Lestrade and the Guardian Angel

by M. J. Trow

  ❖ Odd

  Fellowes ❖

  H

  er Majesty’s carriage disappeared in a flutter of flags, the rattling wheels and jingling harness drowned in a deluge of cheering. Queen’s weather shone down on the Queen’s day. It had been meticulously planned, this Diamond Jubilee, and the Home Secretary himself sat braced and upright in his Whitehall office, surrounded by telephones, wires, constables with reputations for running. Her Majesty had made it clear that nothing must go amiss. At the recent coronation of His Imperial Majesty the Tsar, three thousand peasants had been trampled in the rush. It must not happen here. It could not, Mr Keir Hardie had retorted in the Commons. Thanks to the Independent Labour party there was not a single peasant in England.

  From the Home Secretary to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, ashy-grey under the gusting plumes of his cocked hat, sitting his horse with the obvious discomfort of a lifetime’s martyrdom to haemorrhoids. Still, he had made his pile. He must sit on it. His strained, flinty eyes watched for the blue helmets in the crowd, edging it, ringing it, the white gloves flying up to salute as the royal cortege passed. From the Commissioner to the Assistant Commissioner, and to the Superintendents and so on down to the Inspectorate, that unsung body of men who now mingled with the great, cheering, radiant British public along the royal route. Those in braided patrol jackets and peaked caps like Athelney Jones, bobbing up and down on his river launch, were obvious enough. Others, like Sholto Lestrade, straw-boatered in his lightweight serge, were scarcely distinguishable from real people. Only the parchment skin gave it away, and the tired eyes and the look that was weary of the world.

  From his window overlooking Whitehall, Mr Gladstone took in the scene, the scrawny turtle neck craning out of the upright collar, the eyes wild and dancing. He summoned his private secretary.

  ‘Please convey to Her Majesty my heartfelt congratulations on Her Jubilee,’ he said in his impeccable Lowland Scots, ‘and may I be the first to suggest to Her Majesty that there could not be a finer moment for Her Abdication.’

  Gladstone’s wild eye caught a commotion in the surging crowds below. Immediately behind the Queen’s carriage a scuffle had broken out. In the mêlée, a man with parchment skin and a face that was weary of the world was struggling with another. They pirouetted into the trotting cavalcade of the Life Guards and the straw-boatered man somersaulted neatly off the right shoulder of the black stallion caracoling in a hopeless attempt to avoid him. Gladstone saw the Queen glance back; seeing the man roll upright again and hop around clutching a crushed foot, she commented to the Princess of Wales in her carriage that she was rather amused and would confide the fact to her journal. How kind of the man to provide this thoughtful entertainment for her. And how clever of him to know that such slapstick never failed to delight her. Her view had been a little impeded, however, as she had had to turn round. Perhaps his timing could have been better.

  SERGEANT DIXON HAD been on the Front Desk at the Yard, man and boy, for more years than he cared to remember. Rumour had it he had been a sergeant when Inspector Lestrade had arrived as a rookie. Rumour had it he had been a young constable in Sir Robert Peel’s three thousand back in ’29. Rumour had it he had joined the Bow Street Runners under Magistrate Fielding on account of how he already owned a red waistcoat and that was really the only entry requirement. But that, as most men tacitly admitted, was silly. The Runners had been established in 1748 and they only took men who were young and fit. Dixon was already over the hill by then.

  So the sergeant had seen the Sights. All of them. Or so he thought. But even his omniscient jaw fell slack at the apparition which greeted him in the foyer of the Yard that summer evening. A huge officer of the Life Guards in full dress uniform, complete with helmet and cuirass, stood before him, towering over him like a lamp standard.

  ‘Evening, sir.’ Dixon found himself saluting. ‘Can I be of service?’

  The Life Guard looked him up and down. ‘Sorry,’ he said through his chin-chain, ‘should have enlisted years ago. Anyway, we’ve already got a mascot. Lestrange in?’

  ‘Beg your pardon, sir?’ Dixon was never at his best on the twilight shift.

  ‘Sergeant Lestrange. Is he in?’

  ‘If you mean Inspector Lestrade, sir, yes, he is.’ Dixon was trying hard to remember to close his mouth after each word. He reached for the machine-with-wires on the wall. ‘Who shall I say . . . ?’

  ‘Don’t bother.’ The officer strode for the stairs, dragging his sword across Dixon’s polished floor. ‘I’ll find him.’

