Lestrade and the Brigade

by M. J. Trow

  A thick-set man in a Donegal and bowler stood squarely in the light from the gaslamp. He had a revolver gripped firmly in his right hand, raised at shoulder height.

  ‘I know you’re there, Lestrade,’ the killer spoke. ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are.’

  Silence.

  ‘I’m not a patient man.’

  Lestrade lurched forward from the wall, some yards away from the man with the gun. ‘Hello, Gregson,’ he said.

  The Head of the Special Irish Branch brought his pistol hand down on his left wrist to steady the gun for the recoil.

  ‘So, it was you all along?’ said Lestrade.

  ‘Me? You mean that bungled shooting tonight? You’re upsetting me, Sholto. You know I wouldn’t miss.’

  ‘The murders, then. The poisonings.’

  ‘My God, you really haven’t a clue, have you? I took you for a better policeman than that.’

  He clicked back the hammer. Once. Twice.

  ‘I tried to make it easy for you. That trumped-up charge of mine about attacking the Kaiser. But you went on, didn’t you? Worrying it. Teasing it. You wouldn’t leave it alone. Well, you’ve only yourself to blame, Lestrade. For what follows. Only yourself to blame.’

  For a long second, Lestrade stood there, expecting Bandicoot’s cased pistols to blast out or the Abo’s silent arrows to hiss through the air. In the event, all he heard was the roar of Gregson’s revolver. Too far away to reach his man, he spun round, attempting God Knows What. Perhaps just to be spared the bullet in his face. Perhaps it mattered how you died. As he turned, the sword came up behind his right shoulder, roughly in the position of ‘Rear Protect’ and the bullet clanged off the blade and ricocheted across the cobbles.

  Lestrade continued his turn as Gregson recocked the weapon, cursing his luck, and threw the general’s sword for all he was worth. The tip sliced deep into Gregson’s stomach and the second shot went wide. In disbelief, Tobias Gregson staggered backwards, the gun gone from his grasp, Wood’s blade gleaming from his stomach in the lamplight, blood trickling over his fingers. He looked uncomprehendingly at Lestrade, reached out as if to drag him to Hell with him and pitched forward, driving the blade right through his body, so that the crimson tip protruded steaming through the folds of his Donegal. Lestrade eased himself down on one knee, and checked his pulse. Weakening. Gone. Police whistles were sounding from nowhere. He kicked Gregson’s body over and wrenched out the sword, wiping the blade clean on his coat. Then he stumbled back to the restaurant.

  BEESON WAS CRADLING the fallen waiter in his arms. As Lestrade arrived, he looked up and shook his head. Lestrade took the Bounder’s face in his hands. ‘Can you hear me?’ he asked.

  The Bounder opened his eyes and flickered into liveliness. ‘Did you . . . get him?’

  ‘Who?’ asked Lestrade.

  ‘Oliver.’

  ‘No, I got Tobias Gregson.’ Beeson’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. Had Lestrade gone mad?

  ‘Oliver . . . Oliver’s the one you want. You must get him,’ and he began to cough up blood.

  ‘I will. I think I know where he is. Listen, you haven’t got long.’ There was no time for niceties. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Jacob Crowley,’ the Bounder/waiter answered. ‘I wrote to you. Twice. Three times. I can’t remember. Why didn’t you answer my letters or at least do something?’

  ‘I received no letters. Beastie, get these men away from here.’ Lestrade waved an arm in the direction of the stunned bystanders.

  ‘Come along now.’ Beeson the old copper was in charge again. ‘There’s nothin’ to see. Move along, now. Move along.’

  ‘And Donald Crowley . . . ?’ Lestrade turned to the Bounder again.

  ‘My father. Oliver is my brother. They’re both mad, Inspector. Quite mad,’ and he coughed again.

  ‘Beeson, water,’ snapped Lestrade.

  The Bounder waved it aside. ‘I’ve got to tell you. Got to explain,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Why the murders?’ Lestrade tried to simplify things for the dying man. ‘The men of F Troop. Why?’

  ‘My father joined a religious sect called the Order of the Golden Dawn when he was a . . . young man.’ His speech was slurring now. Lestrade knew he would lose him soon. ‘They are Satanists, Inspector. They worship the Devil,’ and the pain took him again. He writhed, then lay still. Lestrade mopped his sweating forehead until he recovered. ‘The night before Balaclava, F Troop were on patrol. A few of them got separated from the rest and in the hills above Kadikoy they found my father carrying out his rites.’

