Lestrade and the Sign of Nine Read online

  ‘Clearly not,’ Lestrade handed it back. ‘Do you have the guest list?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Fussock decided after much pocket-searching. He spent so long in his right trouser pocket that George decided he must have a hole there. ‘I fear not.’

  ‘Well,’ Lestrade threw himself jadedly down on the battered old leather of the armchair, ‘perhaps you can remember a few of the names you sent invitations to while my sergeant writes them down.’

  ‘It was the County Set, sir.’

  ‘County Set? You mean the Hertfordshire gentry?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I remember that specifically because it was quicker to send young Davy by hand than to post them. Now that Sir Rowland Hill has gone . . .’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Lestrade commiserated, ‘the end of civilization as we know it. How many invitations did you send out?’

  ‘Sixty-eight, sir, if I remember aright.’

  ‘And, if you remember aright, how many came?’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Five?’ Lestrade and George chorused.

  ‘Ah, well, sirs, you mustn’t forget that there hadn’t been a party here since Lord Palmerston died.’

  ‘How could we?’ Lestrade wondered aloud. ‘As a matter of interest, Fussock, do you remember how many came then?’

  ‘Eight. It should have been nine but the Bishop of Llandaff went down with cholera at the last moment.’

  George shook his head. ‘The lengths some people will go to, to avoid a social engagement!’ he realized anew.

  ‘Right,’ said Lestrade, ‘the five guests. Let’s have ’em.’

  ‘Well, there was young master Ian and young master Kelvin.’

  ‘Ralston’s sons.’

  ‘The same, sir.’

  ‘You mean there were only three genuine guests?’

  ‘Put that way, I suppose so, sir, yes.’

  ‘Well, put it any way, Fussock, and give me their names.’

  ‘Right you are, sir. There was Squire Cotterell over Braughing way, young Miss Ratcliffe from St Albans and Mr Hands from Hertingfordbury.’

  ‘The gentlemen were unaccompanied.’

  ‘Oh, yes sir. As you’d expect.’

  Lestrade’s eyes narrowed in an inspectorly glint. ‘We would?’ he said quietly.

  ‘Well, it was . . . oh dear, this is disloyalty and no mistake, but you’d find out anyway. Squire, he had something of a reputation.’

  ‘With women, you mean?’ George asked.

  ‘Not so much with them as in front of them, sir,’ Fussock explained.

  ‘What?’ Lestrade was perplexed.

  ‘He lacked the social graces, sir. And of late, things had got worse.’

  ‘In what way, worse?’ Lestrade was afraid to hear the answer.

  ‘Well, he’d pick his nose, sir,’ Fussock explained. ‘What began as a discreet tweak with a napkin while he pretended to retrieve a fallen fork became an index finger buried to the knuckle in an obfuscated nostril. And he’d break wind, particularly in the evenings after his favourite dish of Gentleman’s Relish and anchovies. Twenty years ago he’d wander into the Orangery or at least scowl at one of the dogs. Latterly, he’d simply raise a cheek and let rip. Then, there was the spitting . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ Lestrade held up an already horrified hand, ‘I think we get the picture, Fussock, thank you. So no women. And yet this Miss Ratcliffe came.’

  ‘Yes, sir. That was odd.’

  ‘Miss Ratcliffe?’

  ‘Her coming. And indeed her going.’

  ‘Tell me more,’ Lestrade commanded.

  ‘Well, sir, the invitation was actually addressed to her father, the Admiral.’

  ‘Admiral Ratcliffe?’ George was a stickler for accuracy.

  ‘The very same, sir.’

  ‘You’ll find him in Hart’s Navy List, George,’ Lestrade waved the butler on.

  ‘Ah, not any more, sir. That’s why Miss Ratcliffe attended the Master’s party and not her father.’

  ‘Dead?’ Lestrade ventured.

  ‘Not a week since, sir,’ Fussock told him. ‘No sooner had I sent young Davy off his bicycle than did the Master read it in The Times. Laughed till he broke wind, he did.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Oh, he was all right after a while, sir, when the air had cleared.’

  ‘No, I mean the Admiral.’

  ‘Oh, he keeled over on the deck of HMS Pointless, sir. Heart.’

  ‘Do I gather, then, from Squire Ralston’s reaction to the Admiral’s death, he didn’t care for the man?’

  ‘Bitter enemies, sir, from years ago. Hanged if I know why.’

