Brigade: The Further Adventures of Inspector Lestrade (16 page)

‘Now all ze shouting is over,’ he said, ‘why don’t you tell me who you really are?’

Lestrade held up a calming hand to prevent Bandicoot repeating his calamitous attempt of earlier in the evening.

‘I told you,’ Lestrade stuck to his story, ‘I am Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard.’

‘You are not, M’sieur, unless of course you have lost five or six stones and had your face radically altered – since yesterday.’

Lestrade and Bandicoot exchanged glances.

‘You see, I met Athelney Jones yesterday. Indeed, I met all Nimrod Frost’s
inspecteurs
- except one. And now I believe I have met him too.’

‘Has Nimrod Frost offered you a job at the Yard yet?’ Lestrade asked, bemused. ‘I think we have need of you.’

‘Ha, ha.’ Goron once again put up his pistol, this time in the more conventional holster of his waistcoat pocket. ‘You would not approve of my methods. Mind you, having seen you in action wiz a chambre pot as I left Fatima’s last night, there is ’ope for you British bobbies yet. Now, Inspecteur Le Strade, as one Frenchman to annuzzer, what do you wish to know about Puppy?’

‘Puppy?’ repeated Bandicoot, wondering if they were talking about a missing pet.

‘Coleraine Robert Vansittart; Puppy to his friends.’

‘A curious nickname,’ commented Lestrade.

‘Not if you ’ad seem ’im, Le Strade. He was long and thin wiz a red-gold beard. ’E was a crack shot, a founder member of the
Tir au Pigeon
. ’E was greatly respected in Parisian society. A personal friend of Prince Achille Murat and,’ he leaned closer, confidential, ‘Napoléon III.’

‘His death?’

‘Natural causes. He died in bed, in his rooms in La Rue Vernet. Spacious, comfort. It comes to us all, mon vieux.’

‘But to some of us earlier than others,’ was Lestrade’s comment.

‘Puppy ’ad a full life. Funny ’e never married.’

‘You mean …?’

‘
Un pédéraste
?
Non
, there was nothing odd about Vansittart. But …’

‘Yes?’

‘There was something strange about ’im. I ’ad a feeling ’e was on ze – how do you say it – fringe of something.’

‘Something?’ echoed Lestrade.

‘Ah, non, Inspecteur. You and I are too old hands to deal in speculation. Let’s just say ’e was a … uh … deep one.’

‘Do you know anything of his early life? In the British Army?’

‘I believe ’e ’ad been a lieutenant in the Elevent’ Huzzards. His country seat was in le departement … er … county of Berkshire, but I believe ’e ’ad no family of which to speak.’

Lestrade slumped in the chair.

‘A wall of bricks, Inspecteur?’

Lestrade nodded.

‘Je regrets. But now, you can do something for me. Jews. Do you have a problem wiz zem ’ere?’

‘Not unduly,’ said Lestrade. ‘There were those who thought Jack the Ripper was a Jew – a slaughterman.’

‘Ah, oui. The apron of leather.’

‘You are remarkably well informed,’ said Lestrade. ‘That case was five years ago.’

‘Ah, but what a case. I also know a great deal about your Adelaide Bartlett …’

Don’t you mean
your
Adelaide Bartlett? thought Lestrade.

‘And your Charles Hurrah.’

Lestrade frowned for a moment. Bandicoot was completely out of his depth. ‘I think that’s Bravo,’ the inspector corrected him.

‘Oh, no, it is nothing really,’ Goron swaggered. ‘But we ’ave ze serious Jewish problem. Ze army, in particular. There is one little Yeed I am after. An insignificant captain of artillerie named Dreyfus. What about scientists? Do you trust zem?’

‘Well, I …’

‘Oh, don’t misunderstand me. Some of the best gadgets in my Cookshop have been invented by scientists. Madame Guillotine, of course, so preferable to your English drop. And the father of forensic science is a Frenchman, Bertillon. But there are others I do not trust. Anarchists. Socialists …’

Lestrade had heard this somewhere else.

‘I ’ave my eyes on les frères Curie of the Sorbonne. Now, there is a ’otbed of anarchie if ever there was one. Do you ’ave a similar place?’

‘The House of Commons,’ said Lestrade, and finished his champagne.

