Lestrade and the Dead Man's Hand Read online

  The host’s face fell a little. ‘Twenty-two, sir,’ he corrected the visitor, counting both teams. Perhaps the man was a foreigner. The parchment face, the dark circles round the eyes, the tipless nose. Perhaps they played by different rules in different parts of the Empire.

  ‘Is there a telegram for me?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Who might you be, sir?’

  Lestrade might have been the Akond of Swat for all the landlord knew.

  ‘Lestrade,’ said Lestrade.

  ‘Lord love you, I believe there is,’ and he wiped his hands on his greasy apron before scurrying away for it. Lestrade leant back in the inglenook by the empty fireplace. Three smocked yokels sat opposite him, sipping the froth from their ale and watching him intently. There were a lot of foreigners in their parts this particular weekend, but they all bore watching.

  Lestrade read the telegram his host had brought. ‘Only William at The Albany is William Bellamy. Stop. Not here. Stop. Cricketer. Stop. Inhabitants of The Albany took umbrage at police intrusion. Stop. Seeing my superior. Stop. Is that you? Stop. Dew.’

  Lestrade clicked his tongue in admiration. Typical of his hardy Lieutenant to pull out all the stops.

  ‘Has Mr Bellamy arrived?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘He have, sir,’ his host told him. ‘Come last night. They’re all up at the Hall now, having luncheon. You’d better put your skates on if you’re playing.’

  Lestrade of course had no intention of playing. Especially on skates. He had no idea the game he had played with an old stick and an onion in the backstreets of Pimlico all those years ago differed so much from the real thing.

  ‘Do you know the way, sir? Or shall I get old Tadger to show ye?’

  ‘No, no,’ Lestrade wobbled a little uncertainly for the low door and the sunlight beyond, ‘I know the way.’ Old Tadger could rest undisturbed.

  He took the little road over the bridge and wound his way through the May blossom to the great wrought-iron gates. The stone wildebeeste sat sejantly, looking down their quivering nostrils at him. Not eighteen months before he had walked this way, on a night of rain, carrying a little motherless babe in arms to the only safe house he knew. To Bandicoot Hall.

  Today was very different. There were servants, white-aproned and capped, hurrying this way and that, and the lower lawns had been marked out for a match. Gentlemen and players strolled in the sunshine, coloured ties around their waists and tasselled caps on their heads. A huge bearded man was prodding the ground and talking to Harry Bandicoot.

  ‘Well, you’ll just have to play with ten men, Harry. There’s no help for it.’

  The squire turned to see a sallow, rat-faced fellow in dark serge standing on his own and carrying a battered Gladstone.

  ‘Oh no, we won’t’, he grinned. ‘Sholto!’ He ran across to grip the Inspector’s hand and shake it warmly. ‘Sholto Lestrade, a keen batsman if ever I saw one; meet the famous W. G. Grace.’

  ‘Grace,’ Lestrade repeated dumbly, remembering the letter on the dead woman. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Delighted.’ The huge bearded man shook Lestrade’s hand.

  ‘Who do you play for, Lestrade?’

  ‘Er . . . the SYC,’ Lestrade bluffed.

  ‘South Yorkshire?’ Grace guessed.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Salop Yeomanry?’ Though the good doctor had never heard of such a team, he assumed they must have one.

  ‘Scotland Yard,’ he said.

  ‘By Jove,’ Grace chuckled so that his whole body wobbled, ‘I had no idea. Well, sir, your timing’s perfect. See you on the field. Better make a start, Harry,’ and he jogged off to join his team.

  ‘Harry . . .’

  ‘I know, Sholto. You’ve never played first-class cricket before. . .’

  ‘Harry, I haven’t played any class of cricket before. I don’t know the rules!’

  ‘The point is,’ Bandicoot explained earnestly, ‘that “Leg-breaker” Lawson’s been laid up with a recurrence of his old trouble. Didn’t let us know until this morning. This match has been arranged for ages. Look at the crowds coming in. We can’t let them down. I’ll put you in as eleventh man. You probably won’t have to bat.’

  ‘Good,’ Lestrade groaned. The crowd in fact was becoming sizeable. In London there’d have been a bobby on a white horse to control that lot. As it was, they took their places on the temporary benches, muttering Mummerset, while several top-hatted dignitaries and the odd bishop (Bath and Wells being the odd bishop in question) sauntered from the marquee adjusting the strings on his headgear as white-shirted fielders began limbering up.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Sholto.’ Bandicoot led his old guv’nor across to the robing pavilion. ‘Let’s see, I think we’ve got a pair of ducks somewhere.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I’ll score if you put me out there,’ Lestrade warned. ‘Which one is William Bellamy?’