  ‘And yet he invited his bitter enemy to a party?’

  ‘And the others, sir – he didn’t care for Squire Cotterell or Mr Hands either.’

  ‘We’ll get to them later. Why did you find Miss Ratcliffe odd?’

  ‘Well, first, sir, that she came at all. Pretty as a picture, she was. Very becoming, isn’t it? Black on a woman? The only one I’ve not known it suit was old Lady de Vere’s maid.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘She was black too, sir. Sort of disappeared in a way. But Miss Ratcliffe, she was very becoming. No sooner had I got over the shock of her arriving, what with her dad barely cold, when I announced her and she and the Master went off in here, sir. Into the library.’

  ‘What was odd about that?’

  ‘Well, it was the noises, sir,’ Fussock shifted from foot to foot, the embarrassment of it clear in his mind.

  ‘Gentleman’s relish and anchovies?’ George enquired.

  ‘No, sir. The shouting. I’ve never heard language like it.’

  ‘The squire was annoyed?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘He was, sir, but it was Miss Ratcliffe to whom I was referring. It would’ve made a rating blush. I had to send Mrs Fussock below. She’d have had one of her flushes if she’d stayed.’

  ‘When did Miss Ratcliffe leave?’

  ‘It would have been about half past nine, sir. She’d been there nearly half an hour. It was what she said to me as she left; I’ll never forget it.’

  ‘What was it?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Well, sir, she looked me in the eye, this slip of a girl and she said to me – “If I were a man, I’d have called that conniving bastard out tonight. You’d be scraping him off the lawn tomorrow.” Not very ladylike, is it, sir?’

  ‘No, Fussock,’ Lestrade agreed. ‘But then, neither is murder.’

  The doors crashed back at that moment and two men of Lestrade’s vague age hurtled in, arguing furiously. At their first sight of the policemen, they stopped.

  ‘Who the devil are these two, Fussock?’ the taller one demanded.

  Lestrade and George clambered to their feet and stared in disbelief. Were it not for the difference in height, the two could pass as brothers.

  ‘Ah, young Master Ian, young Master Kelvin, this is Inspector Lestrade and Sergeant George from Scotland Yard.’

  ‘The Yard, eh? Well, you’re a threat late, gentlemen. All right, Fussock, get out. And take Master Kelvin with you, will you; it’s way past his bedtime.’

  ‘Just bugger off, Fussock,’ Kelvin snarled at his brother. ‘But make sure there’s nothing sharp lying about for Master Ian. You know he isn’t allowed sharp objects.’

  The brothers Ralston squared up to each other, their white scarves tangling and their topper brims colliding.

  ‘Gentlemen, please!’ Lestrade was referee for the evening.

  ‘Mind your own business!’ the Ralstons snapped in unison. Even their voices were identical.

  ‘Murder is my business!’ Lestrade thundered.

  The brothers grim broke apart, Ian to the brandy, Kelvin to the Scotch.

  ‘Well,’ Ian was the first to break the silence, ‘what have you found out? Who killed my father?’

  ‘Our father,’ Kelvin reminded him.

  ‘That’s all we need,’ moaned George, ‘The Lord’s Prayer.’
/>   ‘Who is this oaf, Lestrade?’ the younger brother by a few minutes demanded. ‘I don’t care for his impertinence.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ Lestrade admitted. ‘But this is not germane to a murder enquiry. Master . . .Kelvin, is it?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘When did you see your father last?’

  ‘This morning,’ Ralston said. ‘And I didn’t like the look of him.’

  ‘No,’ Lestrade tried all the patience he could muster, ‘I mean alive; when did you last see him alive?’

  ‘Hm,’ the younger Ralston frowned, clutching his cut glass. ‘It would have been at that so-called bash of his – last Saturday.’

  ‘The night he died,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘He was perfectly all right when I left him,’ Kelvin insisted. ‘You were there, Dog-breath, you saw it.’

  ‘I saw nothing, dear boy,’ Ian glided past in icy fraternity. ‘But had I been near the lake shortly after midnight, I’d have seen you bending an iron bar over the old bastard’s head.’

  ‘You’ll take that back, you lying swine!’ Kelvin grabbed his collar, but George was faster and separated them.

  ‘All right, all right,’ he muttered. ‘Move along there.’

