Lestrade and the Guardian Angel

by M. J. Trow

  ‘Unless she was dead,’ said Lestrade. ‘In which case, all her worldly goods would become her husband’s. Which brings me to a central question, Lilley. Why did you delay for a day before taking de Lacy to the mortuary to identify his wife?’

  Lilley turned pale. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t get over the sight of . . . Mrs de Lacy. I just couldn’t face her again the next day.’

  ‘And by the next day, you had another sight on your hands. Tell us about it.’

  ‘Mr de Lacy had been stabbed to death by a sharp object in the base of the skull . . .’ The constable wavered for a moment. ‘By person or persons unknown at some time between midnight when he came home and morning when I found him.’

  ‘And what is the connection with the other murders?’

  ‘There was a wedding ring in his mouth, sir . . . Would you excuse me for a moment?’ and he hurried to the door.

  ‘Well, Skinner,’ Lestrade said. ‘In Lilley’s absence, what is the significance of the ring?’

  ‘If you’re right about the death of Mrs de Lacy, then this is a revenge slaying too.’

  ‘Exactly,’ nodded Lestrade. ‘That’s our pattern.’

  ‘Wasn’t Mrs de Lacy due at the Bandicoots’?’ Dew suddenly asked.

  ‘She was, according to her husband. Why do you ask, Walter?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said the constable. ‘Just seems a big coincidence, that’s all.’

  ‘Skinner, you’d better check on Lilley,’ said Lestrade. ‘I won’t have the Yard knee-deep in fainting constables. Dew – the death of Willie Hellerslyke – Murder Number Four.’

  ‘Captain Sir William Hellerslyke, Bt., died on picquet duty with the Yorkshire Hussars, while on manoeuvres. Cause of death, phosphorus poisoning.’

  ‘Suspects?’

  ‘A very long list of people who attended a luncheon with the regiment on the day he died. But especially a Lieutenant Hardinge, whose cruelly jilted sister threw herself off a waterfall while the balance of her mind – and clearly her body – was disturbed.’

  ‘What a marvellous way with words you have, Walter. You should really write a book one day.’

  Dew beamed, broadly.

  ‘Motive, then?’

  Dew scowled deeply. ‘Revenge?’ he postulated.

  ‘The pattern again,’ nodded Lestrade. ‘And for the first time, some evidence – two names. One, the writing on the card that accompanied the poisoned chocolates – “Coquette”. The other in the ledger in Mr Rowntree’s shop – “Perameles”. What does that name suggest to you?’

  ‘Coquette Perameles?’ Dew stroked what passed for a chin. ‘A French Greek?’

  ‘The worst sort of foreigner,’ Lestrade muttered, half to himself. There was a knock at the door and a sergeant of the Essex Constabulary stood there, shivering in his cape.

  ‘A message from Inspector Failsworth, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, Dew, get this man a cup of tea. He looks frozen.’

  ‘That’s kind, sir. I can’t stay long.’ Clearly the sergeant had his inspector’s problem.

  ‘Sit down, sergeant.’

  Skinner returned with a pallid-looking Lilley and they resumed their positions.

  ‘Murder Number Five, gentlemen,’ said Lestrade, reading the essence of Failsworth’s note. ‘The corpse in Epping Forest was one Gerald Mander, aged thirty-two. Of private means. Clubs – Reform, Athenaeum, Montgolfier. Single. Address, Sixty-three, Cadwallader Street, SW4. Anything else from Inspector Failsworth?’ he asked the sergeant.

  ‘No, sir.’ The man hugged the warming cup to his numb cheeks. ‘He was in and out, you might say. He was on his way to Cadwallader Street as I came here.’

  ‘Right. Dew, the inspector will remember you from this morning. Go with the sergeant here. My compliments to Inspector Failsworth. Any information he has from the dead man’s address, I want it.’

  He sensed a hesitation in Dew’s stride. ‘What is it, constable?’

  ‘I went off duty an hour ago, sir,’ Dew reminded him.

  ‘So did I, Dew,’ his guv’nor told him. ‘It’s a bastard, isn’t it?’ And he watched the policemen go.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ Skinner broke in. ‘I couldn’t help noticing that . . .’

