Lestrade and the Dead Man's Hand Read online

  ‘No, Igor,’ Lestrade slowly shook his head. ‘There I must disagree with you. You see here, on the throat? Bruising. The immediate cause of death was a madman who leapt out at Miss Chattox. She struggled and she jumped, or was thrown, on to the line. We’ll see ourselves out.’

  ‘Come back sometime, already!’ Igor called, waving the dentures at them.

  Lavender at least was glad to feel the sun on his back in Old Montague Street. ‘What now, Mr Lestrade?’ he asked.

  ‘Now every station, every train on the City and South London line will be guarded by uniformed police. Whether they’ll leave my plainclothesmen incognito, I don’t know.’

  ‘They? But aren’t you running the case?’

  ‘As of this morning, apparently not,’ Lestrade said. ‘I’ve been suspended.’

  ‘By what?’ Lavender was shocked.

  ‘The Assistant Commissioner,’ Lestrade told him. ‘Could have been worse. Could have been by the testicles.’

  ‘What I can’t understand is why the guard didn’t see all this,’ Lavender said.

  ‘That’s easy,’ Lestrade answered. ‘The man I’m looking for is a guard. Or at least, he’s posing as one. I don’t suppose the name Hudson means anything to you?’

  ‘There was a clergyman of that name who perished on the Matterhorn a few years ago. And another after whom they named a strait.’

  Lestrade shook his head. ‘What about Gooch?’

  It was Lavender’s turn to shake his. ‘Hackworth?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. I’m not being much help, am I, Inspector?’

  ‘More than some, Mr Lavender,’ Lestrade said. ‘More than some.’

  ‘What will you do now?’ the railway expert asked. ‘Grow geraniums like Superintendent Tomelty?’

  ‘Probably,’ Lestrade said. ‘I’ve heard they sell some marvellous manure in Duke Street.’

  THE SUN WAS STILL HIGH when Lestrade found the number he wanted – thirty-five. It was typical of all the other terraced houses in the area, tucked away behind the bustle of Oxford Street, within hailing distance of the Row. This was not his first visit, nor probably would it be his last. And unlike the first time, when he was a green-as-grass rookie, he was on his guard. However placid the portico might appear, here was an avenue notorious throughout the metropolis. It ranked with the Ratcliffe Highway where policemen patrolled in fours, with Cleveland Street where, until recently, titled gentlemen whiled away whole afternoons with post office boys and the Nichol where London’s gangland plied its grisly trade. He patted the brass knuckles in his pocket, just for good measure.

  A black woman with the build of a goldfish bowl opened the door to him. She wore a tea towel around her head and her teeth shone like pearls. ‘Yessir,’ she bobbed.

  ‘Is this the house of Miss Fanny Chattox?’ he asked.

  ‘Miss Fanny not at home today, sir,’ and she began to close the door.

  The Inspector was faster, however, and he winced as the oak pinned his foot to the frame. ‘I know,’ he said through swimming vision. ‘I’ll just wait if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Oh, no, sir. I can’t let you in, sir. It’s more than my job’s worth, sir.’

  ‘Now, now.’ Lestrade wrestled with the woman for control of the door. If he hadn’t brought his knee up sharply into the pit of where he guessed her stomach must be, she would probably have won. Holding her at arm’s length was more difficult because she had the momentum of a rolling pumpkin.

  ‘Let’s calm down, shall we?’ he shouted. ‘I am a policeman. Inspector Lestrade from Scotland Yard.’

  Her iron grip lessened and she stood hopping from foot to foot.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said calmly.

  ‘I’s Hecuba, massa,’ she told him.

  ‘Hecuba. You are Miss Fanny’s maid?’

  ‘Of all work, massa, yessir. Yessir.’

  ‘Tell me, Hecuba,’ he led her gingerly into a tastefully decorated drawing-room, ‘whose house is this?’

  ‘Is Miss Fanny’s house, sir,’ she told him.

  ‘Yes, but who owns it, Hecuba? Miss Fanny just lives here, doesn’t she? Who looks after her?’

  ‘I do, sir. Hecuba look after Miss Fanny.’

  He took her gently by her solid, gingham-wrapped shoulders. ‘Not any more, Hecuba,’ he said.

  She looked at him, blinking uncomprehendingly.

  ‘Can you read, Hecuba?’ he asked.

