Lestrade and the Guardian Angel

by M. J. Trow

  Lestrade smiled broadly. ‘Can I have that in writing? Thanks for your help, Inspector. Put me and my lads ashore, will you? Where is the good Captain now? Branch Road?’

  Jones nodded.

  ‘Come on Dew, Lilley, get me up these stairs, will you? We’ve got a body to view. It’s all right, Lilley, you can stay outside.’

  SHOLTO LESTRADE CIRCLED the bloated remains of Captain Archibald Fellowes, holding the boater over his nose to avoid some, at least, of the smell of Thames water and formaldehyde. Beneath the green-white skin, flaking off the frame, he could vaguely discern a once-handsome face, the moustache drooping over the tight, blue lips. He was, as Jones had told him, battered around the head, but it wasn’t particularly pretty. The coroner was not in that morning, still sleeping off, as was most of London, the exhilaration of the Queen’s Jubilee. But Lestrade had seen the Sights before. He knew that Jones was right. Those blows were caused after death, not before. Pier poles, anchor chains, stone corners and bridge supports had all taken their toll. The mortuary attendant had provided Lestrade with the clothes the deceased had been wearing when found. A lightweight suit, brown laced shoes, all bearing Savile Row labels, and oddly for a man in civvies, a medal. What was particularly odd about it was where it had been worn. Not pinned to his lapel, apparently, but wedged between his teeth.

  ‘Between his teeth?’ Lestrade repeated, unsure of his hearing.

  ‘That’s right,’ the attendant told him, picking his nose thoughtfully. ‘Held there by rigor mortis – and his gold fillin’s.’

  Lestrade looked again at the gong in his fist – a bronze four-pointed star with the legend ‘Ashanti’ and the date ‘1896’.

  ‘Last year,’ he murmured to himself.

  ‘That’s right,’ the attendant agreed.

  The inspector flipped the medal over. ‘From the Queen,’ he read.

  ‘That’s right,’ the attendant agreed again.

  Lestrade replaced his boater and tucked the medal in his pocket.

  ‘That’s evidence,’ said the attendant, wiping the contents of his nose on his sleeve.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Lestrade and, collecting Lilley from the outer office, he and his constables made for the light.

  In the hansom on the way back to the Yard, Walter Dew was less than his placid self.

  ‘What’s the matter, Dew?’ Lestrade was a noticing sort of inspector. ‘Cat got your truncheon?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Dew confided. ‘I’ve got to come out with this.’

  ‘Close your eyes, Lilley, you’re of tender years.’

  ‘I’m afraid I . . . picked something up, sir.’

  Lestrade’s eyebrows disappeared under the rim of his boater. ‘That’s what comes of loitering with intent in the Haymarket of an evening. Mrs Dew will have to know, of course . . .’

  ‘No.’ Dew blushed as only the lovesick can. ‘From the corpse, I mean.’

  ‘Have a rinse when you get to the Yard. I’ll have a word with Dixon. He’ll let you use the sergeants’ slipper baths.’

  ‘No, I mean evidence, sir. I found some evidence. In the lining of the deceased’s pocket.’

  ‘Really?’ Lestrade was secretly impressed, but he wasn’t going to let it show. ‘Fluff?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. I don’t think I’ve ever seen wet fluff. Here it is.’

  Lestrade examined the particles in Dew’s palm, not easy in a jolting hansom with a second policeman’s nose nuzzling against his own. The inspector leaned back. ‘You may have bandaged my foot yesterday, Lilley, but I still hardly know you. Perhaps you could keep your nose out of Constable Dew’s hand until we’re all better acquainted?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.’ Lilley knew a rebuke when he heard one and he spent the remainder of the journey bolt upright.

  ‘Fluff, be damned,’ said Lestrade. ‘They’re seeds.’ He jabbed the ceiling of the cab with his crutch. ‘Kew Gardens, driver, and if you get there before dinner time, the constable here will give you a tip.’

  ‘I WILL BE ABLE TO CLAIM all this on expenses, sir?’ Dew checked, emptying all his pockets as he did so.

  ‘Of course, Walter.’ Lestrade hobbled manfully through the shrubbery. ‘Usual thing. Forms in triplicate. Reimbursement next Christmas, assuming there’s no R in the month. Don’t forget the tip.’

