Lestrade and the Ripper Read online

  ‘Moustache?’

  ‘Clean-shaven.’

  ‘Dark?’

  ‘Blond.’

  ‘Hey ho,’ sighed Lestrade.

  ‘But what’s she doing in Bedlam?’

  ‘That’s what I intend to find out. But I’m dropping you at the Yard first.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I want to know everything on Eddy and Stephen. Especially Stephen.’

  ‘Right down to his inside leg?’ Wensley asked.

  ‘No thanks,’ Lestrade grimaced. ‘I think I know that already.’

  Dr McGregor of the Royal Bethlehem Hospital was less than pleased to see Lestrade that Saturday morning. He had been up all night conversing in classical Greek with a patient who believed himself to be Aristotle, and the cave had been damp and draughty. Neither could he help a great deal, for Annie Crook and her baby, the infant Alice, had gone. They had been taken away two nights earlier. No, it not was clear by whom. The sister on duty was not at one with paperwork, but she would never have allowed anyone other than a doctor to take a patient away. Who was the doctor? She wasn’t sure, but it sounded like Herring, or Glaucous, she couldn’t be sure which. And where had Dr Herring taken his charges? Who knew? There were sixteen asylums south of the river alone, not to mention private institutions and upstairs rooms. Surely the police could find out. Or perhaps the Salvation Army? But, then, no, for Annie Crook was a devout Catholic girl and weren’t General Booth’s men of the Methodist persuasion?

  The Highest in the Land

  C

  aptain Wilson, Corps Commandant and Games Master Extraordinary strode manfully across the rocky promontory that Saturday morning, swinging his stick as he went. His Donegal flew behind him in the biting east winds. But today Captain Wilson was wearing another hat, not the old Medical Corps cherry with the badge carefully removed but the bowler of a general practitioner with a Poor Law surgery on the side. What, he asked himself, would Holmes be doing in this situation? And what a feather it would be in either of his caps if he, John Watson MD, could solve the spate of Rhadegund murders. For murders they were, he now knew. He had spoken to Ruffage, honest to the last. He had spoken to Matron, who had insisted he undergo a massage before he left. He had spoken to Spencer Minor, who had been very forthcoming. And he had spoken to the Reverend Spooner, but had come away none the wiser. What a curious school this was. Nails had given out to the local press that diphtheria gripped the place, so all the tradesmen deposited their wares at the gates and armies of boys trundled them around the grounds. The parents had seemed quite content to accept this situation. After all, the Michaelmas Term had by no means ended. There was no reason why any of the young charges should go home in the meantime. Only a Field Officer of the Household Cavalry wrote to ask why his son was not being taught the facts of marital life as, in his words, forewarned is forearmed. Over a battery of steaming kettles each night, Dr and Mrs Nails prised open envelopes and censored letters. Dr Nails was in his Heaven and all was well with the world.

  ‘Good Morning!’ Watson saluted with his stick the little solitary figure of Saunders-Foote sitting like a Cornish pisky on top of a tussock. ‘Fine day!’ Watson shouted, assuming the old boy to have misheard him on the wind. In the end he gave up and began his descent to the sweep of the Rhadegund fields below. It was his misfortune to coincide with Dr Nails, striding manfully in the same direction.

  ‘Ah, Wilson, out for a stroll, eh? Nothing like fresh air, what? I see the First Fifteen are out below. Let’s see what they’re made of. Last one to the touch line is a cissy!’ and Nails gathered up his gown and sprinted forward, the drizzle clinging to his whiskers as he ran. Watson had no option but to do likewise and, bearing in mind that Nails must have been fifteen years his senior, it narked him to end up gasping and wheezing in the great man’s wake and to know he was after all a cissy.

  ‘That’s the way, Ruffage!’ the Headmaster shouted. ‘Tackle him low, Rhadegund.’ He began to prowl the line. ‘You’re walking, Ovett,’ as the wing three-quarter of that name hurtled past him at the speed of light. ‘Wilson, the pack are a shambles. Get in there and sort them out, will you?’

  ‘But, Headmaster, I am not properly attired.’

  ‘Footling excuses!’ Nails rounded on him. ‘Get in there, man. By the way,’ Nails snatched off the bowler and began unbuttoning the Donegal, ‘any news of Sherrinford?’