Lestrade was entirely grateful that Goron had announced that he would be collecting the bill for breakfast. It, both bill and breakfast in fact, was immense and the policemen, British and foreign, spent over an hour regaling each other with celebrated cases and the problems of the modern police force. There were times when Bandicoot might as well have been the aspidistra in the corner for all he was able to add to the conversation. When it came to the food, however, it was Lestrade’s turn to take a back seat. He felt sure that Arthur Sullivan would not have approved of the range of
haute cuisine
before him, little of which Lestrade had seen before, and none of which he could pronounce. The more cosmopolitan Bandicoot sampled with relish – Gentleman’s, of course. The only thing Lestrade felt safe with was the coffee and he confined himself to that.

The dining-room clock at the Grand had just struck ten when it happened. Goron’s face seemed to turn the colour of the rainbow in the space of seconds. He choked, tugging at his starched collar, and pitched forward, his nose burying itself in the confiture. The buzz of conversation around the room stopped and as Lestrade reached out to help him, Bandicoot slumped sideways from his chair, dragging the tablecloth and most of its clutter to the floor.

‘Get an ambulance!’ Lestrade roared, desperately lying both men on their backs and loosening their clothing. Ladies were hurried from the room. The
maître d’hôtel
shepherded them to the swing doors and did his best to form a human screen between them and the collapsed men.

‘What is it, Inspector Jones?’ He scuttled back to the scene.

‘Looks like beriberi to me,’ a red-faced man pronounced.

‘Are you a doctor?’ Lestrade snapped at him.

‘Well … no, but I’ve spent years in the tropics. I know beri …’

‘Thank you, sir. I will wait for an informed opinion.’

Under the snapping fingers of the
maitre d’hôtel
, waitresses and waiters swarmed everywhere, beginning to clear the debris. ‘Leave it!’ commanded Lestrade. ‘Nothing is to be touched.’

‘Sir,’ began the
maitre d’hôtel
, ‘I hope you don’t think … That is, the food …’

‘Gangway! Gangway! Let me through there. I’m a doctor.’ A rubicund gentleman, clearly staying at the Grand by virtue of his still being in pyjamas and dressing gown, threw down his professional bag at Bandicoot’s side and looked at the casualties. ‘Dead?’ he asked Lestrade.

‘No, but that was the intention, I think.’

The doctor checked pulses and eyeballs. ‘Are these gentlemen guests at the hotel?’

Lestrade nodded.

‘We must get them to their beds. You men, lend a hand.’

While the doctor supervised with the
maitre d’hôtel
the removal of Goron and Bandicoot to Bandicoot’s rooms, Lestrade had the remains of the breakfast collected for him and placed in the kitchens. He bombarded the entire staff with questions for nearly twenty minutes, despite the entreaties of the
maitre d’hôtel
to allow his people to continue their duties. Luncheon after all was not long away.

‘If either of those men dies,’ Lestrade rounded on him, ‘this hotel will not be serving luncheon or any other meal again. That much I can guarantee.’

Lestrade had just come to the conclusion that nothing else could be wheedled out of the array of cooks and bottle washers, when one of them mentioned a new man. A temporary he was. Filling in for Smithers who had the flutters. I know a policeman with that problem, thought Lestrade. No. He wasn’t still there. He had gone. Odd that. Not particularly, thought Lestrade. What had been his duties? Preparing the preserves and confitures.

Lestrade fled the kitchen as if his tail was on fire. Into the ante-room where the breakfast remains still lay. He dipped a tentative finger into the nearest preserve. No taste other than cherries. He tried a second. Then a third. He stopped at the third. The smell of almonds.

‘What sort of jam is this?’ he asked the
maitre d’hôtel
.

‘No sort of jam at all, sir.’ The
maitre d’hôtel
was desperately attempting to regain something of his dignity after the bewildering events of the morning. ‘It is apricot preserve.’

‘And do you put almonds in your apricot preserve?’

The
maitre d’hôtel
looked puzzled and whispered to the chef beside him. The little white-hatted man shook his head. ‘No.’ The
maitre d’hôtel
was authoritative.

‘Just apricots and cyanide?’

‘Precisely,’ and the
maitre d’hôtel
’s mouth fell slack at the realisation of his admission. ‘Er … that is … I …’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Lestrade. ‘Your secret is safe with me.’

