Lestrade and the Ripper Read online

  Lestrade had also finished wrestling with the Rhadegund toast and had slipped yet another inedible piece behind the sideboard. He had watched the boys cross the quad in the morning frost on their way to morning prayers. He heard Ruffage’s bell summon them and the thunder of Spooner’s huge organ berating their ears while they were inside.

  ‘This is insanity, Lestrade,’ Nails roared, whirling like a caged panther in his academic black, circling and snarling, the whiskers flaring as he harangued his man. ‘Adelstrop died under the noses of your men! This is absolutely the last straw. You accuse my staff, bully my boys and get precisely nowhere. Let me make it clear,’ he pulled himself up to his full height, ‘I do the bullying around here. I am paid for it. It’s what I do best.’

  ‘You must close the school, Dr Nails.’ Lestrade remained stock still while the Headmaster whirled this way, then that.

  ‘And let the culprit get away? Come, Lestrade, you can’t have become an inspector with naiveté on that scale! It defies belief. Ruffage’s prefects keep vigil on the school bounds, the House prefects patrol the lawns. The staff have eyes in their backsides. If I close the school, whoever has perpetrated these foul deeds will walk out of that gate. As it is, he’s here. Somewhere. He can’t get out. And all you have to do is catch him. Good God, man, it isn’t too much to ask.’

  A knock at the door broke the silence which followed.

  ‘Well?’ Nails bawled.

  ‘It’s only me, my dear.’ The diminutive, bird-like Mrs Nails appeared around the oak panelling.

  ‘What do you want?’ The Headmaster snapped affectionately.

  ‘The two new members of staff are here to see you, Theophilus.’

  ‘Lestrade, get out. I have a school to run.’

  ‘Dr Nails . . .’ he began.

  ‘Another time, Inspector, please. Ah, gentlemen, come in.’

  He grasped the hands of his acolytes. The first was a tall, hawk-eyed man with a deerstalker and a neurosis. The other was shorter, more florid, grey-haired and moustached, bordering on the human. They both gawped at Lestrade.

  ‘Thank you, Lestrade,’ said Nails. ‘That will be all.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’ Lestrade smiled icily.

  ‘No,’ said Nails flatly.

  ‘Inspector Lestrade, Scotland Yard.’ He extended a hand.

  ‘Wilson,’ said the shorter man, blustering. ‘Games and the Cadet Corps.’

  ‘Charmed,’ beamed Lestrade. ‘And Mr . . . er . . .?’

  ‘Sherrinford,’ said the other smoothly. ‘Classics.’

  ‘Classics, Mr Sherrinford?’ Lestrade probed.

  ‘Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more,’ beamed Sherrinford.

  ‘Bravo!’ Nails slapped the taller man’s shoulder.

  ‘Careful,’ he winced.

  ‘Aren’t you well?’ Nails asked.

  ‘My bow arm,’ he explained.

  ‘Ah, an archer to boot? I don’t remember that in your curriculum vitae.’

  ‘Violin,’ said Sherrinford.

  ‘What?’ Nails wasn’t sure he had heard correctly.

  ‘I play the violin. I do not shoot arrows.’

  ‘Ah.’ Nail’s face fell. ‘Pity. The world is full of violinists, eh, Lestrade?’

  ‘Yes, Headmaster,’ the Inspector agreed. ‘Everybody’s on some fiddle or another.’

  ‘Well, well, I mustn’t keep you.’ Nails all but pushed him to the door.

  Lestrade allowed himself to be ushered out and lit a post-prandial cigar while he waited. After a few moments, the new members of the Senior Common Room emerged, wreathed in smiles. The sight of Lestrade caused those to vanish.

  ‘All right, Lestrade,’ said Sherrinford. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Want, Mr Sherrinford?’ Lestrade was ingenuousness itself.

  ‘What are you doing here, Lestrade?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘I was about to ask you the same question, Dr . . .’

  ‘Sshh!’ Wilson flapped his arms like an albatross taking off into a headwind.

  ‘. . . before I go in to see Dr Nails.’

  ‘No, no!’ Wilson fumed. ‘Holmes . . . er . . . I mean Sherrinford, what shall we do?’

  ‘We shall remember, Watson, that we are grown men and one of us at least has a brain. Lestrade, in here.’ Holmes ducked into the doorway beside him only to duck out again at the sound of a scream.