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t . . .’

  But the officer had gone, clattering up the staircase three at a time. Dixon wrestled manfully with the gadgetry which whirred and clicked at him.

  ‘Dew?’ he screamed down the tube.

  ‘Do what?’ a confused voice retaliated.

  ‘Is that Constable Dew?’

  ‘How dare you, Dixon! This is Assistant Commissioner Frost and you’ve got your wires tangled again. Get a grip, man, or I’ll have your stripes. What will I have?’

  ‘My stripes, sir,’ and he clutched his ear as his superior rang off with more venom than was usual. As he replaced the receiver, a plainclothesman wafted through the hall.

  ‘Dew!’ Dixon barked.

  ‘Hello, sarge,’ the constable beamed back.

  ‘Hello my arse! Get in that lift!’ He ushered the flustered constable through the metal grilles, slamming them shut.

  ‘What’s up, sarge?’

  ‘You are!’ shouted Dixon, pressing buttons like a thing possessed. ‘Third floor. Tell Mr Lestrade there’s a ten-foot soljer on his way up.’

  ‘On his way up?’ Dew shouted down through the floorboards.

  ‘That’s right,’ Dixon bellowed to the receding cage. ‘I can still see his spurs, so ’is ’ead must be outside the guv’nor’s office by now.’

  But the officer was faster than Dew. Legs were, after all made before lifts.

  ‘Oswald Ames,’ he introduced himself, ‘Second Life Guards. Oh my God . . .’

  He unhooked his chin-chain and swept off the glittering helmet, to crash down heavily and unasked on to the leather-backed chair.

  ‘Of all the horses in all the Jubilee processions in the world, you had to walk into mine.’

  Across the paper-strewn desk from him sat a parchment-faced man in an old lightweight serge. His eyes were tired, his face was world-weary. And his foot was resting on a stool, swathed in bandages.

  ‘Forgive me for asking,’ said Ames, ‘but why is that stool swathed in bandages?’

  ‘You can’t get the staff nowadays,’ the other man answered.

  His door swung back. ‘Mr Lestrade,’ gasped Constable Dew, ‘there’s a ten-foot soldier on his way . . . up . . . to . . .’

  ‘Captain Ames,’ Lestrade read the pips on the man’s shoulder cords, ‘this is Constable Dew. Despite all appearance he makes an excellent cup of tea. Will you join me?’

  ‘Tea? Is it Kokew Oolong?’

  ‘It’ll just be a jiffy, sir,’ Dew was at pains to promise. He hustled through to the adjoining closet. Having made one faux pas already, he was not anxious to make another.

  ‘Have you come to apologize or to press charges, Captain?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Neither, actually. Didn’t realize you were the johnny one collided with today. Couldn’t really see what happened. Sun was glancing off the Old Girl’s tiara. Couldn’t see a bally thing.’

  ‘Well.’ Lestrade began to unwrap his foot from the stool. ‘There I was, minding everyone else’s business in the crowd, when I felt my pocket being picked. I grabbed a hand and the fellow and I had a bit of a set to. Unfortunately it spilled out into your path. The rest you know.’

  ‘I see. Well, fortunes of war. Not too badly crushed, are you?’

  ‘No, no.’ Lestrade winced. ‘Nothing that three months in a sling won’t cure.’

  ‘Good. Good.’ Ames unhooked his sword and rested it against
the desk. ‘Does your chappie do a bit of tartaring? Got some caviar on the old tunic this morning. Got a bash with Bertie tomorrow. Can’t go looking like something the cat’s brought in.’

  ‘Quite.’ Lestrade smiled quietly. ‘Dew,’ he called to the closet.

  A macassared head appeared round the door. ‘Sir?’

  ‘How are you at cleaning drink stains off serge?’

  ‘Melton.’ Ames reminded him of the quality of the material.

  ‘How are you at removing Melton stains off serge?’

  ‘I’ll have a go, sir.’ Dew was the stuff the Yard was made of. Granite.

  ‘On second thoughts, one had better stick to one’s batman.’

  ‘As you will, Captain.’ Lestrade leaned back, resting his hands on his waistcoat. ‘Now, you and I, I’m sure, have had an exceedingly long day. I wonder if . . .’

  ‘Oh, my dear fellow, of course. Remiss of me. The purpose of my visit.’

  Lestrade beamed.

  ‘I understand you’re on the case.’