  ‘None,’ Watson confessed. It was no more than the truth. Holmes had not been in touch since he had left Rhadegund. They were not generous with the mail in Bow Street nick and the Great Detective had been denied bail pending medical reports. Anyone who would voluntarily clamp himself to one of the LNER’s locomotives and then punch an employee of the same company in full view of a police constable could be little other than deranged. Thus deprived of mail and bail, Holmes was less than communicative.

  ‘Off you go!’ Nails pushed him into the mêlée and the greasy ball caught him full in the groin.

  ‘Mark!’ he shouted hopefully before the pack buried him.

  ‘Use your feet, man,’ he heard Nails bellow as studded boots bit into his Norfolk jacket from all directions. Watson fumbled in his pocket and managed to get the whistle to his lips. Feeble though the result was, the hacking, gouging pack obeyed it and broke.

  It was a muddied oaf who struggled upright in the mist.

  ‘Right,’ he croaked. ‘Not bad, Rhadegund, but you’re not putting your hearts into it. Ruffage, take over, there’s a good fellow . . .’ and he staggered to the touch line.

  ‘You’re a wreck, Wilson,’ Nails sneered and threw him his gown, jacket and mortarboard with a magnificent flourish.

  ‘Rhadegund.’ He raised a finger and Ovett passed the ball, which the Headmaster proceeded to spin on the erect digit. ‘On me,’ and he ran towards the far line, the pack closing on him He elbowed the reinstated Beaumont in the jaw, kicked Ovett in the stomach, ducked, dodged and weaved. His fingers jabbed into Hardman’s eyes and he kicked the ball high, cracking two skulls together before jumping over the bodies to which they were joined and sailing heroically over the line, tripped headlong by a magnificent tackle from Ruffage.

  ‘Well played, Ruffage,’ Nails turned to his captain of games and brought his boot up sharply to jab him in the vitals.

  ‘And that, Wilson, is how it should be done.’ Nails bowed. ‘Play on, Rhadegund,’ and he marched off for an early bath.

  Sergeant George had joined the throng and blew on his frozen hands in the drizzle. ‘So that’s how it’s done,’ he said. ‘Morning, Dr . . . er . . . I mean, Captain.’

  ‘Been for your constitutional, Sergeant?’ Watson asked.

  ‘No, sir, I’ve been walking.’

  ‘By the river?’

  George nodded.

  ‘Pleasant there, isn’t it? Even on a day like this. Any news of Lestrade?’

  George shook his head. ‘He keeps his cards pretty close to his chest. How about your guv’nor?’

  ‘My guv . . . oh, you mean Holmes?’ Watson bridled a little at that. ‘Holmes is not my guv’nor as you so quaintly put it, George, he is my companion.’

  ‘Well, did you get any orders from your companion?’

  ‘Orders? Dammit, man. Haven’t you been listening? What sort of orders?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, like what to do should another one happen.’

  ‘Another one?’ Watson became arch. ‘Do you mean another murder? I thought Lestrade was trying to give the impression everyone was dying of diphtheria. Maggie Hollis, keeling over as she scrubbed, Anthony Denton succumbing to the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus while relieving himself, Major Bracegirdle, a positive martyr to fibrinous exudates. What Lestrade forgets, of course,’ he said with some dignity, ‘is that I am a doctor.’

  ‘Well, I’m not Lestrade,’ George admitted. ‘I call a spade a spade. And I freely admit I need all the help I can get.’

  Watson looked at the man, dripping there in his Scotland Yard black, and felt vaguely sorry
for him. He also recognised a fellow traveller. He admitted to himself, though never to George, that without Holmes he was rudderless.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘I’ll help if you think you need it, but I don’t think we’ll have any trouble for a while.’

  ‘Well,’ said George, as Beaumont was pounded into the mud with a squelching grunt inches from him, ‘looks peaceful enough this morning.’ He waved up the hill. ‘Especially Mr Saunders-Foote. He hasn’t moved for over an hour.’

  As he said it, he froze. So did Watson. They turned slowly to each other, gaping like frogs in the mating season.

  ‘Derry! Toms!’ George found his voice first and four men broke from the touch line, scrambling up the slope with assorted boys watching them in amused bewilderment.

  ‘How long has he been dead, Doctor?’ George asked.

  Watson was patting the man’s concave chest and loosening the rope ligature at his throat. ‘About two hours, I’d say. He was all right at breakfast.’

