by M. J. Trow
‘Excuse me,’ Lestrade called to the couple sitting under the tree. ‘It’s a devil of a way from the gate. Am I right for the house?’
‘Over the rise,’ the Prince called back. ‘You can’t miss it. Thirty-two bedrooms, Palladian style, copper cupola. Usual thing.’
‘Are you house guests?’ the lady asked, gliding over the lawn towards them.
By now, recognition had dawned on the dusty traveller. ‘Not exactly, ma’am. Your Royal Highness,’ and he nodded in a stiff bow.
‘Good God,’ the Prince chuckled, waddling behind the lady to the drive. ‘You’ve been taking lessons from my nephew. That reminds me, Daisy, the damned whippersnapper is bringing the Meteor to Cowes this year. He’s bound to win the Cup, damn his eyes.’
‘Ssshh, Bertie.’ Daisy motioned towards the traveller. ‘I’m not sure these gentlemen are Edward’s guests.’
‘Allow me to introduce myself, sir. Inspector Sholto Lestrade, Scotland Yard. This is Sergeant Charlo.’
‘Good God,’ said the Prince again. ‘Your husband?’ He turned to Daisy, nudging her with a well-padded elbow.
‘Bertie!’ She rapped his chest with her fan.
‘Wait a minute . . . that name is familiar,’ said the Prince. ‘Haven’t we met?’
‘I am flattered Your Highness remembers me. It was the Commissioner’s Ball, eighteen ninety-one. You and the late Duke were guests of honour.’
‘Aha!’ the Prince roared again. ‘Harlequin!’
‘Correct, sir.’
‘Would you believe it, Daisy, this man was got up as Harlequin. One of old McNaghten’s best men.’ Then, more confidential, ‘I seem to remember you made a fool of my son.’
‘My apologies, sir.’
‘Don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, eh? No, Lestrade, don’t let it bother you. Eddie had his fling. We none of us are masters of our fates, eh? Anyway, if my memory serves me correctly, he was being his usual boorish self, annoying a lady; cracking creature, dark eyes, dark hair . . .’ and he cleared his throat forcefully, having caught Daisy’s eye catching his. A new tack, ‘So who’s this new chappie . . . er . . . Orion Snow?’
‘Nimrod Frost, sir.’
‘Yes, of course. Sorting out the sheep from the goats, eh? Well, new shepherds will. And your case, Lestrade? What brings you to Ladybower?’
‘As ever, sir, I fear I cannot divulge . . .’
‘Oh, quite, quite. But come, Lestrade, your professional advice at least. I’ve heard that some chappie has written some nonsense about tracing cracksmen and the like by the pattern on the end of a man’s fingers. That can’t be true, surely?’
‘There are those who say it is, sir.’
‘What about you, man? Commit yourself.’
To a workhouse, thought Lestrade, no, never again. ‘Let’s just say I shall keep an open mind, sir.’
The Prince roared again. ‘Well, let’s see what old Harnett’s been up to, the dog. I assume you have come to see the master of the house?’
‘We have, sir.’
‘Right, we’ll walk with you. Oh, Lestrade, now that Mr Gladstone has at last persuaded Mama – that’s the Queen, by the way, I think I mentioned her when we last met – to let me see Cabinet papers, I’m a pretty busy chappie. I must be away before dinner on pressing affairs of State. I take it I can leave? I mean, I’m not part of your enquiries?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Good, then you must squire Lady Warwick here this evening.’
Lestrade was a little non-plussed. ‘Your Highness, I . . .’
Daisy Warwick took the detective’s arm. ‘You’re not refusing a royal command?’ she mocked, wide-eyed.
‘Ma’am, I’m hardly dressed for. . .’
‘Oh, Eddie Harnett will have something for you and your chappie here. The truth is, Lestrade, I don’t trust the other old lechers here this weekend. I know Daisy’s safe in the arms of the law. Metaphorically speaking, of course.’
And they walked, Lady Warwick arm in arm with the Prince and the inspector, towards the house. Charlo tagged behind.
MAJOR-GENERAL EDWARD Harnett, Master of Ladybower, sat on the edge of a leather sofa with outstretched arm. He was dressed in his scarlet uniform, dripping with gold, a plumed cocked hat on his head. The only incongruity, apart from the fact that his charger was mere horse-hair, was the glass of Cognac in his rein hand. In front of him, agonising over every stroke and flourish, crouched an artist of the Bohemian set, swathed in smock and beret.