  ‘No, massa,’ she said. ‘Readin’ is de work of de devil. No good person in Trinidad can read. ’Cept minister. An’ he de biggest devil of dem all.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Lestrade had met ministers like that. ‘Then you won’t know,’ he said. ‘You won’t have seen the papers. Come and sit down.’

  ‘Oh no, sir,’ and her huge eyes rolled in horror, ‘I isn’t to sit down in here, sir. Hecuba’s chair is down de stairs. In de basement.’

  ‘It’s all right, Hecuba,’ and he squeezed her ample buttocks into the Chesterfield, ‘I’m sure Miss Fanny won’t mind. I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. Miss Fanny isn’t going to mind anything any more. I’m afraid she’s dead.’

  The black woman sat as though poleaxed, her eyes staring madly ahead, her arms crossing and uncrossing across her rolltop bust. She began burbling and muttering in a strange rhythmic hum. Lestrade flashed his hand in front of her face. Nothing. He clicked his fingers. No response. He stamped on her foot. To all intents and purposes, Hecuba was dead. He dashed to the kitchen in the basement, grabbed a jug of water and hurtled back upstairs with it. Hecuba was still humming like a Beyer and Peacock engine and he threw the contents of the jug full in her face. No response at all. The only difference was that instead of sitting there practising mumbo-jumbo she now sat there doing it wringing wet.

  At that point, Lestrade, that most resourceful of detectives, knew when to give up on a lost cause and did a recce of the house. Miss Fanny’s fol-de-rols, yards of silks and satins and lace, hung neatly folded by a Trinidadian hand. Other unmentionables still lay on her vast bed, but it was the bed itself that held Lestrade’s attention, for carved into the gilt beading of the headboard was a family crest he thought he knew. Pausing only to check that the maid was still breathing, he saw himself out, and went down to the station and took him a train.

  THE PELICAN CLUB WAS not so much a meeting of like minds; it was a meeting of no minds at all. And when Lestrade found them, it was on the evening of one of their annual – and clandestine – outings. He’d called in a favour from one of the minor aristocrats who owed him one and that minor aristocrat, loose of lip as well as of morals, had spilled beans in all directions. It had only taken a reminder from Lestrade that Henry Labouchere’s Act, passed by both Houses of Parliament not eleven years ago, had been set up to deal with just the sort of acts that the minor aristocrat had practised. And the minor aristocrat had talked.

  ‘For God’s sake, Lestrade,’ he had squawked, ‘when you see him, don’t tell him I sent you. And never, never, never tell him that I once knew Oscar Wilde.’

  The trap left Lestrade at the entrance to the park, and the rest of the way, via the trout lakes and the stables, the suspended Inspector went on foot. As he passed the green gargoyles with their lichen and their verdigris, he heard the distant roars of a crowd, subdued, muted, as though buried beneath the earth. He slunk around corners, extricating privet from his person. The sun was nearly down, but his boater made too bright a target in its dying rays and he discarded it. Half hidden in the tangle of ivy was the iron-studded door that the minor aristocrat had told him about. Lestrade was grateful. Certainly he would never have found this for himself. He tapped on it with his fist. An iron grille shot back and a heavy bloated face peered out. ‘Yes?’ it said.

  ‘Queensberry rules OK.’ Lestrade gave the password of the Pelican Club. There was a rattling and sliding of bolts and the heavy door swung open. The heavy bloated face belonged to a man with a heavy bloated body who pushed Lestrade against a whitewashed wall at the en
trance to a tunnel and frisked him. Out came the usual – the string, the train ticket, the fluff and finally, with a raised, bloated eyebrow from the frisker, the brass knuckles with the murderous switchblade. But Lestrade was in no position to argue – he was after all the friskee; a guest and subject to the rules of the Pelican Club. He must play the game.

  The heavy led him down a brick-built tunnel, like the sort they put over canals, and through another studded door just like the first. In the huge room beyond, top-hatted gents milled around on a straw-strewn floor. The whole place stank of sweat and liniment and blood, and in a sulphur-lit area in the centre two bare-knuckled boxers slogged it out, their hands raw, their faces masks of crimson. The grunts and thuds of their impact were drowned by the baying of the mob who roared for more in the raked seats around them, and Lestrade had never seen so much money cascading through the air in his life. A shirt-sleeved man rang a bell and the boxers collapsed into opposite corners of the ring to be fanned and doused with water.