  ‘The Ladies’ cloakroom,’ explained Lestrade. ‘Shall we?’ He shoulder-barged another door and nearly flattened Saunders-Foote against the wall. There was a tinkle of glass as the contents of his pocket collided with the urinal. He bobbed and sobbed as he went out.

  ‘Who was that?’ Holmes asked.

  Lestrade slammed the door. ‘All right, gentlemen. You have precisely one minute to explain your presence. After that, I call a policeman.’

  ‘Very well, Lestrade, since you offer us no alternative,’ said Holmes. ‘You will know enough of my methods, I think, to know that I am not given to chasing shadows or following flights of fancy – especially Watson’s flights of fancy.’

  ‘Steady, Holmes,’ Watson bridled.

  The door clicked open and all three men whirled to the urinals, shaking various parts of their anatomy for authenticity’s sake.

  ‘Morning, Lestrade.’ The Second Master swirled in, shook part of his anatomy and left.

  ‘Who was that?’ Holmes asked.

  ‘I repeat,’ Lestrade ignored him, ‘what are you doing here?’

  ‘Tell him, Watson.’ Holmes began to light his meerschaum.

  ‘Wait,’ said Lestrade. ‘It’s a little obvious here. Into the cubicles.’ He made for the nearest.

  ‘Lestrade,’ Holmes reminded him, ‘Watson is a married man.’

  ‘Not the same cubicle,’ Lestrade explained and the sleuths amateur and professional took up their places on their separate blue-flowered pedestal pans, each one ominously called ‘The Deluge’.

  ‘Very fine early Crapper-ware in here.’ Holmes admired the porcelain, before relaxing back, eyes closed and arms folded.

  ‘Well, Dr Watson?’ Lestrade had caught his jacket on the object which held the wad of newspaper. He checked the headline. It was The Sun, needless to say. Apparently, Mr Peel had just reintroduced income tax.

  ‘It was a tip-off, Lestrade,’ Watson whispered, his voice echoing around the sewerage system, ‘from an old medical chum of mine, Lionel Druitt.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘You know?’ Watson was on the edge of his seat.

  ‘He came to see me. But what has mad Montague to do with Rhadegund?’

  ‘Quite!’ snorted Holmes. ‘My point exactly.’

  ‘But he taught here for a term,’ Watson explained. ‘Surely Lionel told you?’

  Lestrade remembered. ‘He did speak of one other school where he had gained experience, other than the one at Blackheath, I mean.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Watson beamed, though its smugness was lost through green tiles, plaster and brick. ‘Rhadegund.’

  ‘And imagine our surprise,’ Holmes blew pensive rings to the cistern overhead, ‘when we discovered a little nest of violent death in Rhadegund’s own right.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Lestrade toed the party line. ‘The diphtheria. Terrible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Diphtheria be damned!’ snapped Holmes. ‘You have a mass murderer on your hands, Lestrade, and as usual you haven’t a clue what to do with him.’

  ‘I have plenty of clues, in fact,’ Lestrade corrected him, ‘but my job would be considerably easier if I wasn’t constantly hampered by amateurs.’

  ‘How dare you!’ retorted Holmes.

  ‘I say!’ An alien voice interrupted the conversation and it stopped abruptly. ‘Will you chaps be long in there?’

  Lestrade put an experienced eye to the knothole in the door. Since Mr Labouchere’s Buggery Bill, this had become de rigueur for constables on the beat, especially in the Mary-Annes’ Mile between Jermyn Street and
the Houses of Parliament. Never ask a constable to do something you couldn’t do yourself. Lestrade recognised the blurred outline of a white coat. Had they caught up with Holmes at last or was this Rutherford, the science master?

  ‘Haven’t you got a lesson to go to?’ Lestrade heard Holmes rasp and recognised the clench of enamel on meerschaum.

  ‘Er . . . yes, I have,’ answered Watson. ‘The First Fifteen. See you later H . . . Sherrinford.’

  Watson tugged on the chain to be powdered lightly with plaster and rewarded with a metallic clank. He decided to brazen it out. ‘It . . . er . . . doesn’t work.’ He grinned broadly to Rutherford as he came out of the closet.

  ‘I’ll get Carman on to it. You can’t get plumbers nowadays, can you?’ Rutherford said. ‘Mr . . . er . . .?’

  ‘Wilson,’ Watson remembered. ‘Captain Wilson. New Corps Commandant.’

  ‘Ah, yes, poor Bracegirdle’s replacement.’