  ‘Kempton Park, three o’clock,’ Dew muttered to the growler on his perch. ‘Stingy Inspector, one hundred to one.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard that one,’ the growler growled and he and his cab rattled into the distance.

  ‘Right, we’ll try the Palm House first.’

  ‘Must we, sir?’ Lilley halted the policemen’s progress.

  ‘Is there a problem, constable?’ Lestrade paused by a cedar of Lebanon to rest his leg.

  ‘It’s just that I’m not keen on heat, sir. It must be in the eighties now.’

  ‘Mother frightened by a radiator, was she? All right, you wait here. Dew, open that door.’

  The two of them entered a veritable jungle, verdure dripping everywhere. The place seemed deserted and Lestrade was just getting used to his trousers clinging clammily to his legs when a gnarled old head appeared out of the undergrowth.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ it said. ‘Elaeis guineensis.’

  ‘Sholto Lestrade, Scotland Yard. This is Constable Dew. Are you in charge here, Mr Guineensis?’

  The gnarled old head looked a trifle quizzical. ‘Ah, I see. No. Guineensis is the plant you are looking at. My name is Bush. And please, no jokes. I have been a horticulturalist for the past forty years, man and boy. It does become a little wearing.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ commiserated Lestrade, watching the vapour condense on his hatbrim. ‘I wonder if you might help us with our enquiries?’

  ‘I’ll certainly do my best, but I wonder if we might walk this way? I have my measurements to take.’

  Lestrade and Dew obeyed to the letter, although creeping through the foliage with a crutch was not the easiest manoeuvre the inspector had ever performed. More than once, the lianas coiled round his ferrule and he got a mouthful of John Innes. Still, it was all part of life’s rich tapestry.

  ‘It’s quite a way,’ Bush apologized. ‘We’ll take my trap.’

  They helped the inspector aboard and rattled south-east with Constable Lilley jogging through the goose droppings behind. Lestrade and Dew were grateful for the fresh air of an English summer and to be able to leave the tropics under glass.

  ‘Up there.’ Bush pointed to the top of an ornate Chinese pagoda. ‘I have to measure my Widdringtonia whytei and this is the best vantage point.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ gasped Lilley, ‘but how high is that?’

  ‘The pagoda?’ Bush dismounted, rolling down his shirtsleeves. ‘One hundred and sixty-three feet.’

  Lilley paled significantly. ‘I wonder if you’ll excuse me on this one, sir?’ he said to Lestrade.

  ‘Another problem, constable?’ Lestrade seemed to have been this way before.

  ‘It’s height, sir. I don’t really . . .’

  ‘Mother frightened by a tallboy, eh? Dew, Mr Bush, could you assist me, please?’

  It was half an hour later, after much grunting and sweating, that the three men arrived at the top.

  ‘What a view!’ the poetic Dew was heard to exclaim.

  Bush leaned across with a tape measure attached to the pagoda’s rim and began jotting hieroglyphics down in his notebook, tapping overhanging leaves and branches now and then.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘how can I help?’

  ‘Dew.’ Lestrade snapped his fingers.

  ‘Sir?’ The constable was awestruck by Greater London stretching before him.

  ‘Forgive my constable,’ said Lestrade. ‘He hasn’t been this far north before.’

  ‘With respect, sir, I have.’ Even Dew had a certain amount of dignity. ‘The Monument is, I believe, higher than this.’

  The other two looked at him. ‘The evidence, c
onstable?’ Lestrade reminded him.

  ‘Ah, yes, sir. Of course,’ and he fumbled in his pockets.

  ‘Ah.’ Bush held it up to the light, sniffed it, measured it and returned it to Dew. ‘Well, of course I’m no expert, but I’d say it was fluff. Probably from someone’s pocket.’

  Lestrade had climbed a long way for nothing. ‘But surely, there are seeds in it?’ he said.

  ‘Are there?’ Bush focused his gnarled old spectacles on the end of his gnarled old nose. ‘Oh yes, Cedrela odorata.’

  ‘Er . . .’ Lestrade had never got beyond the First Declension in his Latin at Mr Poulson’s Academy.

  ‘Bastard Cedar,’ Bush explained.

  ‘Now then, sir.’ Dew knew when his guv’nor was being insulted.

  ‘Go on,’ Lestrade ignored him.

  ‘One of the family Meliaceae. Native to the West Indies and South America. It is sometimes called the Barbados Bastard Cedar. It has a smell offensive to insects. Your wardrobe is probably lined with it. So are your cigar boxes.’

