Lestrade and the Brigade

by M. J. Trow

  Lestrade looked over his glasses at Beeson, a particularly unprepossessing sack of potatoes galloping to nowhere on a sofa.

  ‘Quite,’ he said.

  ‘Since then I’ve never really looked back. Don’t move!’ she suddenly snapped at Beastie, who froze in terror, though his right buttock was totally numb.

  ‘I particularly like your Balaclava paintings,’ Lestrade was worming his way to the matter-in-hand.

  ‘Ah, “After the Charge”? Yes, one of my favourites too.’

  ‘Did Beastie – did Benjamin sit for that too?’

  ‘No, no. But a number of the Light Brigade did. Mr Beeson, could you refrain from doing that?’ Lestrade turned too late to see what it was. ‘Mr Pennington, the actor, for instance. He was a lovely sitter.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Yes, Poppy Vansittart. I asked if he’d mind appearing as a private soldier rather than an officer. Dear old Poppy. He understood.’

  ‘But he didn’t ride the Charge, mum,’ Beeson commented.

  ‘Neither were you at Waterloo,’ glared Lady Butler, rapidly losing patience with her latest sitter. Then, acidly, ‘Were you?’

  ‘Vansittart?’ Lestrade brought her back to the subject other than Beastie.

  ‘Yes, that was rather odd, actually.’

  ‘Odd?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Yes. You see, I also used photographs of survivors of the Charge. When Poppy saw one of them, he tore it up. When I asked him why, he said, “He was never there. He never rode the Charge. You cannot use him. Let’s just say it would have been better had he never existed!” Odd.’

  ‘But our mutual friend has just said that Vansittart never rode the Charge either.’

  ‘Quite. And really, it didn’t matter that much. I wonder who he was, the man in the photograph he tore up?’

  ‘He was a murderer, ma’am,’ said Lestrade, without the accent. And left the room, leaving Beastie to sort that one out.

  HE OPENED THE LETTER with Lestrade’s paper knife and began to chuckle at the contents. Yes, it was all there.

  My dear Inspector Lestrade,

  It has been some weeks since I wrote to you concerning my brother. I have received no reply and must urge upon you again the need for immediate action. You cannot know how grave is the danger.

  The tale was spelt out, as far as the writer knew it. It was signed ‘Jacob’.

  His mood darkened for a moment, then he tore up the letter, throwing the pieces carelessly into the nearest waste basket.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t expect to see you in here. Anything for me today?’

  He chuckled. ‘No, Dew. Nothing today.’

  ❖ Mad Houses ❖

  C

  onspiracies, thought Lestrade. Everywhere he went. Conspiracies. As Rabbi Izzlebit he wore more make-up than the witches on stage. The thunder roared through the crowded theatre, howling winds screamed round the proscenium. In the savage green-yellow of the lime lights, the weird sisters cavorted and twirled. A drum, a drum. Henry Irving doth come. The audience broke the dramatic impact of the blasted heath by applauding rapturously at the princely appearance of the man. He stood centre-stage, tall and imposing, dragging his leg as he always did on stage, sweeping his cloak around him. He spoke slowly, deliberately, in that strange, weak voice of his. This was the last night of the run. He had delayed his American tour just to appear before his beloved admirers. It was they who packed the house to overflowing and one of them had been reluctant to give up his seat to the culture-hungry rabbi from York, who just had to watch Irving’s last night. It had cost him three pounds, leaving a vast hole in Lestrade’s pitifully limited funds.

  It was not of course Irving that Lestrade had come to see at all. He wondered why people looked at him oddly when, to appear at one with the adulators, he had whistled and stamped and cried ‘Author! Author!’ Obviously he was overdoing it. That was not how rabbis behaved. He was more restrained during the rest of the play, largely because he was asleep. He remained awake, however, long enough to catch sight of his quarry – King Duncan. It wasn’t only the Macbeths who were after him. Lestrade wanted a brief word too. The old king was suitably regal and suitably trusting as he all-unwittingly entered Macbeth’s castle. Was the man under the disguise, William Henry Pennington, as naive as the character he portrayed? Time would tell.