  ‘Yes,’ Watson sensed a lead. ‘What happened to him, by the way?’

  ‘He was found one morning,’ said Rutherford, ‘with the Rhadegund Sword of Honour . . .’

  ‘. . . beside him as he lay.’ Lestrade emerged from his cubicle. ‘Terminal diphtheria.’ He stared hard at Rutherford who, unusually perhaps for a scientist, caught his drift almost at once.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Diphtheria. I assume an old army man like you has already had it. What service have you seen?’

  ‘No,’ Lestrade intervened again. ‘Captain Wilson is not the Chaplain, he’s in charge of the Corps. And games. The First Fifteen, wasn’t it, Captain?’

  ‘Hmm?’ Watson was lost. ‘Oh, yes. By the way,’ he rummaged in his pocket, ‘how do you wear this thing?’ He placed the webbing straps on his head. ‘Seems to be too big for my ears. Probably fit you, Lestrade, what?’ and he guffawed inanely.

  ‘Probably,’ said Lestrade, ‘but only if I wore it down here, Captain,’ and he lowered the straps to groin level, ‘where it does more good. Good morning, gentlemen.’

  The coroner worked in the gym in the presence of Lestrade and George. Derry and Toms were stationed outside to prevent the prying of the new classics master and the new Corps Commandant. He pronounced Adelstrop dead, which gave Lestrade some hope as to the man’s abilities. When he pronounced him dead from strangulation by ligature, that hope was confirmed. That afternoon, in a simple ceremony, with Nails, Gainsborough, Lestrade, George and Carman present, they laid the groundsman beneath the sod. The Reverend Spooner officiated and did his best with the long words.

  ‘For man that is born of woman hath but a lort time to shive.’ No one could have put it better.

  ‘Is that really Sherlock Holmes, sir?’ George asked under his breath as the rain drizzled from a heavy sky.

  ‘Of course,’ said Lestrade. ‘I thought he was one of the unexpected developments you telegraphed me about.’

  ‘No, it was the fact that the other one carried a Webley that worried me. I had no idea who they were. Are you going to stop them?’

  ‘For the moment, no, but I want them kept busy. They’re here on a possible link with Whitechapel. They don’t know – or at least they can’t be sure – about what’s going on here. You, Derry and Toms are to shadow them. Wherever they go, I want a peeler at their elbows. Understand?’

  George nodded. ‘He had no family, then?’

  ‘Adelstrop? It appears not. Nobody remembered him in the end.’

  Remember, remember, the Fifth of November

  Gunpowder, Treason and . . .

  ‘Clot!’ A thunder broke through the evening. ‘Really, Wilson, are you totally unaware?’ Nails strode through the undergrowth. ‘Other way up, man.’

  ‘Sorry, Headmaster.’ Watson struggled with the taper against the prevailing wind.

  ‘How long have you been with us now?’ Nails asked, straightening his mortarboard.

  ‘Three days,’ Watson told him.

  ‘I wasn’t happy with your handling of the loose ruck.’ Nails was to the point.

  ‘Er . . . the . . . er?’

  ‘Not to mention that débâcle with the Corps yesterday.’

  ‘Débâcle?’ Watson thought he’d performed quite well.

  ‘You were in the Army?’

  ‘Indeed I was,’ Watson blustered truthfully. ‘Afghanistan.’

  ‘Well, clearly the words of command in the Afghan Army differ a little from ours. If Ruffage weren’t an excellent subaltern in his own right, B Company would be bivouacking in Peterborough tonight – no one’s idea of a good time.’

  ‘I’ll try and do better, Doctor,’ Watson fumed.

  ‘Good. See that you do.’

  The school massed around and behind him, forming a hollow square in the darkness on Ruffage’s hoarse commands. Lestrade wandered at the back, with George on his flank, watching for something, anything. The chattering of excited boys stopped as Nails snatched the taper from Watson and strode into the centre of the square.

  ‘It is fitting,’ he bellowed, ‘that on this, the fifth day of November, Rhadegund Hall should once again, as it has on this day for these two hundred and eighty years, follow the tradition of Guido Fawkes.’

  He held the taper aloft, illuminating briefly the huge bonfire of timber and boxes and debris assembled over the last week. Whatever else may have befallen Rhadegund, the finest traditions must go on. Lestrade saw Holmes stalking behind the line of boys, the eagle eyes flashing in the flames that began to crackle and spit at the base of the pile. He seemed particularly suspicious of the Remove, but then who wasn’t.