‘I don’t think I can help you, Lestrade,’ the general was saying. ‘I’m sorry old Brown has gone, but I can’t see why this is a police matter – and Scotland Yard at that. Oh, do hurry, Mr Sickert, my arm is killing me. This damned Mameluke is heavy,’ and he twirled the sword wearily.
‘Richard Brown was murdered, sir.’
Sickert’s brush slid inexorably over the canvas, driving scarlet across the general’s moustaches. ‘Is something amiss, Mr Sickert?’
‘Er . . . no, no.’ The artist fumbled with his turpentine substitute, ‘Murders. Violence. Such things bother me.’ He visibly paled.
‘You know where the latrine is, man,’ the general motioned and the artist sped for the door. ‘Sickert by name and Sickert by nature.’ He yawned. ‘Still, it gives me a chance to “dismount”, what? Drink, Lestrade? Charlo?’
‘Not when we’re on duty, sir – but that’s not for an hour or two. Brandy, please.’
‘A glass of water, please,’ said Charlo, and as if to avoid the glances, ‘It’s my stomach, you see.’
‘Brown was murdered?’ Harnett took the weight off his boots. ‘How?’
‘Strychnine.’
‘Poisoning. Good God,’ and Harnett swigged his glass. ‘Why?’
‘I hoped you might tell me, sir. When did you see him last?’
‘God knows. He left me . . . ooh . . . nearly three years ago now. I never really knew why. He seemed happy enough. Perhaps the call of the city. Manchester claimed him.’
‘Did he have any enemies here?’
‘Here? No, I don’t think so. In fact, he was a popular man. Scrupulously honest. He always was, right from way back, in the Crimea.’
‘The Crimea?’
‘Yes, he was my orderly for a time. But then, he was Lord Cardigan’s orderly too – and Colonel Douglas’. A very orderly man, you might say.’
‘His regiment then, sir?’ Lestrade pursued.
‘The Eleventh Hussars, Prince Albert’s Own,’ and Harnett raised his glass in a toast. ‘God love ’em. Tell me, Lestrade, why the death, albeit murder, of a lonely old labourer commands the attention of Scotland Yard? I thought you chaps guarded the Crown Jewels, that sort of thing.’
‘It’s a long story, sir. And I fear I am not at liberty to tell you.’
‘Ah, quite, quite. Anyway, it’s almost dinner time and I must see His Royal Highness to the station. See my man, Burroughs, he’ll kit you both out. I insist you stay for breakfast too; Mrs Carpenter’s kedgeree is legendary.’
One couldn’t say fairer than that.
Dinner was superb. After weeks on hell broth and only a day of London fare before catching a train north again, Lestrade wasn’t sure he was up to it – twelve courses, eyes dazzled by the crested silver, brain seething with the champagne. Charlo declined most of it, devouring what seemed to be large quantities of Carter’s Little Liver Pills. Half the county seemed to be there; ladies in their pearls and diamonds, gentlemen of the Hunt in their elegant black and white. But Sholto Lestrade found himself looking increasingly at his beautiful escort, Daisy, Countess of Warwick. A hostile observer would have found the mouth too hard, the eyebrows too dark, but Lestrade, mellowed by wine and the sparkling conversation, was far from hostile. He forgot, in the course of things, that the tails lent to him by the general were rather too roomy, that his neck swam in the collar like Gladstone’s, an old tortoise reaching for a cabbage leaf, and that the jacket shoulders drooped off his own. It had been a long time
since he had found himself in such company.
He tolerated the exclusion of the ladies after the coffee with a marked reluctance, but Daisy Warwick’s hand lingered longer than was strictly necessary in his. She blew him a kiss with her eyes.
He lit his cigar from the candelabra and made himself as much a part of the conversation as he could. Harnett was reliving the Ashanti War in one corner, surrounded by crimson-faced cronies of the old school. Elsewhere, the old chestnut of Home Rule was being trotted out, if one did trot out chestnuts. Charlo rotated around the room in the opposite direction from Lestrade, avoiding the smoke and keeping, as his guv’nor had suggested, his ear to the ground. And horses dominated the field in other corners. Those buffoons in the Quorn. Who was tipped at Epsom this year? And Goodwood? And in the Prince’s absence, Persimmon was a Shetland pony fit only for the knacker’s yard. Or perhaps a police horse. Lestrade, incognito again, refused to bridle at that.
‘Now Bertie’s gone, we could play baccarat,’ suggested a guest.
