Lestrade and the Ripper Page 27

‘Ah, well, there some confusion crept in. Annie refused to tell him. She spent most of her time in tears, apparently. Well, understandable, I suppose . . . Her name was Polly, we thought.’

  ‘Polly Nicholls and Polly Kelly,’ said Lestrade.

  ‘Quite so,’ Salisbury nodded. ‘But confusion doubled on confusion. We also thought her name was Kelly . . .’

  ‘Catherine Eddowes alias Anne Kelly; and Mary Kelly,’ said Lestrade.

  ‘Even so. Poor Sir William’s mind couldn’t find its way through a tangle like that.’

  ‘So he killed all three – and two more for good measure,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘No, he bought off Polly Nicholls and then she died. When I read the news and realised it was the same girl I assumed she was killed for her money. Sir William made frequent visits to the East End in search of some clue as to who stole the money and indeed whether she had been its rightful recipient in the first place. He had come to the conclusion that he had found the wrong Polly and went in search of a girl called Kelly . . .’

  ‘Each time he went, I drove him,’ said Netley. ‘His confusion grew worse. He could barely find the door of his house, much less an East End doxy in a sea of doxies. They all looked the same to him, Mr Lestrade. If my word as a civil servant means anything to you, Dr Gull killed no one. At least, not outside a hospital ward.’

  ‘What of the blood-stained shirt?’

  ‘His nose bled on the night Annie Chapman died. I had been with him, as usual, the whole time, making our search.’

  ‘He is the most loyal of men, Lestrade,’ Salisbury said. ‘He had promised to help his Prince and he did his best.’

  Lestrade looked at the Prime Minister and his civil servant. ‘So why did these women die? Even Lady Gull suspected her husband.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Salisbury. ‘Circumstantial evidence against him looked black. You thought so yourself. Lady Gull is now in our confidence, as you are. It was cruel not to tell her, but the risk to security was immense. It still is. As to who has been traipsing those mean streets with knife at the ready, I really haven’t the faintest idea, Mr Lestrade. Gull’s colleagues, his fellow masons, came to him that night to take him away. Poor soul, he is no longer fit to practise medicine. A sad end to a great and distinguished career.’

  ‘I repeat, Lord Salisbury,’ Lestrade looked at him levelly, ‘where is he?’

  ‘For the moment, in Bedlam. Netley here thinks he has not long to live.’

  ‘He’s a broken man, Mr Lestrade,’ Netley said, ‘but he saw the wisdom of his fellow masons and knows it is for the best.’

  ‘We thought it advisable to feign his death,’ explained Salisbury. ‘A sudden stroke – he’s had one already. It’s for the best indeed.’

  Lestrade looked at Holmes. He’d almost forgotten him in the last ten minutes. Wishful thinking, of course.

  ‘Gentlemen, I called you here privily because you were getting close to the truth, each in your different ways.’

  The detectives looked at each other.

  ‘I could not – and cannot – risk all this becoming public knowledge. If it were known that the Duke of Clarence has made this unwise marriage, if Papacy were openly connected with the English throne . . .’

  ‘Yes, of course, my Lord,’ Holmes said. ‘We understand fully. It’s almost as though an heir to the throne had married an American divorcée . . .’

  Salisbury turned pale and clutched himself. ‘Please Mr Holmes,’ he muttered, ‘I am not a young man myself.’

  ‘Your secret, sir, is safe with us,’ said Holmes. ‘Isn’t it, Lestrade?’

  ‘Er . . . oh, yes,’ Lestrade frowned, ‘of course.’

  ‘Thank you, gentlemen.’ Salisbury shook their hands, and a tear welled in his eye. ‘God bless you.’

  Netley saw them out and a cab took them to the station.

  ‘Where away, Lestrade?’ Holmes stopped him as he walked in the opposite direction.

  ‘I have unfinished business, Mr Holmes,’ he said, ‘at Rhadegund Hall.’

  ‘Rhadegund?’ Holmes chuckled. ‘Small beer indeed, Lestrade. Should you see Watson, send him to Baker Street, will you?’

  ‘Back into retirement, Mr Holmes,’ asked Lestrade, ‘until the next case comes along?’