  ‘And are these trees found growing outside the West Indies and South America?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Only one other place in the world,’ Bush confided.

  ‘Where might that be, sir?’ Dew had his notebook at the ready.

  Bush crouched for a moment, as though lining his eye up on the pagoda’s rail. ‘Just there,’ he said. ‘Half-way between the flagstaff and King William’s Temple.’

  Lestrade and Dew exchanged glances.

  ‘May I ask why this interest in odorata, Mr . . . ?’ Bush enquired.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to divulge that, Mr Bush. Dew, before we take our leave of your view, cast your eyes over there.’

  The constable followed the inspector’s finger to the sun dazzling on the river. ‘That’s Brentford Dock. Mr Bush, is that path along the bank open to the public?’

  ‘Like the rest of the Gardens, yes, it is.’

  ‘Tell me, is there any way of knowing who visited the Gardens, say within the last week?’

  ‘Well, there is a visitors’ book at the Dutch House, but there’s no compulsion to sign it. Nor indeed any compulsion to visit the Dutch House.’

  Lestrade cupped his hands and shouted down to his man on the ground. ‘Lilley, was your mother ever frightened by a windmill?’

  The constable shook his head slowly, uncertainly.

  ‘A clog?’

  The same response.

  ‘What about cheese?’

  ‘I don’t think so, sir, but could you ask me these questions from down here? I don’t really like looking up.’

  ‘Where is this Dutch House, Mr Bush?’

  The horticulturalist pointed north.

  ‘That way, Lilley. A building called the Dutch House. You’re looking for a visitors’ book. Any familiar names – in fact any names at all for the last week, write them down. Mother wasn’t frightened by a pencil, was she?’

  Lilley trotted along the Pagoda vista while an increasingly large crowd had gathered to gaze up at Lestrade as though he were something at Hyde Park Corner.

  ‘You’re making a spectacle of yourself, Dew. Get me downstairs.’

  IT WAS SOME DAYS LATER that Inspector Lestrade received another visitor at the Yard. It came as a refreshing change. The heat of July was stifling and the open windows meant that the stench of Inspector Jones’s river was worse than a horse fair on a bad day. At least the prevailing wind was away from Billingsgate and the Yard was always grateful for small mercies. The Fellowes case had ground to a halt after a promising start. Constables Dew and Lilley had expended tanneries of shoe-leather in their attempts to track down the names in the visitors’ book at Kew Gardens. They had come up with a barrister, fourteen spinsters on a Spinsters’ Outing from Skegness, eight shop assistants and assorted gentlemen friends, a vicar and an alcoholic who thought the Dutch House was a pub and complained in the book of the quality of the beer. No one knew a Life Guards officer named Fellowes and no one remembered seeing a moustachioed gentleman wearing the Ashanti Star. There was nothing else for it. Lestrade would have to visit the Knightsbridge Barracks and pursue his enquiries there. And he was just planning precisely this venture when the door opened to reveal a handsome lady in a frothy summer dress and parasol. She had blonde hair immaculately twined under her broad, feathered hat and she smiled as the inspector bobbed with difficulty to his feet.

  ‘Sholto.’ She kissed his cheek and held him for a moment. ‘You’ve hurt yourself.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘Where’s my jacket?’

  She hit him deftly with her parasol. ‘Tsk, tsk, I’ve seen men in their shirt-sleeves before, you know. I have been married to Harry Bandicoot for some time now.’

  He held her hand. ‘How is Harry?’ he asked.

  She sat down suddenly, sweeping off her hat and arranging her dress. ‘There’s something wrong, Sholto.’

  He leaned back in his chair. ‘Could you stand a cup of Walter Dew’s tea?’ he asked.

  ‘I think so,’ she said.

  ‘Then while I try to get myself sitting comfortably, you may begin.’

  ❖The Trouble With Harry❖

  A

  ssistant Commissioner Nimrod Frost was not a man to suffer fools gladly. Still less inspectors. He looked over his pince-nez at Sholto Lestrade.

  ‘Leave?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Lestrade stood his ground, on the carpet though he was.

  ‘What of Archibald Fellowes?’ Frost reminded him.

  ‘He’s dead, sir.’