  ‘Rites?’ Lestrade checked he had not misheard.

  ‘Sacrifice, Inspector. Human sacrifice. My father was a neophyte then. He . . . had to attain a higher level within the Order. The only way was to . . . kill and devour a human being.’

  Lestrade sat upright. In all his seventeen years on the Force he had heard of nothing like that.

  ‘He was . . . in the act of eating a Turkish boy when some of F Troop found him. He did his best to get himself killed. The . . . next day . . . he rode the Charge . . . expecting a bullet or a cannon ball to end it all. He reached the guns. He was taken prisoner by the Russians . . . His life for the next sixteen years is a closed book to me. What he did in Russia, how he lived, I cannot imagine. But . . . the Golden Dawn is an international sect, Inspector. The Russian Golden Dawn may have found him, rescued him from the threat of suicide.’

  ‘So, that’s why he rode the Charge,’ Lestrade said.

  The Bounder nodded. ‘When he came back to England, and I never knew why he came back, he feigned . . . loss of memory. But my brother Oliver was brought up in the foul traditions of the Golden Dawn. And he is as mad as Father.’

  ‘Go on, if you can,’ said Lestrade.

  It was becoming increasingly difficult. ‘Who can understand a madman?’ the Bounder asked. ‘Father had remembered the names and faces of those men who had seen him that dreadful night before Balaclava. Perhaps he knew he was dying. Perhaps the Golden Dawn demanded it. Anyway, he killed the first one. William Lamb.’

  ‘Lamb?’ Lestrade broke in. ‘But he was killed by an animal. A Tasmanian wolf.’

  The Bounder managed a chuckle. ‘Yes, I read the newspaper reports at the time,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector. That poor dumb beast may have killed sheep, but it did not kill a man. Father was carrying out his murder in the old ritualistic way.’

  ‘He was trying to eat Lamb?’ Lestrade asked, incredulous. The Bounder nodded. ‘And then he died. Merciful heaven released him.’

  Lestrade thought quickly. The hairs from the thylacine which he found on the body must have got there after Lamb died. The smell of blood would certainly have attracted it.

  ‘And the poisonings?’

  ‘Oliver. He too trained as a doctor. For some years he served with the Army Medical Corps. He knew a great deal about poisons.

  ‘And had access to them,’ Lestrade added.

  The Bounder coughed his agreement.

  ‘And when we met at Openshaw?’ prompted Lestrade.

  ‘I was trying to stop him. All along, I’ve been . . . one step behind Oliver, one step ahead of you. He was the medical officer who was the locum before you arrived. He used the name . . . Corfield, Inspector. A pun. A taunting, arrogant pun. The Latin for the crow family is corvus. And another name for ley is field. Corfield and Crowley were one and the same. He gave the poisoned tobacco to Mrs Lawrenson.’

  ‘And it’s you who has been following me since the Lyceum?’

  ‘And before. I should . . . have confided in you earlier, Inspector, but . . . I was trying to save Oliver from himself. From his insane desire to carry out Father’s wishes; and all the time I thought you had received my letters telling you all this.’ He tensed, and tremors shook his whole body. ‘Lestrade,’ he clutched convulsively at the policeman’s sleeve, ‘stop him. And look after cousin Aleister. I’m afraid he’s going the same way.’

  ‘I will, and we’ll watc
h out for cousin Aleister.’

  And the Bounder died in Lestrade’s arms.

  ‘Beastie.’ Lestrade folded the man’s arms across his chest and closed his lids. ‘The police will be here any minute. Inspector Gregson’s body is a few yards from here. Tell them what you know. And tell them that I shall be calling in to the Yard as soon as I can. General, thank you for your sword.’

  And he handed it back.

  ‘Glad it was of service, Private . . . er . . . Inspector,’ said Wood.

  ‘Sir,’ Beeson joined Lestrade, ‘I wish you’d let me come with you.’

  ‘No, Beastie. There’s only room for one in that corridor.’

  ‘I thought you might say that, sir, so,’ and he produced an obsolete pistol, Lancer pattern, 1842. ‘This belonged to George Loy Smith,’ he said. ‘The old bastard was hard enough on F Troop while he was alive. Let him strike a blow for them now he’s dead.’