  ‘Oh, Sholto,’ Bandicoot stopped in mid-selection of a coloured tie for Lestrade’s waist, ‘so this isn’t a social visit?’

  The Inspector shook his head.

  ‘And I thought you’d come to see little Emma.’

  ‘How is she?’ her father asked.

  ‘See for yourself,’ Bandicoot beamed, pointing to a little thing no higher than a cricket stump, all lace and golden curls, who staggered between Letitia Bandicoot and a frosty old nanny with a barbed-wire bun. ‘She took to Nanny Balsam like a duck to water,’ the squire said.

  Lestrade found himself nodding, grinning inanely. Was that the baby he’d left all those months ago? The helpless pink little thing with the neck that smelt like nothing he would know? The one now bashing seven bells out of two little boys until Nanny and Letitia broke in as the good seconds they were? It didn’t seem possible.

  ‘No, Harry,’ Lestrade said, ‘it’s not a social call. Which one is Bellamy?’

  Bandicoot scanned the players passing a ball from one to another. ‘There,’ he said. ‘The chap with the little goatee. Next to the Black Prince.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ranjitsinhji. The Black Prince of cricket. This is quite a coup for Huish Episcopi, Sholto. The two greatest cricketers in the world on my turf. All the gate money goes to one of Letitia’s charities of course.’

  ‘Gate money?’ Lestrade was incredulous. ‘You mean people are actually paying to see me make a complete idiot of myself?’

  ‘No, no,’ Bandicoot laughed. ‘That’s an added bonus, Sholto,’ and the Old Etonian winked audibly. Then he was serious. ‘Whatever it is,’ he said, ‘can you wait until the game is over? These people have come a long way.’

  Lestrade nodded. It wasn’t likely that William Bellamy would be leaving.

  ‘He’s in sixth man,’ Bandicoot said, reading the Inspector’s mind better than he read his own. ‘He’s in our team and you can watch him all afternoon if you like.’

  Lestrade nodded.

  ‘But, Sholto,’ Bandicoot placed a warning hand on the older man’s shoulder, ‘that’s a bumping pitch and a blinding light. While you’re keeping an eye on Mr Bellamy, keep an eye on the ball as well, there’s a good chap.’

  Lestrade was led out on to the sacred turf. Somebody threw a ball at him and it hit him in the ribs. The damn thing was like a red cannonball, but twice as hard.

  ‘Oh, bad show,’ called the thrower and Bandicoot picked it up and threw it to somebody else.

  ‘You’re supposed to catch it, Sholto,’ he murmured out of the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Right.’

  Then there was a flurry in the centre and two men wearing long white coats and swathed in other people’s jumpers were tossing a coin in the air. Grace and Bandicoot faced each other. ‘Mr Bandicoot’s eleven will open the batting.’

  Grace and Bandicoot shook hands and the squire and his men trotted back to the pavilion.

  ‘Sholto!’ a female voice called above the hum of spectators. ‘Sholto Lestrade!’

  He turned and saw Letitia, Harry’s wife, running to
wards him, little Emma bouncing in her arms. He paused before they reached him. ‘I didn’t know you’d be here,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t Harry tell me?’

  Lestrade glanced across to where the captain was giving last-minute instructions to his team. ‘He didn’t know,’ he said. ‘Letitia, how are you?’

  ‘I’m well,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Sholto, say hallo to your . . .’

  He held up a hand. ‘We agreed,’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ she checked herself. ‘Say hallo to little Emma. Emma, darling, this is Uncle Sholto.’

  Little Emma screwed up her face. Then, with Letitia’s encouragement, she reached out and ran her stubby little fingers across his tipless nose, the scarred cheeks, the walrus moustache. Without warning, she clouted him hard on the bridge of the nose.

  ‘Emma!’ Letitia scolded, but the reeling Inspector quickly forgave and squeezed her fingers very gently.

  ‘Hold her,’ Letitia said.

  As though handling the most precious Sevres, Lestrade reached out and took the girl. Her neck still smelt the same, though she weighed more than when he’d held her last. He held her to him, closer, tighter. She gurgled and wriggled, then frowned into his face and said with great solemnity, ‘Ga.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘That’s what she calls the cat, Sholto,’ Letitia giggled. ‘We’re strange cattle, us women.’