‘Damned bad form,’ growled another and flopped back into the champagne fug of his corner.
‘Let’s look at the garden,’ a soft voice whispered in Lestrade’s ear and Daisy, as bored with female company in the next room as he was by male, swept him out on to the balcony.
It was a glorious evening, that one in late July, over the Derwent at Ladybower. And they walked hand in hand over the sun-gilded lawns, the Detective and the lady.
‘Do I shock you, Sholto?’
‘Ma’am?’
‘Oh, come.’ She shook his hand teasingly. ‘You can call me Daisy.’
‘If I may say so, ma’am, we are from different stations, you and I.’
‘Bow Street and Clerkenwell?’ she quipped. Lestrade stifled his smile.
‘Ah, I saw it, Sholto. You almost cracked, then. Seriously, Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard, you won’t compromise your position – or derelict your duty – by calling me Daisy. Just this once.’
She turned and took both his hands in hers, gazing into his eyes. What’s behind them? she wondered. What makes this man? What kind of man becomes an inspector of detectives? What sights have those eyes looked on?
‘Very well. Just this once,’ he said, ‘Daisy.’
She laughed, a bright, tinkling sound that danced with the rose trees down the lawns. ‘You know, dear Bertie thinks the world of you, Sholto. He likes you.’ And then suddenly serious, ‘Isn’t it nice to be liked, Sholto?’
He nodded, unsure of himself, missing the familiarity of danger, the boredom of routine. Walter Dew with his inane grin, his cup of tea at the ready. Sergeant Dixon with his ‘Mind how you go’. Nimrod Frost with his ferret eyes and his wobbling girth. It all seemed an eternity ago. And here he was, a suspended policeman, gazing into the dark, hypnotic eyes of a countess of the realm, on the lawns of Ladybower, eighteen hundred and ninety-three.
‘You knew Eddie?’ she went on.
‘Let’s just say we met.’ He remained cryptic.
‘Tell me, this lady Eddie was annoying at the commissioner’s ball. How did Bertie describe her? Dark hair? Dark eyes? Mrs Lestrade?’
‘No.’ Lestrade straightened. ‘No, there is no Mrs Lestrade.’
Daisy smiled to herself in the dusk. ‘Who was she, Sholto?’
‘Someone,’ he said, fighting down the memory.
‘Someone?’ Her voice was a whisper, her mouth closing towards his chest.
‘Her name was Constance. Constance Mauleverer.’ Daisy stepped back. ‘And you loved her?’
Lestrade nodded.
‘You love her still?’
He did not nod this time, but walked on. ‘I met an old friend of mine recently, Daisy – a young constable I knew when I knew Constance. He said something I shan’t forget. He said “Old ghosts. Better let them lie.”’
‘I wonder if Constance feels that way.’
There was something in the way Daisy said that that made Lestrade catch his breath. He stopped and looked at her. ‘Yes, Sholto. I know Constance Mauleverer. Have you forgotten that my husband is now Earl of Warwick? The Mauleverers lived at Guy’s Cliffe, didn’t they? I remember when Albert Mauleverer was killed. Were you on that case?’ Realisation dawned.
Lestrade nodded. ‘For a time, I thought I’d go back to Guy’s Cliffe.’ he said. ‘Find her. When we parted, it was like losing a part of myself.’
Daisy sat on the cool grass under the Cedar of Lebanon and spread her gown.
‘She’s gone, Sholto. Gone for ever.’
‘Do you know where?’ Lestrade sat beside her.
She looked at him hard. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly, and placed her fingers on his lips to stop the next question. ‘And I’m not going to tell you. Your friend was right, Sholto. Let old ghosts lie.’ And she curled her hand round his neck, drawing him to her.
Their lips met under the boughs of the cedar. From somewhere in the woods a peacock called, echoing across the lawns. Daisy Warwick was an expert at seduction of this type. Her mouth was warm and yielding, her fingers running tantalisingly through the fuzzy crop of hair.
‘For one night, Sholto,’ she whispered, gazing into his eyes, ‘forget Constance.’
‘As you will forget Bertie?’ he asked.
She smiled. ‘I have always thought,’ she said, ‘there are degrees of love. My husband and I are . . . comfortable together,’ and she kissed him again. ‘Conventionally so. Bertie is like . . . a rich old uncle. We don’t . . . well, I’ll leave that to your imagination. He’s a darling, he feels like an old glove, warm, moulded to your hand.’ Her tongue found his in the French manner, to which Lestrade was unused. ‘And there is the degree of a summer night, Sholto, when a man and a woman are thrown together by chance, to enjoy the moment, to enjoy each other. No regrets, no second thoughts, just the moment. . .’ and she sprawled beneath him on the grass, wild with the cool scent of clover and honeysuckle, opening her bodice to his searching fingers.