  ‘Was it the kedgeree, do you think?’ Toms asked, not feeling very chipper himself.

  ‘Kedgeree may poison one,’ Watson told him, ‘but I’ve never known it strangle before.’ He stood up, propping the dead man against his chest with difficulty. ‘What’ll we do?’ he asked George.

  ‘We’ll get those kids away. Derry, Toms, get them back. Then . . .’ he marshalled all his years of experience, his powers of deduction, ‘we’ll send a telegram to Mr Lestrade.’

  Watson positively sighed with relief in spite of himself. ‘Good thinking, Sergeant. I’ll send one to Holmes.’

  In the case of Holmes, it was not to be. The desk sergeant at Bow Street opened the telegram and for the umpteenth time that week denied any knowledge of the Great Detective to the worried, hand-wringing lady who hovered at the door, claiming to be his housekeeper. The problem for Mrs Hudson was that the master was in the habit of adopting disguises, all of which fooled her completely and any one of which he might be wearing at any given moment. For all she knew, the desk sergeant himself might be he. But if he were, he was giving nothing away. Besides, she felt sure that the master would never take a disguise to the length of picking his own nose.

  In the case of Lestrade, there was another complication – Chief Inspector Abberline. There was no Commissioner of Metropolitan Police in the November of 1888. Sir Charles Warren had gone. Sir Robert Anderson was issuing directives on the length of truncheons, the width of cravats and the cuts of jibs now that he had left the eminently handy vantage point of Montmartre, where he was carrying out a criminal study of can-can girls and short, bearded artists. There was no Assistant Commissioner of the Criminal Investigation Department either, although rumour had it that some coffee-planter called McNaghten was tipped for the job. Rodney of course had had one final dither, unsure of his direction at the top of the stairs, and he too had gone. Whatever else the Ripper had achieved, the toll in terms of senior policemen was astonishing.

  ‘No, Lestrade,’ Abberline shouted. ‘Out of the question.’

  ‘But a man’s dead,’ Lestrade reminded him, waving George’s telegram under his nose.

  ‘What’s one man to five women?’ Abberline asked, ‘or is it six?’

  Lestrade had never been strong on ratio questions and he let it pass.

  ‘I simply can’t spare you, Lestrade. The City’s in a panic. Policemen are actually turning themselves in as the Ripper just to get a night’s sleep in the cells. I can’t have you gallivanting off around the countryside, to Nottingham . . .’

  ‘Northampton,’ Lestrade corrected him.

  ‘Wherever!’ snapped Abberline, reaching for his pills and his glass of water with trembling hand. ‘By the way, I understand you’ve got this fellow Sherlock Holmes locked up at Bow Street.’

  ‘None of my doing, sir,’ Lestrade was wide-eyed. ‘I gather he was arrested for loitering with intent.’

  ‘He could sue for wrongful arrest, you know.’

  ‘He could try,’ smiled Lestrade, ‘but I think I can slap enough charges on him along the lines of interfering with police officers to keep him inside forever.’

  ‘Interfering with police officers?’ Abberline raised an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t realise that was the nature of the offence. Even so, you’d better see he gets out in a day or two. But first, I’ve had a telegram from Dr Robert Anderson.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Yes, yes’ sighed Abberline. ‘I know. It’s postmarked Montmartre – that’s Paris to you, Lestrade.’

  ‘He isn’t getting any closer, then?’

  ‘He’s due in tomorrow. He suggests we pay a visit to Mr Lees.’

  ‘Lees?’

  ‘The sensitive.’

  ‘The sensitive what?’

  Abberline swigged again from the glass, grimaced and poured a large amount of amber-coloured liquid into it. ‘Please Lestrade,’ he winced as the whisky bounced off his ulcers, ‘it’s last straw time.’

  Lestrade took the telegram and the address.

  ‘Lees is a sort of human bloodhound, Lestrade. Take anything you can to do with the Ripper case and let him sniff it.’

  ‘Very good, Mr Abberline,’ Lestrade humoured him, though they both remembered the fiasco of Barnaby and Burgho. ‘Please don’t get up. I’ll see myself out.’

  The Spiritualist Centre at Peckham was not difficult to find, even for someone without any gifts. The main hall was empty, apart from a piano and a bunch of arum lilies. A man slightly older than Lestrade sat in the middle of the floor, cross-legged, his arms outstretched. His eyes were closed, his bearded head thrown back. He was groaning quietly, probably, Lestrade surmised, because he had cramp sitting like that.