He was there when Bandicoot came round, a little before Goron. Both men were a little pale, a little weak, a little prone to making staggering visits to the bathroom to rid themselves of what was left of their breakfast and the doctor’s emetic.

‘I can only apologise, gentlemen,’ said the inspector. ‘Your discomfort was caused by cyanide jam. And it was almost certainly intended for me.’

‘Scientists. You see what I mean?’ Goron reminded him.

‘You may be right, Monsieur Goron, but we have a game in England called Hunt the Thimble. One child hides the thimble. The others look for it. When a child approaches the hidden object, the hider calls out “You’re getting warm”. And that is what this morning proves. I’m getting warm.’

The Back of Beyond

This time Jacob wrote his letter. Family affair or not, the matter was now beyond his control. He wrote it down, all of it. All he knew. The whole black, bloody mess. And he knew this time exactly where the letter must go. He addressed it to Inspector Sholto Lestrade, New Scotland Yard. He would do something now. Now he had the facts, Lestrade would act.

The inspector had been in the back of beyond before. This time it was called Bishop’s Castle, in the county of Salop and, having left the comparative civilisation of the Shrewsbury-bound train, he had to resort to pony and trap for the last leg of his journey. Through the flies and cow dung of the late summer hurtled Lestrade. He made enquiries in the town with its steep cobbled streets and taking a chance that the Shropshire Constabulary would not be familiar with the pattern of suspensions at the Yard, used his own name. A family called Hope, he was told, had a farm out Cefn-Einion way, on the lower slopes of Offa’s Dyke. Lestrade had to ask for several repetitions of this, because the constable seemed to have a peg jammed on his nose and to talk as though his cheeks were full of cotton-wool – that is when he had finally abandoned his native Welsh for something that Lestrade vaguely understood. Lestrade in turn found himself shouting monosyllables at the constable as though he were the village idiot. It didn’t help. And wasn’t it just his luck that the Hope farm should be on the Welsh, and not the English side of this border county?

The first glimpse of a Hope that he caught was a switch flying erratically into the air behind a small herd of Friesians winding their way homeward o’er the lea. Not that they were Friesians to Lestrade. In fact, they closely resembled black and white cows. The one at the front, with the rolling pink eye didn’t look at all friendly, however. And it wasn’t until Lestrade took in the bulk of the beast, its stamping hoof and tossing head in the fierce afternoon sun that he became aware of its sex. Surprisingly for a man who had seen it all and been everywhere, it was not until the animal had shouldered aside his flimsy trap that Lestrade was aware of its masculinity, sweeping nearly to the ground. By that time, he was wrestling manfully with the reins as his pony bucked and shied, unaware in its blinkers of the size of the problem.

‘You silly ut!’ screamed a voice. The switch emerged from the rear of the milling cattle to reveal at its other end a short square woman, in drab blouse and apron, hair strained back in a bun. She swung back a chubby fist and hit the bull firmly on its ringed nose. The animal snorted and waddled off a little sheepishly.

‘Sorry about that.’ The cowherd shielded her eyes from the sun. She waited for Lestrade, dusty and sweating in his suit and bowler, to calm the horse.

‘I’m looking for the farm of Mr Hope,’ said Lestrade.

‘Oh, English you are, is it? I’m Mrs Hope. It’s Will you’ve come to see, is it?’

Lestrade looked blank.

‘My husband, Will,’ Mrs Hope prompted him.

‘No, actually, I was looking for Henry Hope,’ he answered.

Mrs Hope’s face fell. ‘Duw, I’m afraid you might be too late. Gransha’s at death’s door. That’s why I’m out yer with the animals. Will’s with his Tâd. What do you want Gransha for? ’E ’aven’t done nothin’ wrong, ’ave he?’

‘No, Mrs Hope. My name is Lestrade; Inspector Lestrade, Scotland Yard.’

‘Well, I never!’ Mrs Hope climbed up beside him, leaving him to ponder all the way down the hill what it was she never did.

They reached, in the fullness of time, behind the plodding cows, a little thatched cottage. The sun dazzled on its whitewashed walls and the hollyhocks completed the picture of rustic idyll. Only the flagstone floors betrayed its dampness and the only sound within it was the rattle of a dying man.