  ‘No, I mean that.’ He held up a damp left hand from where it had supported little Emma.

  ‘Ah, you’re very lucky,’ Letitia laughed. ‘She doesn’t do that on just anybody, you know. Nanny Balsam!’ And she took the little girl away, to do whatever it is surrogate mothers and nannies do at times like that.

  There was a ripple of applause as Harry Bandicoot strode out in his Eton cap, waving a bat at the crowd, and took his place at the crease.

  Huish Episcopi’s famous – and indeed only – sports commentator, John Arslightly, took up the running over a loud hailer. ‘And it’s Mr Bandicoot in to bat first, ladies and gentlemen. What a lovely action. Such grace – oh, beggin’ your pardon, doctor. What a perfect afternoon we have, ladies and gentlemen, for the sound of leather on willow . . .’

  ‘Uncannily hot.’ Lestrade eased himself down beside William Bellamy, sitting on one of Harry’s wicker chairs before the pavilion where generations of Bandicoots had stretched before him.

  ‘Deuced,’ said Bellamy. ‘What are you in?’

  Something of a spot, Lestrade thought, but he was man enough not to show it. ‘The police,’ he admitted.

  ‘No,’ Bellamy smiled. ‘What number are you batting?’

  ‘Er . . . eleven,’ Lestrade told him. ‘That’s somewhere near the end, isn’t it?’

  Bellamy gave him an odd look.

  ‘Sholto Lestrade.’ The Inspector introduced himself.

  ‘William Bellamy.’ He caught the outstretched hand. ‘Kent.’

  ‘Is this your first visit to Bandicoot Hall, Mr Bellamy?’

  ‘It is. Charming fellow, Mr Bandicoot.’

  ‘He is,’ Lestrade grinned.

  ‘His wife is rather a looker, isn’t she?’

  ‘Letitia?’

  ‘Bless you,’ said Bellamy. ‘Oh, well played.’

  Lestrade had heard Bandicoot’s crack of leather on willow and guessed something must have happened. Harry and another man were running backwards and forwards to the polite clapping of the spectators.

  ‘Not exactly Headingley,’ Bellamy said, ‘but Bandicoot has style.’

  ‘Yes,’ Arslightly was droning, ‘it’s a soft shot down the field. Quite a hard pitch this and there’s plenty of bounce.’

  Lestrade had noticed his man scanning the crowd across the field from him. ‘Looking for someone?’ he asked.

  ‘My sister was supposed to be here,’ he said. ‘At least I wrote to invite her. Perhaps her train has been delayed.’

  ‘Where was she coming from?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘London. She lives in the Walworth Road.’

  ‘Good address,’ Lestrade commented. ‘Isn’t that a little unusual?’

  ‘To live in the Walworth Road? People do.’

  ‘No, no. A woman interested in cricket.’

  Nanny Balsam passed at that moment with the Bandicoot boys in tow. ‘Well, hit the bally thing, man!’ she screamed stentorianly at Bandicoot’s partner. Then she glanced at Lestrade. ‘What do they teach them at school these days?’

  Lestrade was about to search for an answer but the play had carried on and Bandicoot’s partner, chipping for dear life against the deadly momentum of Grace’s bowling, had snuck an easy one into the slips, where Prince Ranjitsinhji was waiting to claim his first victim of the day. The luckless batsman returned under a broiling sun to the patter of appreciative hands.

  ‘Well, there goes batsman number two. Just not his day . . .’ Arslightly’s Mummerset came and went on the breeze.

  ‘Bad luck, Hooch,’ Bellamy called. ‘No, Lestrade. Cricket was a woman’s game in the last century as much as it was a man’s. Emily and I were brought up in the shadow of the Oval. Cricket is in our blood, I suppose. Father and Grandfather both played for Kent in their time.’

  The third batsman took his place at the crease. He’d barely asked for middle and leg when a whistling ball from Grace demolished him and a few of the less genteel members of the crowd began a slow handclap.

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ chuckled Arslightly’s loud hailer. ‘Well, he’ll be cussing himself for not covering himself on that one . . .’

  ‘Bad show, Gotham!’ Bellamy called. ‘This isn’t going too well, Lestrade. Scratting’s in now and we’ve scored three. It’ll be the wooden spoon for us at this rate. What’s your average?’

  ‘Well, I . . .’