  ‘Retirement?’ Holmes closed to him. ‘My dear fellow, you can’t have been taken in at Hatfield House?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come, come, man. It stands out a mile. Gull is the Ripper. He kills the whores with his considerable anatomical skill. Netley drives him to and from the scenes of the crimes, which is why you chappies – not to mention George Lusk’s – didn’t find a blood-stained figure going homeward. And, of course, they’d need a lookout man.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Salisbury.’

  ‘Salisbury?!’ Lestrade was non-plussed.

  ‘And that unholy trio will strike again, Lestrade, believe me. By the end of the week, there’ll be another slaying. Only this time I shall be there.’

  ‘Of course,’ Lestrade said a little sheepishly, moving inexorably away.

  ‘You, of course, were taken in with all that jingoistic clap-trap about England. I was not. Clarence marrying a shopgirl! Preposterous! It’s thin, Lestrade, but you fell for it. As Salisbury knew you would. Luckily, some of us are made of sterner stuff. Goodbye.’

  And the detectives, not for the first or last time in their careers, parted company.

  It was a strangely tense Rhadegund Hall at which Lestrade arrived early that morning. He toyed with finding Sergeant George to see exactly what fate had befallen Saunders-Foote, but then he suspected he knew. The telegram had been short and sharp, though hardly a shock. And the body count was grimmer. Maggie Hollis, Anthony Denton, Major Bracegirdle, Adelstrop. Charles Mercer and the Singhs, all of them mouldering now with the ancient, avuncular, sobbing classics master.

  In the corner of a quad, Lestrade saw an outline he recognised. ‘Watson.’

  ‘Aarhhh!’ The good Doctor leapt upright from his dozing position. ‘Lestrade, you might have given me a coronary,’ he gasped.

  ‘There wasn’t time,’ Lestrade explained. ‘I’m in a hurry, Doctor. What are you doing here?’

  Watson flattened himself against the wisteria, pointing maniacally upwards. ‘Gainsborough,’ he whispered. ‘He’s our man.’

  ‘Oh? How do you now?’

  ‘He was out walking on the morning they found Bracegirdle, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘And Saunders-Foote . . . ah, of course. You haven’t been here.’

  ‘George kept me posted. What has Gainsborough to do with that?’

  ‘Saunders-Foote was found strangled on a hillock shortly after dawn. The hour of Gainsborough’s constitutional.’

  ‘What’s his motive?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘What? Ah, well . . . Have you heard from Holmes at all?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I have. He sends his compliments and asks you to join him at Baker Street.’

  ‘What? Now? But I can’t. The game’s afoot!’

  ‘I fancy Mr Holmes is after bigger game still, Doctor.’

  ‘Lestrade? Where are you going? I’ve been here all night. I’d appreciate some help.’

  ‘I’m sure you would, Doctor, but regrettably I have a murderer to catch.’

  ‘A . . . I . . .’ and Lestrade left Watson gesturing emptily to the wisteria.

  The Inspector turned left at the top of the stairs. He knocked softly. No response. He checked his half-hunter in the flickering gaslight. No expense had been spared, he noticed, now that Mercer had gone. He sighed and turned to go. It was late. Perhaps too late.

  ‘Sholto?’ Madeleine appeared sleepily in the doorway. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘It’s late,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you.’

  ‘You haven’t,’ she said. ‘Won’t you come in?’

  He smiled, stepped towards her, then saw a black serge coat and bowler hanging on the sofa. It
was the serge coat and bowler of Sergeant George. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I just called to say goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye?’ She held his hand in a sudden, impetuous gesture.

  ‘My work here is finished.’

  ‘Will I . . . see you again?’ she asked.

  He shrugged, smiling. ‘Who knows? Take care of yourself, won’t you?’

  She nodded, her eyes larger and wetter than he’d remembered them. He stared at her for one long, long moment, then turned to go. ‘Oh, by the way. Should you see Sergeant George, tell him I’d like to see him and his constables at the Yard. When they’ve finished here.’ He smiled again.

  ‘Yes, Sholto,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll tell him . . . if I see him.’

  He crossed the larger quad, past the shell of the library where Cherak Singh Minor had been found. He heard the mallards calling on the lake where Cherak Singh Major had died. And he was already on the upper staircase, under the eagle gaze of dusty headmasters and rows of gilded names, when he saw him. The mortarboard and the billowing gown striding manfully for the Rhadegund trap in the courtyard below. But there was no Carman on the perch. He leapt up himself and slapped the horse into action.