‘Gransha,’ Mrs Hope called loudly to the bearded old gentleman propped up on his pillows. ‘There’s a gentleman to see you – a policeman.’

Two younger men, in leather gaiters and bowler hats, sleeves rolled up for the harvest, stepped aside at the word ‘policeman’, rather than at Lestrade’s entrance.

‘I am sorry to intrude,’ he said to them all, ‘but I must ask Mr Hope some questions. It may be a matter of life or death.’

‘Aye, his,’ one of the men mumbled.

‘This is Will,’ Mrs Hope said, as though by way of an apology. ‘Don’t mind him. Ask away. Oh, he’s gone again,’ and she leaned over, tenderly slapping the old man’s cheeks as he lay, pale and silent. ‘He goes like this now and again,’ she explained; ‘the falling sickness, see. ’E’ve always had it. ’Aven’t he, Will?’

‘Aye.’ Will was clearly a master of wit and repartee.

‘Can we help, Mr Lestrade?’ she asked.

But with that, the old man stirred.

‘Oh, ’e’s back with us,’ and she shook him gently, motioning Lestrade forward as she did so. ‘This is Inspector Lestrade, Gransha, from Scotland Yard. London, you know. ’E wants to ask you something.’

The old man muttered something incomprehensible, probably in the nasal Welsh dialect of the district which had so thrown Lestrade before.

‘I understand you were once in the Eleventh Hussars,’ said Lestrade. No response. He repeated himself, talking more loudly.

‘No need to shout, I’m not bloody deaf, mun,’ growled the elder Hope. ‘Yes, I was in the Eleventh Hussars. And I rode the Charge of the Light Brigade.’ He struggled upright in his bed at the remembrance of it. ‘And the Heavy Brigade too.’

Lestrade looked for confirmation at Mrs Hope.

‘Oh, yes, he rode in both Charges, all right. The only one to do it, mind.’

‘I was in the guardhouse, see,’ Henry Hope wheezed, ‘on the mornin’ of Balaclava. Well, seein’ all the activity goin’ on, and no guards about, I just walked out of the hut and grabbed the nearest ’orse. I felt a silly bugger, mind, the only Hussar in all them Heavies – and on a trooper of the Greys, isn’t it? But I galloped with them into the Russians. Too late to turn back, see, by then. Of course, when I got back, my boys were formed up for the ride and old Loy Smith would ’ave ’ad my guts if I ’adn’t been there. Afterwards, Lord Cardigan ’isself let me off my charge – I was asleep on duty – well, it was the fits, see,’ and he collapsed in a paroxysm of coughing. His family clucked round him and Lestrade recognised in the greyness of the face all the tell-tale signs. With less than his usual respect for death, he persisted.

‘Think back to the old days, Henry. To the Crimea.’

‘Leave ’im alone, mun!’ bellowed Will, reaching the heights of articulacy.

‘Don’t call Will on your father!’ barked the old man, with one of those magnificent pieces of Welsh rhetoric utterly lost on Lestrade. ‘I pawned my bloody medal years ago,’ old Henry moaned.

‘Do you remember Jim Hodges?’ Lestrade knelt beside the old man, his bowler awry, his hand gripping the old man’s.

‘Aye.’

‘What about Richard Brown? Joe Towers? Bill Bentley?’

Nothing.

‘Think, Henry, think,’ hissed Lestrade. And, with the desperation of a drowning man, ‘There’s not much time.’

Henry Hope looked up at Lestrade. His eyes widened in realisation of what the younger man meant.

‘Aye, I remember them all. All F Troop.’

‘They’re dead, Henry. Murdered. All of them. So’s Bill Lamb. Do you remember him?’

‘Murdered?’ The old man tried to sit up. Lestrade cradled his head.

‘Why, Henry, why? Why should all your old messmates die?’

‘Ask Miss Nightingale,’ he said. ‘The Lady of the Lamp we called her. She can tell you …’ He fell back.

‘Henry …’ Lestrade called to him.

‘Can’t you see he’s dying, mun?’ Will snarled.

Lestrade ignored him. ‘Henry, why? Why Miss Nightingale?’

‘Surgeon …’ gasped Henry.

‘’E wants a doctor. Where is the old bugger?’ Will snapped, whirling to the tiny window and back.

Henry shook his head. ‘Kill … Cro … Kill …’ and he faded away.