  Lestrade looked down, hurriedly. Was something amiss? Had Messrs Inkester, Bespoke Tailors to the Metropolitans, somehow let him down?

  ‘That piece of metal, sir.’

  Lestrade threw it on to the desk. He had been playing with it, unaware, for the last half an hour. ‘What of it, Skinner?’ he asked.

  ‘May I see it, sir?’

  Lestrade handed it to him.

  ‘I thought so,’ Skinner smiled. ‘Aluminium.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Aluminium, sir; the name of the metal. Note the bluish tinge.’

  ‘What do you know about it?’

  ‘A great deal, sir. It is found naturally in the form of bauxite, though it does occur in other silicates.’

  ‘What is it used for?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Dozens of things, sir. Since the electrolytic process of Hall in America and Heroult in France . . .’

  ‘And where do you suppose I found this piece?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Skinner confessed.

  Lestrade leaned towards him. ‘Wedged between the molars of the late Gerald Mander,’ and the constable and the inspector glanced down as Lilley hit the floor.

  THE STATION WAGON RATTLED past Napoleon III’s mausoleum and on up the hill. Soldiers saluted at the main gates and Dew gave them the wave of a Field Marshal. Inspector Failsworth had discovered that the late Gerald Mander spent every waking hour messing about in balloons and since the papers in his desk made many allusions to the Balloon Section of the Royal Engineers based at South Farnborough, it was here that Lestrade and his constable found themselves the next day.

  The inspector was shown into an office, not unlike his own but four times bigger, and asked to wait. His heart leapt in surprise as an eager young officer with thick pince-nez and a central parting walked into the desk.

  ‘Morning,’ he called cheerily, ‘Charles Davenport, the Honourable,’ and he held his hand vaguely in Lestrade’s direction.

  Now this posed a problem for Lestrade, for he had met this man before. A quick glance downwards told him his memory served him aright. Rather than the dark blue trousers of the Royal Engineers, the crimson and yellow of the Eleventh Hussars hove into view. As though to confirm Lestrade’s worst suspicions, an enormous Irish wolfhound padded silently in, saw Lestrade and snarled.

  ‘Quiet, Paddy,’ ordered Davenport, and fumbled for his chair. ‘Mr . . . er . . .’

  Now this posed another problem for Lestrade, for when he and Davenport had met, what was it, three years ago, he, Lestrade, had been calling himself Athelney Jones. It had been one of those other occasions when he had been ‘off hooks’ with the Yard and he had felt obliged to use the rather dubious alias of the Inspector of River Police.

  ‘Lestrade,’ he came clean this time, ‘Inspector of Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Davenport picked up a bundle of three pencils. ‘Cigar?’

  ‘Er . . . not just now. I find the lead doesn’t agree with me.’

  ‘Got your telegram,’ Davenport went on. ‘Shame about poor old Gerry. Was it an accident?’

  ‘No.’ Lestrade read the man’s shoulder chains. He had been promoted since they last met. ‘. . . Major. Mr Mander was murdered.’

  ‘Good God!’ The news made Davenport pause in mid-strike as he was about to light the pencils.

  ‘Do have one of mine.’ Lestrade thrust a cigar into the major’s mouth.

  ‘Oh, thank you. Damned decent. Does “Sally” know?’

  ‘Sally? I understood Mr Mander to be unmarried.’

  ‘Unmarried?’ Davenport looked confused. ‘Oh, I see. No, Sally is Gerry’s brother. His name is actually Cuthbert, but it’s a sort of family joke you see – Sally Mander. Good, eh?’
/>
  Lestrade remained unmoved. ‘We have not been able to locate any members of Mr Mander’s family so far, sir,’ he said. ‘Identification of the body was made by his manservant. Was Mr Mander in the army?’

  ‘Good Lord, no. Civilian through and through. As a matter of fact, we’re all on the periphery here. I, of course, am in the Prince Albert’s Own, doing a spot of liaison with the Engineers.’ He leaned forward secretively. ‘Not really my cup of tea, actually. I say . . .’ He adjusted his bottle-bottoms and peered quizzically at Lestrade. ‘Haven’t we met before?’