  A cheer rose from the Lower Fourths, always the least disciplined on these occasions, and, stamping and chanting in the cold night air, the Houses took it up. First Chaucer, then Shakespeare, then Milton, battling with the roar of the fire that died a little on Lestrade’s left, then burst upwards like a rocket. And the cheering broke into the school song, ripping lustily from eight hundred lungs, ‘Rhadegundia, Rhadegundia, Floreat Rhadegundia.’

  ‘Sing, Wilson,’ Nails roared in Watson’s ears. ‘Silence is rank high treason.’

  And Watson found himself bumbling along.

  Then the sopranos cracked among the Lower Fourths. It was not puberty that had struck, but terror. Fingers pointed skywards, screams and shouts. The basser notes foundered and Ruffage’s orderly lines broke.

  ‘Water! Water!’ someone shouted.

  ‘Not again,’ muttered George and he and Lestrade leapt forward elbowing children aside. While most staff ushered their various charges away and cleared the field, Holmes and Watson ran forward too.

  ‘That’s better, Wilson,’ Nails shouted, observing Watson flinging himself on the heaving, panic-stricken bodies in his way, ‘but is this really the moment to instruct the First Fifteen?’

  ‘What is it?’ Lestrade was first through the cordon.

  The four men looked up to the top of the bonfire where the flames licked and roared. A sudden gust of wind took the sparks sideways, curling outwards to singe Holmes’s deerstalker and narrowly miss Lestrade’s head. They looked up in horror as the guy tottered and appeared to stand for a moment as the flames consumed it. Then it fell, crashing forward and landing in a burning heap too close to Watson for his liking.

  ‘Who is it?’ he gasped, holding up his arm to spare his face from the heat.

  ‘It’s not Guy Fawkes, Doctor,’ Lestrade said. ‘Water! Water here!’ and he turned too slowly to avoid the first bucket which hit him with full force. ‘Perhaps not here, exactly,’ he dripped.

  When the flames were smothered and while the prefects kept their Houses in check in a wide, shivering arc, Watson bent over the body.

  ‘It’s a man, Holmes,’ was his medical opinion.

  ‘Well done, Watson,’ the Great Detective commented. ‘Who?’

  ‘Can’t tell. Ouch!’ He withdrew his probing fingers from the charred wreck. ‘But I fear he’s done to a turn.’

  ‘Well, Lestrade?’ Holmes looked up. ‘Do you recognise him?’


  Lestrade looked at the blackened skull, the shrivelled skin dropping from it like autumn leaves. He shook his head.

  ‘Could he have got up there by himself?’ George asked.

  The others looked at him.

  ‘Well? What’s going on?’ Nails had joined them.

  ‘May I suggest . . .’ Holmes began.

  ‘What, Sherrinford?’ Nails asked. ‘Out with it, man.’

  ‘A roll call,’ Lestrade finished the sentence. ‘If you’d be so kind, Dr Nails.’

  Three people had missed the Rhadegund bonfire. One was Spencer Minor. He had been in the san, the hapless victim of cook’s stewed prunes. The second was the luckless Dollery, cowering in bed in his dorm because he had dreamt the previous night of water, that he was drowning. And that, to him, spelt death. The third not to answer the roll call was Mercer the Bursar. But he had not missed the bonfire at all. And his charred cadaver, the legs entirely burned away, was scraped off the field by Derry and Toms later that night.

  Mary Kelly

  L

  estrade pulled his collar up against the cold. It was a crisp, raw dawn that Friday and the Inspector kicked the frosted soil that marked the grave of Adelstrop. Beside it, another lay waiting for the mortal remains of Charles Mercer.

  ‘So you’ve lost one of your allies, Lestrade.’ Sherlock Holmes wandered into the little cemetery that housed umpteen school cats, one groundsman and soon one bursar.

  ‘Who told you that?’ Lestrade asked him.

  ‘Your other ally.’

  ‘Ruffage.’

  ‘You shouldn’t blame him, Lestrade. A lot has devolved on his shoulders recently. He didn’t know it was Mercer specifically; I merely deduced – you know my methods.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Lestrade said flatly.

  ‘But this is a curious thing,’ Holmes went on. ‘Watson and I come on a fool’s errand, as I now believe, in connection with one case and stumble on another. I certainly move in mysterious ways.’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me . . .’