Lestrade let the cold hand fall and laid it gently across the old man’s chest.

Will and the other man loomed over him, threatening, bewildered at his intrusion and their sense of loss. It was Mrs Hope who intervened. ‘What’s done is done, Will,’ she said. ‘Twm. Find the doctor. Make yourself useful,’ and slowly the other man shambled out. She saw Lestrade to the waiting trap.

‘My condolences, ma’am,’ said the inspector. There was really nothing else he could say.

‘Was it any help, Inspector – what Gransha said?’

‘I don’t know, Mrs Hope. Perhaps only time will tell us that,’ and he drove away from the white walled cottage, over the edge of Offa’s Dyke and away to the north east.

They met as arranged before the altar in the north west transept. Two gentlemen, enjoying the sun of September and the cold stone of their mediaeval heritage in the double cruciform pile of Canterbury.

‘They found Becket’s bones in the crypt five years ago,’ Charlo informed Lestrade, as though a local antiquary was exhibiting his knowledge for a visiting tourist.

‘Foul play, I understand?’ Lestrade could not resist treading on professional ground, even when pretending to passers-by to be an innocent abroad.

Shop again, thought Charlo, but to be fair that was exactly why he had come to Canterbury.

‘I got the preserve you left with Bandicoot,’ Charlo whispered out of the corner of his mouth as they moved towards the crypt.

‘I would love to see the Huguenot Chapel,’ Lestrade said, for consumption of the passing public. ‘And?’ His voice fell to a whisper.

‘You were right. I had it analysed by a chemist friend of mine. Cyanide.’

‘It’s high time the Yard had laboratories of its own,’ was Lestrade’s comment. ‘What news of the Establishment?’

‘We’ve been ordered to take you in for questioning, sir, if you don’t attend your hearing today.’

‘You’ve got no nearer to Frost, then?’

‘You must remember, sir, I’m only a sergeant. I’m afraid the assistant commissioner doesn’t take me into his confidence.’

‘Point taken. What about Gregson?’

‘The gossip is he’s still convinced you tried to kill the Kaiser. Do you think he’s sane?’

‘Gregson or the Kaiser?’

‘Take your pick,’ said Charlo, as they descended into the crypt. It was dark here and colder than the nave.

‘How is Bandicoot?’ Lestrade asked.

‘Well, when I saw him.’

‘And Goron?’

‘Gone home. He didn’t appear to bear any grudge.’

‘Do you know if he said anything to Frost – about me, I mean?’

Charlo shrugged. ‘Why did you want me to meet you here, sir?’ The sergeant was positively shivering.

‘Well, I might have His Grace the Archbishop on my list of suspects, but in fact we have to look up some records. Coming?’

The short-sighted young officer yawned and shook himself. He looked at the date on the calendar – September 26th. He crossed to the litter bin, stumbling over something, and began to sharpen pencils. The something he had tripped over, a floor-coloured Irish wolfhound, growled resignedly.

‘Come in.’ There was nothing wrong with the officer’s hearing and there had definitely been a knock at the door.

‘Inspector Athelney Jones, Scotland Yard, to see you, sir.’ The corporal saluted briskly. The officer adjusted his thick-lensed glasses and peered around the door, tripping over the dog again on his return to the desk. ‘Sorry, Paddy,’ he had the courtesy to apologise.

Lestrade entered. ‘I was looking for the adjutant of the Eleventh Hussars,’ he said.

‘You’ve found him.’ The officer extended a hand, missing Lestrade’s by several inches. ‘Charles Davenport … the Honourable.’

‘Athelney Jones, the Quite Ordinary. This is Sergeant Charlo.’ Lestrade caught the searching hand. Davenport waved vaguely at the wall somewhere in front of which he assumed the sergeant was standing.

‘I’m afraid you’ve missed the others,’ he said. ‘They’re all out.’

‘Out?’

‘Yes, in India, in fact. We have a skeleton staff here and I’m it. How can I help you?’ Davenport squinted through gritted teeth. Lestrade realised he’d have no problem with his subterfuge here. Athelney Jones could have been Davenport’s Siamese twin and he wouldn’t have recognised him.

‘I am making certain enquiries into the deaths of five men who were all formerly members of your regiment. I wonder if I might see your roster books from the eighteen-fifties?’