  Lestrade took the weapon.

  ‘And remember,’ said Beeson, ‘that’s cap and ball. You’ve got one shot in the breech already. Miss with that and you’re a dead man.’

  ‘THIS IS A DEVIL OF a time to call, Bradstreet.’ Nimrod Frost was less than chipper. ‘God, man, it’s the early hours.’ He looked like Wee Willie Winkie, well, Willie Winkie anyway, standing in his hall in nightshirt and cap, holding aloft a candle. ‘Go to bed, Richards. It’s only one of my officers with a bad sense of timing. You’re out of breath, man,’ he rounded on Bradstreet, ‘and you know I don’t like calls at home at any time. Go to bed, Wilhelmina,’ he roared to the apparition on the stairs. ‘There’s nothing wrong.’ He ushered Bradstreet into the study. ‘Or is there?’

  ‘It’s Inspector Gregson, sir. He’s dead.’

  ‘Good God.’ Frost sat down heavily on the chesterfield.

  ‘But that’s not the worst of it. Lestrade killed him.’

  ‘Lestrade?’ Frost was on his feet again.

  ‘I knew the man was suspended from duty, sir, but frankly . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, I worked with him, sir. Frankly, I thought Inspector Gregson was overhasty . . . It’s not my place to say, sir.’

  Frost whirled round the furniture, brain and fingers fidgeting wildly. He stopped before Bradstreet’s tie-knot.

  ‘What’s your view of conspiracies, Bradstreet?’

  ‘Life is one big conspiracy in the Special Branch, sir.’

  ‘Yes.’ Frost scrutinised him closely. ‘Yes, I suppose it is. You were Gregson’s right-hand man, weren’t you?’

  ‘I worked with him, sir, yes.’ Bradstreet was beginning to smell a rat. It was not every day that inspectors of the Yard tried to kill each other.

  ‘Well, get back to the scene of the crime, Bradstreet. I’m going to the Yard. I’ll want a full report tomorrow. Er . . . later this morning.’

  Bradstreet departed. Frost saw him to the door and summoned a figure from the shadows.

  ‘Follow him, Constable. I want to know exactly where he goes.’

  LESTRADE TOOK A HANSOM in the street, dodging the coppers running to the scene of Gregson’s death and swarming into St James’s Restaurant. He’d given the cabbie strict instructions and with cries of ‘I’ll lose me licence for sure,’ he hurtled through the makeshift cordon of policemen who, as Lestrade knew they would, broke at the last minute to avoid impact.

  The Royal Hospital was in darkness and silent. The inmates were in their beds now. Except one. Lestrade crossed the frontage, past the Chilianwalla Memorial, past the silent cannon, mouths gaping to the night sky. His hand rested on the pistol butt, jutting awkwardly from his barrel sash. The front door was locked. Never mind, always worth a try. He circled the main block, trying first one door, then another. At last one gave under his weight and he was inside. A faint light flickered on the wall at the far side of a large hall. He recognised this. He had been taken this way on his last visit. For a man in cavalry boots, he moved like a cat. But when he began to count his lives, he decided to leave that analogy alone.

  Up the twisting staircase, past the dormitories of snoring soldiers. The sky, blue against the blackness of the window-frames, lit his movements. Now and then the moon scudded into view, to vanish again in her shyness. Perhaps there were lovers out there somewhere, arm in arm and heart in heart, Lestrade thought. Then, reaching for the studded door, he remembered, and dashed back to the window. It wasn’t a full moon, was it?

  The padded door opened noiselessly. There was no one at this time of night to work the grille. Across another moonlit hall, below the silent standards. Past Crosse’s door.

  Lestrade stopped. There was a light in his office. Faint. An oil lamp, he guessed, trying to remember whether there was one on the desk or not. He cocked the pistol. Well, Sergeant-Major Loy Smith, let’s hope you kept your gun in good order. And let’s hope Beastie has since. And Lestrade crashed through the door, flinging it wide on its hinges. Crosse leapt upright behind the desk, rattan cane poised in his hand.

  ‘Put it down, Doctor.’ Lestrade’s voice was firm, the pistol aimed at the old man’s head. ‘Or I’ll kill you where you stand.’

  ‘Abberline.’ Crosse threw the cane onto the desk. ‘I hoped it might be you.’