  Lestrade hurtled back down the stairs, Donegal flying in the morning. He hit the wall at the bottom, slicing the skin off his cheek, but ran on unchecked until he fetched his length on the cobbles, wet in the mist rising over Northamptonshire in November.

  Longing for the legs of Ovett and the lungs of Bracegirdle, he threw off the Donegal, ripped away the tie and ran at a steady lope through the archway and along the drive. At the gates he paused to give his thumping heart time to catch up with the rest of his body. There’d be no one passing along these roads at that time of night. And the station was nearly a mile away. There was no choice. He couldn’t risk losing him now.

  That mile seemed like fifty. Lestrade tried to make his mind a blank, an easier task for him than for some. Somehow he must keep his thoughts off his tortured lungs and the useless lumps of lead that pounded up the road. He swerved off the track and up through the woods, where the brambles caught him and the saplings whipped back. Like a man who has run the gauntlet, he staggered onto the platform, his boot studs striking sparks in the dark as he skidded to a halt. He was just in time to see the last of the train disappearing south.

  ‘’Ere!’ A railway employee hailed him. ‘You gotta ’ave a ticket ’ere, mate!’

  ‘When’s the next train!’ Lestrade gasped.

  The employee consulted his watch, shaking his head. ‘Not till half-past ten’, he said. ‘But it don’t go from ’ere.’

  Lestrade tore away from the idiot and heard him shout. ‘But we’re getting there.’

  He skidded into the forecourt and collapsed on the flank of the Rhadegund pony.

  ‘You!’ he shouted to a figure nodding on a stand of barrels. ‘The man who drove this here? Did he get on the train?’

  ‘’Ow should I know?’ he answered. ‘I only work ’ere.’

  Lestrade clambered aboard and applied the whip. He had about as much expertise on the running board of a trap as a Greek prince, but he did his best. Lashing the animal, he hurtled through the gathering dawn, skirting the great medieval forest of Rockingham. How he missed Queen Eleanor’s Cross at Geddington he never knew, but he spared the whip at Benefield, in case sleeping Oundle should hear the repercussions of the scandal at Rhadegund.

  At Thorpe station he crashed into a bollard in the centre of the road only to see the train pull out. Hanging on by his finger nails, the battered Inspector ran right over a policeman. Luckily, the man was sleeping at the time and didn’t notice. Lestrade wondered momentarily if it was Sergeant Thicke, undercover again.

  With the coming of the grey dawn, Lestrade’s luck at last changed. Before him loomed the Killington tunnel, all mile and a half of it and the signals of the LNER were against the train. He hauled the trap to a halt and gratefully dropped the leather which had raised great weals on his fingers. He scrambled up the slope, slipping on the shale of the embankment, and caught himself a nasty one on a protruding sleeper. The vagrant mumbled something Northamptonshire and turned over, nursing his empty bottle.

  Lestrade vanished into the total darkness of the tunnel, bouncing up and down every now and again to peer into the carriages. Those passengers who were awake and whose blinds were up commented on the escaped lunatic tapping on the windows and gesturing inanely. What were the police doing to allow it? And when would the train ever move?

  The Inspector found a carriage shrouded in blinds. He wrenched the handle only to hear a scream.

  ‘I do beg your pardon, madam.’ He reached for his bowler, realised he hadn’t got it and tugged his forelock instead. Whistles jarred the tunnel and the steaming, snorting engine began to jerk into life. A lantern swung from somewhere down the line and Lestrade leapt at the nearest carriage door and jumped up. He’d have to wait until the next station to find his quarry.

  ‘Hello, Lestrade, what kept you?’

  The Yard man blinked, fighting for breath as he was. Slowly his eyes became acclimatised and his blood froze.

  ‘Dr Nails.’ He’d know that mortarboard and those whiskers anywhere, silhouetted against the far window. ‘What a coincidence.’

  ‘So you were the idiot in the Rhadegund trap? I caught sight of old Jem once or twice in open countryside. I thought I recognised those markings and that curious way of going. I recognised the horse, too, of course.’

  ‘There are some other curious ways of going I’m more interested in,’ said Lestrade, ‘and I think you can help me with them.’

  ‘Why me?’ Nails bellowed. ‘Why always me?’