  ‘Indeed he is!’ Frost slammed down his Bluebird with all the power his sixteen stone could muster. ‘And I have a letter here, Lestrade.’ He launched himself upright, waving it under what was left of the inspector’s nose. His voice fell to a confidential whisper. ‘It’s from His Highness the Prince of Wales.’

  ‘Ah.’ Lestrade felt he knew what was coming.

  ‘You may or may not be aware that His Royal Highness is Colonel of the Life Guards. He is particularly anxious that the business of Captain Fellowes be cleared up and quickly.’

  Frost circled Lestrade a few times, so that the chandelier shook.

  ‘You are working on the case?’

  ‘The body was found in the river, sir.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘The river is Inspector Jones’s province, sir.’

  ‘Don’t try that one on me, Lestrade, I’m too long in the tooth for it. Athelney Jones couldn’t solve his way out of a paper bag. But that isn’t why I had the case passed to you.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Lestrade. He was feeling non-committal this morning and to say more might have incriminated him.

  Frost lurched back into the padded chair, which groaned and buckled under him. ‘This is why.’ He shook the letter again. ‘For some reason known only to God and the Prince of Wales, His Royal Highness has asked that you should be placed in charge of enquiries.’ Frost leaned forward, his shoulders momentarily blotting out the sun. ‘What’s all this about, Lestrade? I didn’t know you moved in such exalted circles.’

  ‘Let’s just say, the Prince and I enjoyed a quiet cigar together once.’

  Frost eased himself backwards. ‘Really?’ His eyebrows crept skyward.

  ‘At the Commissioner’s Ball, sir, back in . . . let me see . . . ’91, I believe.’

  Frost’s lips twisted into a sneer. He was a self-made policeman, from Grantham, the only inhabitant of that town ever likely to come to any good, and he resented ‘contacts’ and privilege with all the bitterness of a Socialist, though he would have cut off his right hand rather than admit it. He was also a Mason, but that was de rigueur at the Yard in those or any other days.

  Lestrade was not going to add that he had also nearly fought a duel with the Prince’s son and had once dallied amorously with the Countess of Warwick, at that time the Prince’s paramour. It all seemed rather incestuous, looking back, and he didn’t think Assistant Commissioner Frost, from Grantham, wou
ld understand.

  ‘This being the case,’ Frost went on, ‘with a direct command from your future king, how is it you are applying for leave?’

  ‘It’s a personal matter, sir,’ Lestrade told him. ‘A friend of mine . . .’

  ‘A friend?’ Frost sneered. ‘Inspectors of the Metropolitan Police do not have friends, they merely have suspects.’

  ‘A friend of mine,’ Lestrade persisted steadily, ‘needs my help. If you are asking me whether I should put my friend’s request above my future king’s, the answer must be an emphatic “perhaps”.’

  ‘You are presumptuous, Lestrade! What’s to prevent me from writing to His Royal Highness and acquainting him of this situation?’

  Lestrade stared resignedly ahead. ‘Nothing, sir. Nothing at all.’

  Frost tapped irritatedly on his desk top. ‘You have precisely twenty-four hours to sort this . . . friend . . . out. In the meantime, who have you got to continue the Fellowes case?’

  ‘I’m not sure it is a case, sir. It could still be suicide. Or an accident. Fell off a footpath while balance of mind – or body – was disturbed.’

  ‘Who have you got?’ Frost repeated.

  ‘Er . . . Walter Dew, sir.’

  Frost sank dejectedly in the chair. ‘As I feared . . . very well, I’m giving you a new man. A Constable Skinner. He’s recently joined the Yard, Lestrade, under Abberline. But he’s rather unique among Metropolitan constables.’

  ‘Unique, sir?’

  ‘Yes, he has a brain. You’ll find him in the West Wing. Brief him before you go. Good morning.’

  ‘Sir.’ Lestrade turned to go.

  ‘And Lestrade . . .’ Frost stopped him. ‘Twenty-four hours, mind. After that, I dock your pay and you’re on suspension. Savvy?’

  Lestrade smiled at the purple features scowling across the desk at him. ‘Perfectly, sir,’ he said.

  LESTRADE GAVE CONSTABLE Leonard Skinner precisely ten minutes to digest his report on Archibald Fellowes. During this time, Letitia Bandicoot was downing the umpteenth cup of Walter Dew’s tea in the corridor laughingly known as Lestrade’s outer office. The inspector eyed the constable. The newcomer was a large man and he wore spectacles, never a good sign in Lestrade’s book.