  ‘Not Abberline, Doctor. Lestrade. Inspector Sholto Lestrade. He tugged off the forage cap. He had all but forgotten it was still on his head.

  ‘I . . . don’t understand,’ said Crosse.

  ‘Never mind that. Where is he?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Doctor, I was nearly beaten to death by your maniacs, almost given poisoned coffee to drink, and shot at, all in the space of three days. I am not at my best at the moment. Now, once again and for the last time, where is Oliver Crowley?’

  ‘Upstairs. Second door on the left. Lestrade, he’s armed.

  ‘And dangerous. Yes, I know that, Doctor.’

  ‘Lestrade.’ Crosse crumpled into his chair. ‘Let me explain. I owe you that much at least. Don’t worry, he’s not going anywhere. He’s waiting for you. Up there.’

  ‘Quick then, man.’

  ‘I panicked the other day. I have been working in this living hell for twenty years, Inspector. Twenty years of trying to give men back their sanity while somehow hanging onto mine. In that time, in all that lonely time, I made one mistake. I let a man escape. A dangerous man. Oliver Crowley. He was my patient too, like his father. I didn’t tell you that. As a boy he seemed normal; oh, a little quiet, perhaps, a little solitary; not like Jacob, the younger brother. Oliver was born shortly after Donald had sailed for the Crimea. He wanted to go in for medicine and to join the army, just like his father. Well, why not? Perfectly laudable profession. But he began to take after his father in other ways. He joined the Golden Dawn – and as God is my judge I know no more about that. He became moody, unpredictable. The same curse that fell on his father also fell on him. I tried to persuade his mother, while she was alive, to talk him into coming here, as an in-patient. He wouldn’t do that, but he did visit his father now and again, sometimes staying for days at a time. Occasionally, he would talk to me. It was working; we were getting somewhere. And then—’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘His father died. He became inconsolable. Irrational. He had to be admitted as an in-patient after all. But he said he had things to do. His father’s work, he said. One night, he overpowered his orderly and fled.’

  ‘And you did nothing?’

  ‘If you mean did I report it? No. I paid the orderly to keep his mouth shut. Crowley had a private room. Few people saw him anyway. It was easy.’

  ‘And the killings? Did you know about them?’

  ‘No.’ Crosse buried his head in his hands. ‘God in heaven, no. But I couldn’t find him. He had vanished without trace. I knew Jacob was looking, but it seemed hopeless. When you came, three days ago, pressing me about the Golden Dawn, I knew it was all over. Unless . . . unless I could silence you somehow. I didn’t mean those inmates to kill you. Just rough you up a little. Frighten y
ou . . . .’ A pause. ‘What happens now?’

  ‘Now I’m going upstairs. Whether I come down or not remains to be seen. Either way, Doctor, you can reckon on a well-earned retirement. Where you spend it depends on me, doesn’t it?’

  Crosse slumped head down on the desk, a broken man, as Lestrade turned for the stairs. The second door, Crosse had said, on the left. Lestrade steadied the pistol in his hand. He had no idea what lay behind that door, but he knew that if the room was in darkness, he would present a perfect target silhouetted against the faint light in the hallway. He could of course wait for daylight, but by that time Crowley could be down the drainpipe and away.

  He dithered for an instant, then threw his less painful shoulder at the door. It swung open, crashed back, the noise simultaneous with two pistol shots. Plaster rained down on his head. The room was in darkness as he kicked the door shut again. Crowley’s eyes were more acclimatised to the total blackness than his, but unless the man were totally blind, the angle of the shots which had hit the plaster meant he was on the floor. That was where Lestrade was too, face down behind a sofa. He still held the horse pistol, still cherished his single shot. He had to make it a good one.

  ‘Hello, Inspector.’ The voice was hollow, mocking, unreal. ‘I wondered when it would come to this.’

  ‘Give yourself up, Oliver. You haven’t a chance.’

  ‘Oh, but you’re wrong, Inspector. You see, I haven’t finished my holy mission yet. John Kilvert. John Buckton. When they’re dead, all those my father cursed will be gone. The prophesy of the Golden Dawn will be fulfilled.’

  ‘You know I can’t let you do that, Oliver.’ Lestrade was working his way on knees and elbows to the right of the sofa. Two more flashes and crashes. The wood from the sofa splintered in Lestrade’s cheek. Either that was luck, or Crowley’s aim was improving.