  ‘Case?’ Lestrade leaned forward.

  ‘Yes.’ Ames did the same. ‘Isn’t that what you detective johnnies call it?’

  ‘Er . . . yes . . . we do,’ affirmed Lestrade, and eyeing the daunting pile of paperwork, ‘Which one exactly?’

  ‘My dear fellow.’ Ames was amazed. ‘The case. Archie Fellowes.’

  ‘Fellowes?’

  ‘Brother officer. Army and Navy Club. Tragic. Quite tragic.’

  ‘Ah!’ Bells were clanging in Lestrade’s brain. He ferreted among the papers. ‘Yes. Captain Archibald Anstruther Fellowes. Second Life Guards. Found in the river at Shadwell Stair two days ago.’

  ‘Quite. Utterly tragic. You are on the case?’

  ‘Well, it’s really a matter for the River Police. Inspector Jones . . .’

  ‘Tosh!’ Ames stood up to his full six foot eight and rammed on his helmet. ‘One has it on good authority that you are the best there is, Lestrade.’

  ‘That’s very flattering . . .’

  ‘Flattering my numnah! It’s a fact. Archie was a chum. Sorry he’s gone. Can’t be natural. Must be sorted. Not in keeping, y’see.’

  ‘What isn’t?’

  ‘Suicide. Chaps in the Life Guards don’t do it. And if they do, they use this,’ he hooked up his sword, ‘or their Webleys. They don’t just jump in the bally river. Not dignified, y’see. Must be sorted. Good night.’

  And he scraped a lump out of the door frame on his way out.

  ‘Has he gone, sir?’ Dew appeared with steaming mugs.

  Lestrade listened as the sword clattered away down the stairs.

  ‘I think so,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t understand most of that conversation, sir,’ Dew admitted.

  ‘Quite, Walter. That’s why you’re a constable. Where’s that idiot who bandaged my foot?’

  A pallid face appeared around a pile of paperwork.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Ah . . . Constable Lilley, isn’t it?’ Lestrade began unwrapping the swathes. ‘I think you must have been reading your St John’s Ambulance first-aid book upside down. What do you know about Shadwell?’

  The pallid face became blanker. ‘It’s in London, sir.’

  ‘So it is.’ Lestrade fixed the young man with an odd faraway look in his eyes. ‘At dawn tomorrow morning, you and Dew will meet me at the church of St Paul in that godforsaken part of Stepney and we’ll do some sleuthing. Or rather we’ll talk to Inspector Jones, which sadly is not the same thing.’

  THE LIGHTERS AND BARGES were already steaming their way across the river when the three policemen arrived. The constables, Dew and Lilley, helped the straw-hatted inspector aboard the Metropolitan Police Launch Calliphora Vomitoria to meet its ‘Captain’, who stood with his arms locked fore and aft around his great hulk.

  ‘He looks like Nelson, sir,’ Lilley whispered in some awe to Lestrade who transferred his weight to Dew at that moment.

  ‘Before or after the sniper got him?’ Lestrade asked. ‘Besides, he’s got too many eyes and arms and things.’

  ‘Morning, Lestrade!’ Inspector Jones bellowed. ‘Cast off!’

  ‘It’s an old knitting term,’ Lestrade explained to the green constable. ‘Morning, Jones. You know Constable Dew.’

  Jones grunted.

  ‘This is Constable Lilley.’

  He grunted again. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure? Oh, hurt our foot, have we?’ He noted Lestrade’s discomfort as he hobbled gratefully to a chair bolted to the aft deck. The engines roared into life, coughed and died.

  ‘Tickle it, man!’ Jones roared to someone Down Below. He reverted to the question of Lestrade’s foot, ‘In what did you put that?’

  ‘It was a chance meeting with a cavalry charger,’ Lestrade explained, ‘which brings me neatly to the purpose of my visit.’

  ‘And I thought you’d come for some tips on police work.’

  The engines roared again. ‘Bring her head round!’ Jones thundered. Dew and Lilley looked about them wondering where the lady was to whom the inspector was referring.

  ‘Captain Fellowes,’ Lestrade shouted above the din.

  ‘Ah, yes. What about him?’ Jones, ever the sensitive policeman, sensed intrusion.

  ‘He was on my desk last night,’ said Lestrade.

  ‘Good God!’ Jones knelt beside him, not the easiest of manoeuvres for a man with his hands stuffed in his waistcoat. ‘How is that possible? When I saw him last he was on a slab in the mortuary.’