  Perhaps it was Lestrade’s seventeen years on the Force. Perhaps it was a gut reaction born of instinct and that indefinable sixth sense which makes a great policeman. Perhaps it was the accidental prod in the vitals from the umbrella of the old lady beside him. Whatever it was, something woke him in time to witness Shakespeare’s characterisation of murderers. He found his interest growing in spite of himself. They were professionals, paid killers. But they bungled it. Crime never pays, Lestrade reminded himself. Ah, if only that were true. This Shakespeare fellow knew nothing about the criminal classes. As for this witchcraft rubbish . . .

  Lestrade toyed with going backstage as soon as it was apparent that Duncan was dead. Another killing offstage. What were the public paying their money for? But he thought better of it.

  Hats and gloves shot into the air and the atmosphere was electric with applause as Macduff rounded off the play. All this and a happy ending too, thought Lestrade. But he still preferred Mother Goose. The cast assembled before the velvet curtains in reverse order of importance. Pennington had solid applause, but the most deafening rapture was, of course, reserved for Irving. He stood in the lime light, where he always wanted to be, proud, lonely and self-centred. A ham of hams.

  Backstage, the Lyceum was a maze of corridors, doors and fire escapes. A wonderland of tinselled costumes, wooden props and painted backdrops. Lestrade walked into or tripped over most of them in his hurried search for two things. First, a room in which to change his rabbi suit and second, the dressing room of William Pennington. The place was crawling with admirers, dashing hither and thither with autograph books. Stage-hands and theatre attendants were everywhere. Lestrade kept one hand firmly on his wallet, deep in the long pockets of his long coat. The other he clamped permanently on his right temple as the heat of the sulphur lamps and the hot air spouted by Irving had conspired to unhinge his false beard.

  Intent as he was on all this, he did not notice the large woman with the huge, ostrich-feathered hat, although probably the man sitting behind her all night had. She and the rabbi collapsed in an undignified heap on the floor.

  ‘Letitia, are you all right?’

  Lestrade fumbled for his thick-lensed spectacles immediately, but was too late. ‘Sholto!’

  Well, the name sounds Jewish enough, Lestrade hoped. For the second time in a few months he was denying any knowledge of Mr Bandicoot.

  ‘Oh come, Sholto. You can’t wriggle out of it this time.’

  After what seemed an eternity of Lestrade contorting his face and flapping his hands in incomprehensible gestures, Bandicoot lowered his voice. ‘What are you doing here?’ he hissed. ‘And disguised as a Jehovah’s Witness?’

  ‘May I remind you,’ Lestrade fumed through clenched teeth, ‘that I am still under suspension. And, indeed, a wanted man.’

  ‘Wanted?’ Mr and Mrs Bandicoot chorused.

  Lestrade flattened himself against a stack of halberds, which instantly crashed noisily to the floor, thereby attracting far more attention than the Bandicoots’ simultaneous outcry.

  ‘From where I’m standing,’ hissed Lestrade, ‘everybody in London seems to know I’m a wanted man. Where have you been, Bandicoot?’

  ‘The south of France,’ Bandicoot answered. ‘On our honeymoon, Sholto,’ and he pulled the former Mrs Lawrenson closer to him.

  Lestrade felt suitably embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Mrs Bandicoot, please forgive me.’

  ‘There is nothing to forgive, Sholto. We understand. And we were sorry not to see you at the wedding.’

  ‘Under the circumstances, ma’am, I felt it best to stay away. Can you imagine the
scene? You and Harry poised before the altar and me being carried away by four burly coppers? It would have hardly made your day. Are you recovered, Harry?’

  ‘That’s rather indelicate, Sholto,’ Bandicoot answered.

  ‘From the cyanide, man!’

  Letitia reached out and kissed Lestrade tenderly on the cheek, her lips smeared now with his running make-up. ‘How can we help?’ asked Bandicoot.

  ‘You have the knack of turning up at theatres and circuses and such,’ grinned Lestrade, remembering the New Year of 1892 at Hengler’s. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve brought your trusty brace of pistols.’

  ‘’Fraid not, Sholto.’ Bandicoot actually looked apologetic. ‘We were breaking our honeymoon to see Henry before his American tour. Wasn’t he marvellous?’

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘Letitia’s known him for years. Haven’t you, Letitia?’

  ‘We were going to see him now. That’s when we . . . ran into you, so to speak,’ the new Mrs Bandicoot added.

  ‘I’m looking for Pennington.’

  ‘Yes, he was good, wasn’t he?’ beamed Bandicoot.

