Look at his tongue.’

  ‘I’d rather not,’ muttered Toms.

  ‘Tell it to the Marines,’ snapped Lestrade. ‘This is a murder inquiry, man.’

  ‘What was it that Matron had in her hand?’ George asked.

  ‘When?’ Lestrade blurted, so quickly that only Adelstrop did not look at him.

  ‘When she found the body, sir,’ George explained innocently. ‘Ah, I see. You mean this.’ Lestrade produced the hemp from his pocket. ‘The same knot, gentlemen. The same one we found around the necks of Singh Major and Anthony Denton.’

  ‘At least our man’s consistent,’ said George.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lestrade. ‘It’s one of his most endearing traits, isn’t it? I want that ground measured, sketched, eaten if necessary, but in the morning I want clues. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Crystal, sir,’ the three policemen chorused.

  ‘I shall be with the Bursar if you need me,’ Lestrade called as he walked into the tangle of ropes before finding the door.

  ‘Good evening, Constable!’ was Mercer’s merry greeting at Lestrade’s appearance in his office.

  ‘You’re working late, sir,’ said the Inspector.

  ‘Can’t sleep.’ He slammed down a photograph on his desk. ‘Drink?’

  ‘No thanks. Never on duty,’ Lestrade lied. ‘Matron says she saw you earlier.’

  ‘We see each other cons . . . consistently, Inspector. When do you mean?’

  ‘This would be about five-thirty. She was taking the air.’

  ‘Yes. I was on my way here.’ He waved vaguely to the darkened room.

  Lestrade sat down uninvited, and shook the contents of the half-empty bottle. ‘In need of consolation, Mr Mercer?’ he asked.

  The Bursar looked at him, nodding anything but soberly. ‘Feeling sorry for myself, I suppose,’ he said, lifting his glass. ‘I don’t drink much often, Mr Lestrade, but when I do I make up for the fact.’

  Lestrade poured him another and threw his bowler onto Mercer’s ledgers.

  ‘Did you know Dr Nails had a mistress?’ he asked the Bursar.

  Mercer guffawed. ‘Has he now? Some floozy on the tiles, eh? Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. Have you taken a good look at his lady wife recently? Rather less interesting than the south face of the Eiger – and virtually the same colour.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘A mountaineering metaphor, Inspector dear; Dr Nails’s other love.’

  ‘She lives in Balham,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘Ah, you’ve been hobnobbing with Matron again.’

  Lestrade denied it hotly.

  ‘Women!’ Mercer suddenly roared. ‘What a waste!’

  ‘Oh, they have their place, sir, surely,’ Lestrade suggested.

  ‘Misogyny, Lestrade,’ Mercer said. ‘It’s mankind’s only hope.’

  Lestrade leaned forward. ‘Let’s not bring religion into this,’ he smiled, topping up Mercer’s glass. ‘You’ve been here a few years. You must have known Dr Nails a while.’

  ‘Ah,’ Mercer wagged a finger, ‘You haven’t been reading your depositions, Lestrade. If you had, you would remember that I have been here for precisely two years. I don’t know Nails much better than I know you.’

  ‘Of course, you were in the Civil Service, weren’t you?’

  Mercer chuckled. ‘In a way,’ he said. ‘God, the bottle’s empty.’ He whirled away to a metal locker in search of another. While his back was turned, Lestrade picked up the abandoned photograph Mercer had been holding when he’d arrived. It was a portrait of a woman, thirty or so, beautiful in a chubby sort of way. Scrawled in untidy copperplate across the bottom he read the name ‘Martha’ and below that ‘For the old times’.

  ‘Your wife, Mr Mercer?’

  ‘Mmm?’ The Bursar turned, bottle in hand. ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘Martha, my wife.’

  ‘It was my mother’s name. Is she . . . gone?’

  ‘Yes,’ he straightened and studied his hand as he poured another brandy.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Lestrade. ‘To lose a loved one . . .’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t lose her, Lestrade. I lost an umbrella once. That I regretted. It was a good umbrella. It’s probably still travelling round and round on the underground trains.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘I left it at Baker Street,’ Mercer explained.r />
  ‘No, I mean your wife, sir.’

  ‘Oh, her.’ Mercer swigged back his brandy. ‘She left me, Lestrade. For another man. Or, to be specific, several other men.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Lestrade said. ‘I thought . . . ’

  ‘That she was dead?’ Mercer chuckled. ‘I sometimes think she is.’

  ‘You haven’t heard from her?’

  Mercer shook his head. ‘Inspector, as you say, it’s late. I have two new members of staff to see tomorrow to sort out their finances.’

  ‘New staff?’ Lestrade repeated.

  ‘Replacements for Denton and Bracegirdle. I thought Nails was wrong to open the place up just at the moment. But he insisted we carry on as normal.’

  ‘Apart from diphtheria?’ Lestrade reminded him.

  ‘This is St Rhadegund’s,’ Mercer reminded him. ‘A little thing like a fatal disease is not going to keep good teachers away.’

  ‘But a little thing like murder might?’

  Mercer shrugged. ‘I’ve a feeling these two can take care of themselves,’ he said. ‘One of them has a revolver.’

  ‘Does he?’ Lestrade didn’t know many gun-toting teachers. But he did know first-hand how beastly some boys could be. Had it come to this?

  ‘There’s one thing,’ Mercer said, suddenly sober and steady.

  ‘Yes?’ Lestrade retrieved his hat.

  ‘I too saw someone tonight. On my way here.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. He was hurrying away across the First Eleven Square. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, of course. Then I heard about old Adelstrop.’

  ‘What did this person look like?’ Lestrade asked.

  Mercer shook his head. ‘It was dark,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t see his face, but . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ Lestrade worried him like a terrier with a rat.

  ‘He wore a gown.’

  Lestrade reached the door. ‘Well, at least that eliminates a few of us, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Does it, Lestrade?’ Mercer said. ‘Does it?’

  Lestrade was on the carpet shortly after breakfast. He had checked the corpse of Adelstrop again, by daylight, and had paced the ground cordoned off by his stalwart constables. They had been unable to find any rope and had been lent some blue tape by the cook. One of the language masters had seen it and made some reference to cordon bleu which Derry found pointless. The language master had gone off chuckling. Toms thought it in bad taste.