  ‘It was too obvious at first,’ Lestrade told him. ‘The mountaineer’s rope. You were prepared to take that risk because it was a common enough type of hemp. Unfortunately, Charles Mercer in his innocence pointed me in your direction. You’d climbed in the Himalayas. You were familiar with the customs of India.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the thuggees. Indeed I was.’

  ‘It was you who opened your school to the natives – the Singh boys. As Headmaster you had access to the laundry tower, the Sword of Honour, the boat house, all the locked little places.’

  ‘Quite so,’ chuckled Nails.

  ‘You also left a trail of false clues. You stripped the elder Singh knowing it would be Carstairs and Channing-Lover who found him. You hoped I’d assume they were involved.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ mused Nails, ‘the love that dare not speak its name.’

  ‘You also hoped to confuse me with three methods of murder. The thuggee rope. Water. And fire. All three designed perhaps to make me think there was more than one murderer at Rhadegund?’

  Nails laughed. ‘There is murder in the heart of everyone, Lestrade. And in a place like Rhadegund, a hot bed of passions, jealousies, pride . . . you could have had four hundred murderers. Clever of you to whittle it down to little old me.’

  ‘Before the train moves off, Dr Nails,’ said Lestrade, ‘would you like to tell me why.’

  ‘Tut, tut, Lestrade,’ scolded Nails as only he could. ‘Scotland Yard’s finest and you haven’t guessed it! Go on, as I tell my boys hesitant on meeting Livy for the first time, jump in, man! The dead don’t bite.’

  ‘It was a friend of mine who gave you away,’ Lestrade said. ‘We were working on another case entirely and he pointed out that two of the victims had the same name. There was some confusion, you see, in the murderer’s mind. That was what confused me for so long. I was trying to work out what, apart from Rhadegund Hall, your victims had in common. Then it dawned on me. Nothing. You only wanted one person dead. And that was Cherak Singh Minor. The others were merely blinds.’

  The second series of whistles up the line saw the whole train jolt and shudder and it began to roll forward. ‘Clever of you not to begin with Singh, of course. And risky. If you’d been detected after the death of Maggie Hollis, Singh would have lived. So of course would the others. And whatever
secret Singh held would have been revealed to the world.’

  Nails chuckled again as the train gathered speed. ‘And why do you suppose I wanted young Singh to die? Did I share Bracegirdle’s hatred of little niggers for what they did at Chilianwala and Cawnpore?’

  ‘No,’ said Lestrade. ‘It’s something altogether more personal. And it has to do with Mrs Payne, your mistress. Matron helped me there . . .’

  ‘I’m sure she did.’ The features, shrouded in darkness, betrayed a smirk.

  ‘Only it wasn’t Balham, was it? It was Whitechapel.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t Balham, Lestrade. And you’re quite right about young Singh. The little black bastard was blackmailing me. He had a knack for writing lurid letters.’

  ‘I know; I read one of them.’

  ‘But Balham wasn’t the only mistake you made. There are two more . . .’

  ‘Oh? And what are they, Dr Nails?’

  The carriage slid into the light of a grey morning and Lestrade blinked as the sky broke again. He sat there with his mouth open as the Headmaster peeled off his whiskers and threw the mortarboard on Lestrade’s seat.

  ‘This is your first,’ he said. The voice had changed.

  ‘Mercer?’ Lestrade angled his head to be sure of what he was seeing.

  ‘The Bursar,’ Mercer said. ‘At your service. Cap size, boy?’

  Lestrade continued to sit there.

  ‘What’s the matter, Lestrade? Got it wrong again, have you? Tut, tut. If I were Nails I’d flog you rotten for this. You see, you played the hand I dealt you every inch of the way. Yes, I set up the Headmaster, hoping you’d put him in the frame sooner. The mountaineer’s rope, the reference to the Himalayas. What you missed, of course, was dear old Theophilus’s retort that I knew the Himalayas too. I prayed you’d missed it. You had. And, as Bursar, I had all the keys I needed – access to the laundry room, the Sword of Honour, the boat house. In the confusion of the library fire anyone could have slipped out to follow Bracegirdle. Mind you, I had to run some to catch him. You should have seen the look on his face as I ran him through.’

  Lestrade had not moved.

  Mercer chuckled. ‘Actually, none of them was difficult. Maggie Hollis, of course, I dumped in her own bleach. What with the water and the noose, she had no chance. Anthony Denton’s hands were full of other things at the time. I didn’t even have to use a noose for that one. His spectacles chain was ideal.’