  ‘I was speaking metatarsally, Athelney.’ Lestrade thought he’d better humour his man. Years bobbing up and down on bilge water had obviously taken their toll.

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Jones stood up. ‘But it’s my case, dammit. He was found in my river.’

  The constables, Jones’s and Lestrade’s, pricked up their ears. A fight between superiors was always good for a laugh.

  ‘But presumably he landed in your river having jumped from my land.’

  ‘Since when is Shadwell your patch?’

  ‘Since when is the Thames yours?’ Lestrade countered.

  Jones bridled and stared fixedly at the prow. ‘Keep her head round!’ he snarled to a constable at the helm behind him.

  Dew and Lilley exchanged glances.

  Lestrade tried a different tack, with the wind this time. ‘A man is dead, Athelney,’ he said as quietly as he could above the throb of the Reardon Wesleys. ‘I don’t know why the case should have come my way, but it has and I’ve got to do something about it. Perhaps we can work together?’

  Jones snorted in time to his pistons. ‘Rowlocks!’ he retorted.

  ‘All right.’ Lestrade leaned back in the chair with the air of a man who knows when he’s beaten, ‘What’s it to be?’

  Jones looked at the scarred, yellow face beneath the scarred, yellow boater. ‘I’ve got a son coming up to age in a year or so . . .’ he said.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Get him in at the Yard.’

  ‘Come on, Athelney. You know I can’t do that. Any more than you can.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Jones reminded him, ‘because I’m stuck out at Woolwich Reach half my bloody life. But you, you’re in the old Opera House itself. On terra forma you can do some good . . .’

  ‘Well, I could have a word with Abberline I suppose . . .’

  ‘Not good enough.’ Jones remained obdurate.

  Lestrade blew outward until his moustache ends rose. ‘All right then. I’ll see Frost.’

  Jones beamed. ‘When?’

  ‘How old’s your boy?’

  ‘Seventeen this month.’

  ‘When the time comes, then.’

  ‘We found him there.’ Jones pointed to the scummy water slapping against the green encrusted pier poles.

  ‘Who?’ Lestrade had lost track of the conversation.

  ‘Captain Fellowes. Your Tinbelly.’

  Lestrade peered over the side. All he saw was his own reflection. ‘You checked the place,
of course?’

  ‘Of course,’ Jones told him. ‘We found three kettles, a bedstead, some old bronze thing the British Museum is having a look at and more dogshit than you’ll find in Battersea.’

  ‘What about the body?’

  Jones disappeared into the cabin behind him, thumping a constable as he passed. ‘Watch your helm, Soulou.’

  ‘Dew, get your bearings.’ Lestrade called his constable to him. The man fumbled in his pockets. ‘I mean, where are we, man?’ He steadied himself on the deck.

  ‘All engines stop,’ he heard Jones bellow.

  The constable scanned the horizon. ‘I can’t see much behind this pier thing, sir,’ Dew confessed.

  ‘That’s the Stair, laddie,’ Jones told him, re-emerging. ‘The Highway, behind those wharfs. The Narrow, to starboard.’ All eyes except Dew’s looked right. ‘New Basin, to port.’ All eyes except Dew’s looked left.

  ‘He’d been in the water for two days, I’d say,’ Jones explained, checking the notes he’d brought from the cabin. ‘Some of his skin was coming away. What with the weather and all, a few more hours and he’d have been unrecognizable. If he’d swollen up much more he could have floated out to Erith. Then the herrings could have had him.’

  There was no sound on the river now but the gentle lapping of the waters and the gentle vomiting of Constable Lilley over the side.

  ‘Any other damage?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Better ask the coroner.’ Jones shrugged.

  ‘Well, I was hoping for an answer,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘Point taken.’ Jones produced a hearty beef sandwich from his patrol jacket pocket. ‘Elevenses. Any of your chappies . . . ?’ but the colour of Constable Lilley made him aware of the futility of the question. ‘He was pretty battered around the head,’ Jones munched, ‘but he would be. It’s my guess he went in somewhere around Kew, perhaps Mortlake, and probably got stuck a few times. Chiswick Eyot’s a bastard for that. Not to mention Oliver’s Ait.’

  ‘Now, Athelney, for the big one. Did he jump or was he pushed?’

  Jones shrugged. ‘You’re the policeman,’ he said.