  ‘Somehow, Harry, I don’t think the inspector wants to offer Mr Pennington his congratulations. They’ll all be together, Sholto,’ said Letitia. ‘There are usually parties after a run. Come with us,’ and she led the way.

  ‘We could use her on the Force,’ Lestrade told Bandicoot as Letitia unerringly found the right door. The actors were still in costume and the air was thick with the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd. A cigar looked incongruous protruding from the bloody lips of Banquo and the witches were busy downing liquid of a clear, sparkling consistency, far different from the gruel, thick and slab, they had been concocting all night.

  ‘Lettie, darling,’ Lady Macbeth hugged Mrs Bandicoot and when introduced to Harry hugged him as well. She declined to follow suit with the unsavoury-looking Jewish gentleman with them, particularly as his beard was peeling off at one side.

  ‘Er . . . this is . . .’ Letitia was lost for words.

  ‘Rabbi Izzlebit.’ Lestrade nodded and bobbed as he assumed rabbis did when they were introduced to people, but it didn’t matter; he couldn’t make himself heard above the noise, anyway.

  ‘Lettie, darling.’ A moustachioed man in evening suit hugged Mrs Bandicoot too, and shook hands heartily with Harry. He was content to nod to the rabbi.

  ‘May I introduce Bram Stoker?’ Letitia said. ‘Henry’s manager and a very dear friend.’

  ‘Lettie, darling.’ Macbeth whirled cloak and arm in a magnificent theatrical gesture. He bowed low, kissed her hand and pulled her to him as though to break into a gallop.

  ‘Mr Henry Irving, my husband, Harry.’

  Irving stamped his feet, pirouetted once and took Bandicoot’s hand between both of his. ‘My dear boy. You are a lucky man. A lucky man.’ His voice was as odd and camp offstage as it was on. ‘Ah, if only I were fifteen years younger.

  ‘Twenty-five’ corrected Stoker, sipping his champagne with the deadliness of a viper.

  ‘My dear fellow.’ Irving tripped across to Lestrade, ignoring his manager entirely. ‘Where are you running?’

  ‘I’m sorry . . .’ Lestrade lisped, not following the Great Man at all.

  ‘Don’t apologise, dear boy. Rushed over here still in make-up to see me. Entirely understandable. Entirely. What did you think? Come now. Candidly. How marvellous was I?’

  Lestrade stood there, momentarily lost for words.

  ‘He is momentarily lost for words,’ said Letitia. ‘Henry, you are off to America tomorrow. We just had to see your last night. A triumph. An utter triumph.’

  ‘Please, my dear. You know how I hate fuss. A simple “incredible” would have done. Not as good as Becket though?’

  ‘Better,’ said Stoker, without feeling, diving again into his champagne.

  ‘Well, perhaps, perhaps.’

  ‘Speech,’ muttered Stoker, and the cry was taken up.

  Irving passed a mirror on the way to a table and checked his appearance before mounting the rostrum.

  ‘Friends . . .’ He held up his hands in self adoration.

  ‘. . . Romans, countrymen . . .’ mumbled Stoker behind him.

  ‘This is so unexpected.’

  Stoker blew bubbles in his glass.

  ‘What I . . . what we have accomplished tonight is little short of . . .’

  ‘Average,’ said Stoker.

  ‘. . . magnificent,’ Irving went on. ‘You heard them out there tonight. I . . . we never faltered. The Bard . . .’

  ‘. . . must be turning in his grave,’ said Stoker.

  ‘. . . could not have wished for better.’

  While the Lyceum’s lion roared his prowess to the howls and delight of his second audience that night, Lestrade edged as close as he could to the late king.

  ‘Mr Pennington?’ he lisped.

  Without taking his eyes off Irving, the old actor answered, ‘If it’s elocution lessons you want, I’m fully booked until the end of the year.’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Lestrade tried to stay in character.

  Undeterred, Pennington soldiered on. ‘Well if it’s a repeat of my “Little Nell” may I remind you people, chosen though you may be, that I haven’t been paid for the last time yet.’

  Lestrade could see he’d have difficulty in removing Pennington from the crowd scene. Perhaps a threat of force? He pressed the rim of his spectacles, still in his pocket, into Pennington’s regal robes, as close as he could to the small of his back.

  ‘Can you feel that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pennington.