  ‘Ah, that’s better.’ Bandicoot had sent one of Grace’s balls out of sight into his own grounds. The deafening shatter of glass told everyone that it had found a greenhouse.

  ‘I hope we have no more of those.’ Nanny Balsam was perambulating back the other way. ‘People with glasshouses shouldn’t hit sixes.’

  For the next hour, Lestrade watched in horrified fascination as Scratting, Cower, Bellamy and all the others fell either to Grace’s bowling or Ranjitsinhji’s fielding. He’d have fallen fast asleep to Arslightly’s commentary if it hadn’t been for the incipient rising terror inside him. At last there was a tap on his shoulder. ‘You’re in, old man. Good luck.’

  Someone had already strapped Lestrade into his pads, noting with a certain apprehension that the Inspector had them on upside-down.

  ‘You might need this,’ Bellamy told him, handing him a saucer-shaped device with a padded edge. ‘W. G. isn’t fast, but he’s devilish accurate.’

  Lestrade took the bat, hopefully at the right end, and crossed to the spot where he assumed he’d have to stand. But Harry Bandicoot was standing there already.

  ‘Other end, Sholto,’ the squire whispered. ‘I’m sorry about this. W. G. is back on form with a vengeance. I’ll do what I can.’

  Lestrade hurried down the pitch to the other end. He took his place as he’d seen the others do.

  ‘Er . . . Mr Lestrade?’ the good doctor called. ‘Could you stand a little to the side, please? You’re rather in my line of fire.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Lestrade stood back. A huge, bearded meteor hurtled past him and the next thing Lestrade knew was Harry Bandicoot yelling ‘One!’ at him. The squire was dashing towards the Inspector and the Inspector dashed in return. He jabbed at the ground with his bat as he had watched the others do and was half-way back when Bandicoot yelled, ‘No, no. That’ll do.’

  Lestrade lunged back for the crease. Now there was an ominous silence. The umpire was peering down the wicket, apparently somewhat annoyed by Lestrade’s stance. W. G. stood, mouth open. Never in thirty years of professional cricket had he seen such a posture. If he weren’t a doctor he’d have thought it anatomically impossible.

  ‘Would you care to put that on,
sir?’ the umpire called to him.

  Lestrade realized the man was referring to the strange padded box that Bellamy had given him. ‘Er . . .’

  ‘I’m sure the ladies will turn their backs.’

  There was an embarrassed cough over Arslightly’s loud hailer, as though the Great Commentator had been goosed.

  Lestrade had no clue where the thing was supposed to go, so in desperation he shoved it down the front of his trousers. The umpire’s outstretched hand came down. Lestrade saw Bandicoot poised like a hawk on a lure (an analogy he’d learned in the case of the Pekinese Falcon) and the good doctor lumbering towards him, rubbing the ball for some reason against his groin. And that in effect was the last thing the Inspector remembered for some time. There was a burst of stars, a scream of ‘’Owzat?!’ a fuzzy ‘Oh dear’ over the loud hailer. And silence.

  ‘WELL, THERE YOU ARE,’ a frosty, corrective voice was saying, ‘if you will play silly mid-on.’

  ‘Thank you, Nanny,’ Lestrade heard Harry Bandicoot say. The tall Etonian seemed to have shrunk. It was only minutes later that Lestrade realized that was because he was sitting down.

  ‘Harry?’

  ‘Sholto? Sholto, are you all right?’

  ‘Urn . . . I’ll let you know, shall I?’

  ‘Look, I’m deucedly sorry, old man.’ A huge bearded doctor was patting the Inspector’s head with something cold and wet. ‘Pop into the surgery in Bristol tomorrow, will you? There might be a slight concussion. There’s this chap Rontgen somewhere in Germany . . .’

  ‘What happened?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Damned if I know,’ Grace told him. ‘Fluke, I suppose.’

  ‘Ah,’ Lestrade let his tortured head fall back, ‘I remember now. The ball hit me on the head.’

  ‘Er . . . well, not exactly,’ Grace said. ‘You missed the ball entirely. In fact, it took out your middle stump. For some reason you just hit yourself on the head with your bat.’

  ‘Shame,’ sneered Nanny Balsam.

  ‘Yes, it was,’ Bandicoot agreed.

  ‘No,’ she corrected him, ‘I mean that’s why he did it. Very common in small children. They’re so ashamed of the dog’s breakfast they’ve just made of something that they mutilate themselves with sheer embarrassment.’