  ‘You seem very sure, Mr Ralston,’ Lestrade turned to the elder Master, ‘about the time and manner of your father’s death. Now let’s all sit down calmly and discuss this, shall we, like rational human beings?’

  ‘Not likely!’ snorted Kelvin, but he sat down anyway.

  ‘Impossible!’ Ian retaliated, but he did likewise.

  ‘Good.’ Lestrade perched on the cold arm of a Chesterfield between them. ‘That’s much better. Now, Mr Ralston. How do you know the time of your father’s death and what was used to kill him?’

  ‘I don’t,’ Ian said. ‘That was what the police told us. And bearing in mind this is the Hertfordshire Constabulary we’re talking about, my father was probably riddled with Cherokee arrows in the middle of the afternoon.’

  ‘Do I assume you gentlemen don’t live here at Ralston Hall?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Good God, no,’ snorted Kelvin. ‘I haven’t lived here since I was thirteen. Charterhouse, Trinity, anywhere but here. Still, it’s all mine now.’

  ‘Bollocks it is!’ Ian bellowed. ‘There’s a will somewhere and I’ll find it if I have to raze this hell-hole to the ground.’

  Lestrade’s quietly waving arm seemed to pacify them, at least for the moment. ‘So you both came to his party?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ian. ‘The invitation spoke of a killing . . . Perhaps he was inviting us to his?’ he said as though the thought had only just occurred to him.

  ‘We wanted to make sure, Inspector,’ Kelvin said, ‘that we got our share. You see it was perfectly in keeping with our father to disinherit both of us, if he felt so inclined. He’d threatened it often enough.’

  ‘So we came just to make sure whatever extra he’d got from the City came our way.’

  ‘Sooner rather than later in your case, eh, Ian?’ the younger Ralston sneered.

  Lestrade interrupted the riposte. ‘Did either of you see a Miss Ratcliffe that night?’

  ‘Rather,’ leered Ian. ‘Rather a corker, I thought.’

  ‘She told father where to stick it in no uncertain terms,’ Kelvin recollected.

  ‘They had a row?’ Lestrade checked. In a policeman’s world, confirmation was next to godliness.

  ‘Fair made the glass shake in the orangery. Mind you, the old bastard had it coming.’

  ‘What was the row about?’

  ‘No idea,’ Ian shrugged. ‘But that doesn’t matter. The old bastard had it coming.’

  ‘Just a moment,’ Kelvin broke in. ‘Are you suggesting that Jane Ratcliffe killed father?’

  Lestrade looked at the terrible twins under his eyebrows. ‘It had occurred to me,’ he rumbled.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Ian chuckled. ‘We’ve known Jane Ratcliffe since she was in nappies.’

  ‘Does that mean she’s incapable of murder?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Incapable, no,’ the elder Ralston contended. ‘But young broth and I play the stock market, Lestrade, and we usually win. We’re used to calculating all sorts of odds and the reckoning in the City is that a gentleman not a million miles from this room is the guilty party.’

  ‘Fussock!’ George snapped his fingers with the joy of a man who’s discovered the end of a rainbow.

  ‘Rubbish,’ Kelvin mumbled. ‘Fussock hasn’t an antisocial bone in his body. Besides, he was utterly devoted to the old skinflint whose surging loins produced us – God knows why. He’d virtually ask the old man if it was all right to breathe.’

  ‘Well, there you are,’ George wouldn’t let go of it. ‘Mr Lestrade and I worked on the Despatch Case last year. The murderer turned out to be just such a sycophant. Grovelling, bobbing, toadying. Then one day he want for his master’s eyeballs with a pair of sugar tongs.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t referring to Fussock, sergeant,’ Ian said coldly.

  George stroked his considerable chin. ‘Well, allowing for the fact that Mr Lestrade and I are pure as the driven in this matter, unless this amounts to a confession . . .’

  ‘. . . which it does not.’

  ‘Then you must mean . . .’

  All eyes turned to the younger Ralston.

  ‘For God’s sake, not even Scotland Yard can be that stupid!’ Kelvin roared, ‘I just told you, Ian and I were together when I saw Father last.’

  ‘Come, come, brother dear,’ Ian sneered. ‘We only have your word for that; the word of a charlatan and mountebank of the worst water.’

  ‘You lying bum roll!’ the younger Ralston was on his feet again.

  ‘Please, Misters Ralston,’ Lestrade mediated once more. ‘Mr Ralston senior,’ he turned to the elder by several minutes, ‘where was your father when you saw him last that night?’