  ‘Then I suggest you come with me now, quietly and without fuss into an ante-room. Or I’ll use it.’

  ‘Very well,’ replied Pennington, unruffled. ‘But I’d be intrigued to see in what way you would use a pair of spectacles.’ And he opened a door behind them. Suddenly, he paused. ‘They’re not loaded, are they?’

  Both men were pushed into the room. They spun round to see Bram Stoker, pistol in hand, staring hard at Lestrade.

  ‘I think we’d better let this gentleman do the jokes, William. Rabbis with false beards who don’t know Shakespeare from their elbow must have a few good one-liners up their sleeves.’

  The suave man with the soft Irish brogue was no fool. Gregson would have a field day with him. Obviously, he was Parnell’s successor, intent on blowing up the Houses of Parliament and strangling the Queen, while eating his breakfast.

  ‘All right.’ Lestrade broke cover, snatching off the hat and wig.

  ‘Hurts like hell, doesn’t it?’ Pennington sympathised as he tore off what was left of the facial hair.

  ‘I am not Rabbi Izzlebit.’

  ‘Lawks a mussy!’ drawled Stoker, feigning shock and horror. He was still pointing the gun.

  ‘I am Chief Inspector Abberline of Scotland Yard.’

  ‘This is better than a play,’ chortled Pennington.

  ‘Is it usual for theatrical managers to carry guns, Mr Stoker?’

  ‘Is it usual for chief inspectors to pass themselves off as rabbis, Mr Abberline?’ and he holstered his weapon in his coat.

  ‘Point taken. Believe me, I have my reasons. This is a delicate matter, Mr Stoker, and it is between Mr Pennington and myself.’

  ‘Anything which concerns the Lyceum and its staff concerns me too, Chief Inspector. I’m staying.’

  Lestrade shrugged and the three men sat down.

  ‘Mr Pennington, how long have you been an actor?’

  ‘It’s kind of you to accord me that title, sir.’ Pennington smiled. ‘Let me see. I first appeared at the New Royalty in ’sixty-two. Good Lord, more than thirty years.’

  ‘And before that?’

  ‘Well, I was a soldier. The Eleventh Hussars. And before that—’

  ‘And you rode in the celebrated Charge of the Light Brigade?’

  ‘One of the proudest moments in my life. Mind you, I was not so brave that day. When my ho
rse was killed under me, I thought, This is it, Penners old boy. You’ve bought it. It was George Loy Smith who pulled me through. He was a hard man, too hard, but he knew soldiering. A cooler man under fire I’ve never known. Why the interest in the Light Brigade, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘Perhaps you’ve been fiddling your pension all these years, William,’ said Stoker. The theatricals chuckled.

  ‘Not all the Light Brigade,’ said Lestrade, watching Pennington’s every reaction carefully. ‘Just the Eleventh Hussars. Just F Troop.’

  ‘F Troop?’ said Pennington. ‘Why? Most of them must be dead.’

  Was this a confession? Lestrade wondered. ‘At least four of them have been murdered.’

  Pennington and Stoker exchanged glances. ‘By whom?’ the actor asked.

  ‘By you, Mr Pennington.’ Lestrade pushed as far as he could.

  Pennington was on his feet in an instant. ‘You’re mad, sir. I couldn’t kill a man. I don’t think I killed anybody in the Crimea. I certainly couldn’t start now. What’s my motive?’

  ‘Calm down, William. I’ve a feeling the chief inspector is trying you out. Isn’t that so, Mr Abberline?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ He handed Pennington a piece of paper. ‘Here are the names of the dead men. Do you recognise any of them?’

  Pennington did. What Lestrade had not divulged was that he had written down the wrong names, including Kilvert’s. Again, he watched intently for a reaction, a flicker. There was nothing. Remember, he told himself; this man is an actor. And he was no judge of how good he was. But in the world of murder – and getting away with it – plausibility was everything.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Pennington. ‘Old Ben Beeson dead. He was a nice fellow . . . Wait, I thought you said F Troop.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Lestrade.

  ‘If my memory serves me correctly, Beeson was in D Troop, at least, while I was with the Brigade.’

  ‘I think the chief inspector is still trying you out,’ commented Stoker.

  ‘Come, Chief Inspector. No more games. These men were friends of mine. They shall be missed at the Dinner this year. How can I help you? You have my word as a private and a gentleman that I did not kill them.’