MRS CARPENTER’S KEDGEREE was as magnificent as Harnett had predicted. Lestrade tucked in with a will and maidservants came and went with clashing tureens. If anyone had seen the figures writhing under the cedars the previous night, they were not letting on. Such servants were used to such sights. Harnett chose them for their discretion. Charlo toyed with a water biscuit.
‘What did you get up to last night?’ Lestrade asked him.
‘Rather less than you, sir, I should imagine.’
Two gentlemen joined them whom they had not noticed at dinner. They were both middle-aged, heavily built, one with a centre parting and a walrus moustache which put Lestrade’s in the shade. They grunted good morning to the policemen, simultaneously stuffed napkins into their cravats and waited in silence while coffee was poured.
‘What’s this?’ one of them grunted to the other, fingering his breakfast.
‘It’s a croissant, you peasant. The circular thing it is resting on is called a plate.’
‘Bumroll,’ and the two men looked up and around in case someone should take umbrage at their conversation.
‘Croissant? That’s French isn’t it? What the hell is it doing at an Englishman’s table?’
‘The word “chauvinist” is French as well, Sullivan, but it fits you like a glove. How can you be such a philistine?’
Lestrade listened with half an ear, but his thoughts still whirled with the events of the night before and his back ached. Sullivan glanced around again, then rapped his spoon savagely on the back of his companion’s hand. Lestrade looked up as the companion jack-knifed in pain, banging his head sharply on the table.
‘Oh, careless, William, careless. You’ll do yourself an injury, dear friend.’
William stared maniacally at his companion, then caught Lestrade looking bemusedly at him, and attempted a chuckle. ‘Yes, silly of me. I . . . er . . . tripped. Allow me to introduce myself, William Gilbert.’
‘The playwright?’ asked Lestrade.
Gilbert bowed.
‘W
illiam Schwenck Gilbert,’ bubbled his companion, and collapsed in fits of mocking laughter.
‘And you, sir?’ asked Lestrade.
‘Sir Arthur Sullivan, at your service.’
‘You sycophantic crawler,’ hissed Gilbert. ‘Why Her Majesty did you the honour of . . .’
‘I am honoured, gentlemen.’ Lestrade finished his coffee.
‘And who might you be, sir?’ Sullivan asked.
‘Sholto Lestrade, of Scotland Yard.’ He saw no reason to hide the fact. ‘This is Sergeant Charlo.’
The playwright and the musician advanced on them, napkins still dangling and sat on either side. ‘The Scotland Yard?’ Gilbert asked him.
‘Well,’ said Lestrade, unsure whether their interest was criminal or architectural, ‘New Scotland Yard.’
‘Have you seen, dear Lestrade, our Pirates of Penzance? Sullivan asked him.
‘Don’t you mean “my” Pirates?’ Gilbert corrected him.
‘Bitch,’ hissed Sullivan.
‘I believe I have,’ Lestrade answered, becoming increasingly edgy in the presence of these two maniacs.
‘Good,’ said Gilbert. ‘Now then. The portrayal of the policemen. Was it fair? Is a policeman’s lot not a happy one? Eh, Charlo? Eh?’
‘Tarantara,’ broke in Sullivan and launched into a stanza, fingers pounding dramatically on the tablecloth. Gilbert looked coldly at him.
‘I believe your sub-title for the piece was “The Slave of Duty”,’ said Charlo.
‘Ah, a fan,’ beamed Gilbert, clasping his hands together poetically.
‘Now that fits a policeman very well,’ said Lestrade.
‘Have you heard my Haddon Hall?’ Sullivan asked.
‘Nobody has,’ snapped Gilbert. ‘Let’s face it, Arthur dear, without me you’re a flop.’
Sullivan leapt to his feet. ‘Flop, am I? You conceited imbecile. You have the talent of that scrambled egg.’
‘Kedgeree,’ said Lestrade and mentally withered as he realised he had entered the colleagues’ quarrel. He had no place there and was about to rise and make his excuses when Edward Harnett entered the room, pale and stern-faced. The bickering ceased as Gilbert and Sullivan noticed the deathly appearance of their host.