  ‘He was in the Orangery. This was a little after eleven thirty.’

  ‘Did you notice anything odd about him?’

  Ian shrugged. ‘Only the smell, he said. ‘I suspected the ptarmigan patties.’

  Lestrade always did. That’s why he’d never tried one. ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘I didn’t fancy the drive back to town and the last train had gone. I called it a day and slept in the Green Room.’

  ‘That’s . . .’ Lestrade tried to get his bearings.

  ‘At the back of the house, next to Father’s.’

  ‘Overlooking the lake?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You didn’t, I suppose, happen to look out of your bedroom window a little after midnight?’

  ‘Sadly, no,’ Ian said. ‘Had I done so, however, we all know who I would have seen, iron bar in hand.’

  ‘I slept in the Pink Room,’ Kelvin ignored the slur. ‘Like pea brain here, I thought it too late to go back into town.’

  ‘What time did you retire?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘About one, I suppose.’

  ‘After your father’s demise?’ Lestrade arched an eyebrow.

  ‘After the police say he died, yes, but you must remember, Inspector, his body was not found until dawn the next day.’

  ‘By Constable Spatchcock?’

  ‘Is that his name?’ Kelvin yawned. ‘Forgive me, but all you police chappies look alike.’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Lestrade, without smiling. ‘It’s the pointed head that does it. Is it Fussock’s custom to lock the house at night?’

  ‘Tyndall does that, the under-butler.’

  ‘And he did it that night?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Kelvin said. ‘You’ll have to ask him.’

  ‘We intend to,’ Lestrade told him.

  ‘Actually, all this is pointless,’ Ian suddenly said, crossing to freshen his glass.

  ‘Why so, cretin?’ his brother asked.

  ‘Because, after you and I spent that perfectly pointless half an hour with old Lammergeyer . . .’

  ‘Old Lammer
geyer?’ Lestrade interrupted.

  ‘Benson Lammergeyer,’ Ralston explained, ‘the family solicitor at St Albans. Limited Intellect here and I went to sort out Father’s finances once and for all.’

  ‘No help?’

  ‘None whatever,’ Kelvin cut in. ‘Benson Lammergeyer is to soliciting what Dan Leno is to Greek Tragedy. Actually, it’s not the old fossil’s fault. Father, it transpired, owed more money than the National Debt. No, the reason that it is pointless is that I expect the murderer,’ and his beady eyes swivelled sideways to his brother, ‘to be brought to book by the weekend.’

  ‘Now that we’re on the case, you mean?’ George nodded.

  ‘Now that I have hired a team of private detectives,’ Ian smiled.

  ‘No!’ Kelvin roared. ‘Who?’

  ‘Do you think I’d tell you that?’ Ian snapped.

  ‘Well,’ his little brother bridled, ‘they’re bound to be inferior to the team I’ve hired.’

  ‘You’ve hired!’ Ian shouted. ‘Where did you find them?’

  ‘St Albans,’ his brother smiled.

  Ian frowned. ‘Is one of these detectives of yours tall, with an aquiline nose and a deerstalker hat?’

  ‘Fortunately, no,’ said Kelvin. ‘He is squat, has a small moustache and is on the portly side. I wasn’t fooled by his appearance, though. Under his overcoat bulged a Webley Mark I if I’m any judge.’

  ‘Er . . . gentlemen,’ Lestrade interrupted, ‘did I understand that you have each engaged a team of private detectives?’

  ‘We did,’ the brothers chorused.

  ‘How many in your team, Mr Ralston?’

  ‘Two,’ Ian answered. ‘I never saw the other man.’

  ‘And in yours, Mr Ralston?’

  ‘Two,’ Kelvin told him. ‘Likewise, I did not meet his partner.’

  Lestrade shook his head. ‘Gentlemen, I fear you have hired the selfsame team.’

  ‘What?’ the Ralstons roared in unison.

  ‘The tall one with the nose and the silly hat is Mr Sherlock Holmes. His partner in crime, as it were, the short one with the gun – and I shall be checking his licence for that, by the way – is his confidant, Dr John Watson.’

  There was a stunned silence.

  ‘Well,’ said Ian, ‘I’ve got to hand it to you, Lestrade. Your powers of deduction are phenomenal.’

  ‘Which is rather what I suspect Sherlock Holmes told you his were. Am I right?’