  A strange hush fell on the gathering and all eyes turned to Lestrade.

  ‘Which of you is the Marquess of Queensberry?’ he asked.

  For a moment, no one moved. Then there was a stir in the crowd and a wizened little man with the stoop and sidewhiskers of an orang-utan shuffled forward. ‘I’m Queensberry,’ he rasped. ‘Who the devil are you?’

  ‘Lister,’ lied Lestrade. ‘“Fighting Joe” Lister from Ballygowan.’

  ‘You don’t sound Irish to me.’ Queensberry peered at him.

  ‘You don’t sound like a marquess to me,’ Lestrade countered.

  ‘How’d you get here?’

  ‘Train, then pony and trap,’ Lestrade said.

  There were a few sniggers until Queensberry silenced them with a scowl. ‘Oh, a wit yet,’ he snarled. ‘Fortinbras,’ he summoned the heavy at Lestrade’s elbow, ‘did he give the password?’

  ‘He did, my lord.’

  ‘Well, where’d you learn that, buckaroo?’ Queensberry pressed him.

  Now, Lestrade knew the value of narks. The need to keep them safe. The vital necessity of not betraying them to anyone. He knew it and he approved it. However, ‘Sir Roger Foulsham sent me,’ he confessed. ‘You know, the friend of Oscar Wilde.’

  There was an inrush of breath. After that the only sound that could be heard was the dripping of blood from the boxers.

  ‘That somdomite!’ Queensberry snarled. ‘So, you’re another of those bloody Maryannes, are you?’

  ‘No,’ said Lestrade. ‘In fact, I used to be happily married.’

  ‘So did that somdomite Wilde. Threw me out of his house, he did. Cheeky little bugger.’ Queensberry closed to Lestrade. ‘Well, he’s rotting now in Reading Gaol for his pains. They don’t like Maryannes in prison. I’d be surprised if he survives. Either way, he’s finished. Nobody’ll watch that rubbish of his anymore – what’s that one called – The Importance of Being a Woofta?’

  ‘I came to play’ Lestrade flashed his wallet, careful not to let anyone see how empty it was.

  ‘We’ll get to that,’ Queensberry said. ‘But anyone joining the Pelican has to go through a little initiation first. Isn’t that so, boys?’

  There were shouts of assent all round.

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ Queensberry cleared the way. ‘Any new bug has to go three rounds with the Masher.’

  Roars of approval deafened Lestrade and he felt himself being lifted off his feet and up into the ring.

  ‘Well, take your shirt off, Lister,’ Queensberry shouted. ‘Don’t want to get blood over everything, do we?’

  Lestrade slipped off the jacket, his regulation serge, then the waistcoat, carefully hooking up his half-hunter. While unbuttoning his cuffs, his opponent shambled into the ring. There were cheers and whistles, and the Masher raised his hands in the air in acknowledgement. He made the heavy on the door look positively dainty. His chest and back were a mass of matted hair and he had fists like sledgehammers.

  ‘In the Red Corner,’ a nattily titfered Master of Ceremonies suddenly announced, ‘we have Maurice “The Masher” Melhuish, bare-knuckle champion of all Berkshire and a bit of Surrey. And in the Blue Corner . . . er . . . who?’

  ‘“Fighting Jack” Lister,’ shouted Lestrade, easily equal to the occasion (or so he kept telling himself as the butterflies prepared to leave his stomach in droves), ‘the Ballygowan Bomber.’

  There were howls of derision. Lestrade stood in his regulation trousers and his stockinged feet at a little under eleven stone. The Masher, with all the grace of a Clydesdale, must have been nearly twice that. The Master of Ceremonies called the contestants together in the centre and clapped a hand on each of their shoulders.

  ‘Right, lads,’ he said, ‘I want a good clean fight. No gouging, no chewing, no kneeing in the bollocks. And when I say “break”, I mean “break”. All right?’

  They pressed knuckles together and turned back to their respective corners, but as Lestrade turned, Masher didn’t and brought a fierce fist crashing down on the Inspector’s neck. Lestrade saw a mass of cheering, shouting faces, red with the heat and the excitement. Then he saw sawdust and felt a stockinged foot jab into his ribs. He rolled away from his opponent and managed to get to his knees before a hefty left foot pounded into his face and he went sprawling across the floor.