  He suddenly came to, the cold blue eyes sparkling as they took in the tired, battered man in the Donegal. ‘You are from Scotland Yard,’ he said.

  ‘How did you know?’ Lestrade was secretly impressed.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Lees. ‘You are troubled and need my help.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Lestrade.

  ‘Come closer.’

  The Inspector did so, crossing the pale sunbeams that fell on Lees and the polished floor around him. ‘And who is this with you?’ he asked.

  Lestrade glanced round. There was no one.

  ‘Yes. She’s smiling. Wrinkled hands,’ he said in a matter-of-fact way, ‘a washerwoman.’

  ‘Mother?’ Lestrade blinked.

  ‘She has a message for you,’ said Lees, smiling inanely at the aura he saw hovering around Lestrade’s head. The smile vanished. ‘Where’s that five bob you owe her?’

  ‘Mr Lees . . .’

  ‘Wait,’ Lees held up his hand, ‘there’s something else.’ He blushed a darker shade of crimson. ‘Another question,’ and he whispered in Lestrade’s ear.

  Lestrade blushed too and stood up sharply. ‘Not since I was seven,’ he said with firmness. ‘This is not why I came, Mr Lees.’

  ‘But I came to you.’ Lees stood up and showed Lestrade into an ante-room. ‘Weeks ago, I came to the Yard.’

  ‘I didn’t know. Who did you see?’

  ‘Some brainless lackey. Abberline, I think his name was.’

  ‘Oh,’ chuckled Lestrade. ‘That brainless lackey.’

  ‘I should point out, sir, that I am at the height of my powers. Her Majesty has been pleased to consult me on several occasions, to reach the Prince Consort on the Other Side.’

  ‘Was he in?’ Lestrade asked.

  Lees spun round.’ Sir, I detect a note of disbelief. I was after all a close friend of the late Earl of Beaconsfield.’ He hastily turned a photograph of Mr Keir Hardie to the wall. ‘We still commune of a quiet evening.’

  ‘Is he . . . well?’ was all Lestrade could think to ask.

  ‘Hardly, he’s dead,’ sneered Lees. ‘Those who have gone over do not retain their earthly vestments. Benjamin’s gout has gone. He is in perfect peace.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ Lestrade smiled. ‘Now, Mr Lees, to the purpose of my visit.’

/>   ‘Before that, Mr . . . er . . .?’

  ‘Lestrade, Inspector Lestrade. Yes?’

  ‘I came to the Yard the day the double event took place – hours before, you understand. I had a presentiment, Inspector . . . I didn’t feel well.’ He turned pale and began to mop the brow, suddenly bedewed. ‘I went to my doctor. He advised rest. I went abroad.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Ventnor.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘On my return,’ Lees’ eyes shone with a new intensity, ‘I was riding on an omnibus with my wife, when . . . ’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I had the same strange sensations. Sensations, Mr Lestrade, such as I never had before in such intensity. Such as I cannot describe to you. We were in Notting Hill . . .’

  ‘Ah, well.’ It all became crystal clear.

  ‘A man got on. I turned to my wife and I said, “Mrs Lees”, I said, “that man is Jack the Ripper”.’

  ‘What was your wife’s reaction?’

  Lees shuddered. ‘I fear Mrs Lees is not of the persuasion, Mr Lestrade. She scoffed and told me not to be foolish.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I determined to follow the man. He got off at Marble Arch and I followed him. He was in a state of agitation until he hailed a cab in Piccadilly. I even told a passing constable of my suspicions.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Offered to run me in for wasting police time.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lestrade sighed, beginning to recognise the feeling.

  ‘I could take you to the very house,’ Lees whispered, as though the walls had ears.

  ‘All right,’ Lestrade said. ‘But first, have a look at this.’ He handed Lees a bloodied apron, stiff and brown with the life essence of Annie Chapman. Lees looked at it, sniffed it as Abberline said he would and held it gently in his fingers, moving it slowly between them.

  ‘A lady of the night,’ he murmured. ‘Forty or so. She died slowly. In pain. I see . . . no . . . the name Ann or Sylvie . . . it’s distant . . . Do you have anything else?’

  ‘Of hers, no. What about this?’