by M. J. Trow
‘What will Letitia say if this gets out?’ Bandicoot wailed.
‘Not half as much as if we don’t get out. Come on. Remind me you were an Eton boxing champion,’ and he dashed off along the corridor.
‘’Ere, I want a word with you,’ called a uniformed constable. Bandicoot planted a straight left on his nose and the constable crumpled. A second sprang at him, truncheon raised. Bandicoot ducked aside, threw the constable against a wall and tripped up a third.
‘That’s the way,’ shouted Lestrade. ‘Not bad for a beginner,’ and began to check the rooms one by one while Bandicoot, like a latter-day Horatius, kept the landing so well. The first two rooms were empty, but the third caught the attention of the hastening Lestrade for longer than he intended. A tall, distinguished-looking gentleman was sitting, fully clothed, talking on the telephone. It was obvious he was wearing a false beard and his conversation was not of the ordinary.
‘And then what would you do, Fifi?’ His voice was strained and his eyes bulging. Lestrade noted that the wires ran through a hole in the wall, presumably to an adjacent room.
‘Fifi, what then? I am desperate.’
A semi-naked girl wearing headphones rushed past Lestrade.
‘I believe your telephonist has gone,’ said Lestrade. The tall man dropped the apparatus and leapt to his feet. In doing so, his beard fell off at his feet.
‘Why, Mr Chamberlain,’ smiled Lestrade, ‘I didn’t recognise you without your monocle,’ and the tall man swept past him into the battle-ground below.
‘Hurry, Lestrade. Er . . . I mean Inspector Jones. Er . . . I mean . . . oh, God?’ Bandicoot was valiantly fending off punch, kick and club alike. He could not hold out for ever. One of his wrists was handcuffed already. At the end of the passage, the lights had gone out, but Lestrade recognised the accent in the eighth room he tried.
‘Ah, chéries. Vous êtes merveilleuse. Merci, mes petites. A bientôt,’ and the Head of the Sûreté backed into Lestrade. In a flash, the pistol was against the inspector’s nose, or what was left of it.
‘Oh, Jones. Eet ees you. Not your idea of un petit joke this, uh?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Lestrade. ‘If my memory serves me correctly, there is a fire escape here somewhere. I would like to talk further with you, Monsieur Goron. Will you wait in the street below while I bail out our friend?’
Goron tugged on his evening jacket and with an agility astonishing in a man his age, and bearing in mind his activities for the last few minutes, leapt out of the fire escape. Celeste and Angeline emerged, staggering uncertainly from the darkened room.
‘Eh, hinnie, he’s one hell of a goer, that one.’
‘Aye, chuck. You can say that again. They’re a’ the same, these bloody coppers!’
Lestrade realised the odds at the end of the corridor were lengthening, so he searched around frantically for assistance. If only he hadn’t left his trusty knuckle-duster and switch-blade in his room at the Grand. He ought to have known better, going to Fatima’s of a Saturday night. What came to hand, however, was every bit as useful – a chamberpot. He threw the contents at the first constable and clanged a second across the head with it.
‘Come on, Bandicoot. Anybody would think you were enjoying yourself. Get out of it, lad,’ and he kicked another attacker in the pit of the stomach. For a split second, he recognised the plain-clothes figure making up the stairs through the jostling mass of bodies – Edgar Bradstreet, Gregson’s man. What was he doing in a routine raid by the Metropolitan Police? Bradstreet had time too, to recognise Lestrade as the inspector flung the chamberpot, pretty with pink flowers, and followed Bandicoot into the darkness of the fire escape and the night.
LESTRADE’S SUPERLATIVE knowledge of the streets enabled the three respectable fugitives to dodge the crowds of ladies of ill repute, shame-faced clients busily waving bundles of notes at policemen and the scattering Saturday-night crowds, drawn like flies to a corpse to the noise and scandal of the Haymarket. The name of Fatima would resound in many a magistrates’ court on Monday morning and would meet the furious gaze of many a wife across the breakfast table from a nervous, sweating husband. It was the way of the world. It was what made the nineties naughty. As dawn broke, pearly and hot as ever over the sleeping city, three policemen, one foreign, one suspended, one retired, sat in the rooms of the Grand Hotel, sipping champagne. It had been Goron’s first request as he arrived with the exhausted Bandicoot and Lestrade at their rooms. Now, as they recovered, the Frenchman once again produced his pocket pistol and held it generally at Lestrade’s head.
‘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 frow
ned 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 ❖
T
his 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 bl
ack 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?’