  ‘Oh, dear, Lister,’ he heard Queensberry bellow amid the cackling laughter, ‘we said three rounds, m’boy, not three seconds.’

  Lestrade shook the dust from his eyes and this time got to his feet. Masher was coming for him, swaying, his left arm held steady, his right pounding the air gently. If he could stay away from that right for long enough, he might just last the round. But his lungs felt like razors inside his chest and his vision was blurred. Two Mashers were more complicated – and four fists to watch out for. Lestrade stumbled backwards, Masher taunting him, dribbling saliva as he came. The crowd began to boo and catcall, clearly disappointed by the feeble show before them.

  It was while Lestrade was watching Masher’s right that the ground came up to hit him. That was because he had not been watching the left. Massive raw knuckles buried themselves in Lestrade’s nose with a crunch and he bounced back, only to slump forward the next second as that deadly right caught him again. He was now in danger of forgetting what day it was and he kept telling himself over and over again as he fought to regain his feet that it was Thursday.

  Four or five of the seven bells must have been knocked out of him already, but he couldn’t hear the bell to end round one. That was because there was a permanent ringing in his ears. Masher came forward to deliver the coup de grace as Lestrade swayed groggily, trying to keep his fists in front of his face. But the thug’s swing was as wild as Oscar and it gave Lestrade an opening. He clasped both hands as though in prayer and smashed into Masher’s paunch. The ox stood there stunned for a second, and Lestrade lashed the man’s groin with his left foot. The moron was still on his feet, so Lestrade launched the other foot and Masher dropped to his knees, his eyes crossed, grunting like a castrated camel. The Inspector timed the next one carefully because he had a feeling it might be the last he was capable of, and with both fists he slammed the Champion of all Berkshire and a bit of Surrey into the middle of next week. The giant rolled sideways and lay motionless in the dust. Now, the cheering had stopped and the crowd was silent.

  ‘Well done, Mr Lister,’ said Queensberry. ‘“Fighting Joe” indeed. Come and have a drink with me. I think you’ve earned it,’ and he nodded to men on his right and left as he led the battered brawler into an ante-room and poured them both brandies.

  Lestrade’s moustache was visible to both men as it stood so far out on Lestrade’s swollen lip that he could see it easily. His nose was trickling blood and there was definitely a second Marquess of Queensberry, a little greyer and standing very close to the first.

  ‘You’ve done that before,’ the Marquess said. ‘Now,’ and he peered under the bloody gash across Lestrade’s left eyebrow ridge
, ‘who are you really?’

  ‘I told you,’ Lestrade managed with his thick lip. The brandy stung like hell but it helped him focus.

  He heard the door open behind him and an object hurtled through the air, narrowly missing his head. He recognized it immediately by its empty sound. His wallet.

  ‘He’s a bloody peeler, John,’ a voice said. ‘Scotland Yard, no less. Name of Lestrade.’

  ‘Well, well, well.’ Queensberry’s face darkened. ‘Come to infiltrate our little goings-on, have you? It’s not going to work, Lestrade. You see, I’m the originator of the boxing rules the entire country goes by. Gloves, gumshields, fair play – that balderdash. Not for one moment would you get the world to believe that I run this side of the Pelican Club. A pity you didn’t call tomorrow – I could have matched you against a bull terrier. I don’t think you’d have come out of that one so lightly. Once those little beauties have their jaws around your vitals, that’s it. Gangrene would set in before we could separate you.’

  ‘What you . . . gentlemen . . . do in your spare time is of no concern to me,’ Lestrade said. ‘I am here about Fanny Chattox.’

  The leer left the eighth Marquess’s face and he snapped his fingers.

  ‘Are you sure, John?’ the voice said from behind Lestrade’s head. The Inspector’s neck muscles were too wrenched for him to turn round.

  ‘Get out, all of you!’ he screamed and waited until they’d gone. ‘Well, what of her? What of Fanny?’

  ‘She’s dead,’ Lestrade said.

  The Marquess faltered for a moment then swigged the rest of his brandy. ‘Dead?’

  ‘Murdered. Electrocuted on the City and South London line late last night.’

  ‘The devil you say.’ Queensberry hit the bottle again, thinking. It was not the usual practice of the eighth Marquess. ‘It’s that mad Black who does for her,’ he shouted. ‘She’s done for her.’