  ‘I think not,’ Lestrade said, a shade too quickly.

  ‘Surely,’ Davenport persisted. ‘Weren’t you the chappie who ran into Oswald Ames in the Jubilee procession? It was in the papers.’

  ‘Was it?’ Lestrade had been lucky to escape that.

  ‘Yes. The journalist chappie had you off to a tee. I remember being struck by the poetry of the phrase – “A fellow with parchment skin and eyes weary of the world”.’

  ‘No, I think you must be confusing me with someone else.’

  ‘I remember.’ Davenport suddenly clicked his fingers. ‘You were the chappie who investigated that business of the regimental goat of the Welch. Tell me, did it die?’

  ‘I’m afraid I cannot discuss cases, Major Davenport.’

  ‘Oh, quite. Quite. Walls have ears. I do understand. How can I help in this tragic business of Gerry Mander?’

  ‘I’d like to know first how well you knew him.’

  ‘Ah.’ Davenport threw his feet up on the desk, knocking over a bronze statuette which Lestrade caught deftly if rather painfully on his kneecap. It immediately raised a thin red line on his trousers. ‘Three or four years now.’

  ‘What kind of man was he?’

  ‘Nice enough chap. Obsessed with ballooning, of course. In the blood, apparently. He and Sally won prizes all over the place – Paris, Berlin. Sorry, Lestrade. I haven’t offered you a drink. Now where does the adjutant keep the stuff?’ And he began to ferret in a broom cupboard.

  ‘If Mr Mander was a civilian, why was he here at all? An army base?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Ah.’ Davenport produced a bottle of Cleen-O For Linoleum. ‘That I can’t divulge, I’m afraid. Like your cases, you see. Rather hush-hush.’ He found some glasses. ‘Water?’

  ‘I don’t drink on duty, sir,’ Lestrade thought it expedient to say and was relieved when Davenport put the bleach away.

  ‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘Damned unprofessional. Let’s just say we have some rather important work going on at the moment.’ Davenport leaned towards him. ‘Of National Strategic Importance,’ and he tapped the side of his nose. ‘Do you know,’ he said, squinting again at Lestrade, ‘you bear an uncanny resemblance to a colleague of yours – Inspector Jones, do you know him?’

  ‘Er . . . vaguely,’ bluffed Lestrade.

  ‘Ah,’ beamed Davenport triumphantly, ‘I never forget a face. Shall we talk to Sally? I’m sure he can be of more help than I,’ and he reached on to the side table and carefully placed a tea cosy on his head. He adjusted it in the mirror, then tutted to himself. ‘Silly me,’ he said. ‘Here I am in undress fiddling about with a pillbox when I really need my torrin. Feels a bit floppy, though. Must have a word with my batman,’ and he replaced the cosy on the dummy head and snatched up the folding cap instead. ‘Follow me,’ he said and collided with the door frame. ‘Tsk, these Engineer chappies,’ he said. ‘What a place for a broom cupboard.’

  DAVENPORT AND LESTRADE and Paddy the wolfhound crossed the open fields where the gas wagons of the Royal Engineers were drawn up and men stood idly round in groups, patting horses that stamped and whinnied. At a barked command, they formed a huge circle around the deflated sheets and the gas began to pump from the huge pipes. Slowly, as Lestrade and Davenport watched, the thing rose before them like a giant mushroom, until it left the ground and hovered above them, dangling with ropes and baskets and weights.

  A man in a heavy overcoat emerged from the scarlet uniforms and inspected the rigging.

  ‘Ah, Sally.’ Davenport led Lestrade forward. ‘This is Inspector Lestrade from Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Hmphh,’ Mander grunted and continued his inspection.

  ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, Mr Mander,’ Lestrade said. ‘Your brother is dead.’

  As Mander turned, Lestrade stepped backwards. The shock hit him like a slap. It was like looking again at the corpse in Epping Forest. ‘Mr Mander and yourself are twins?’ Lestrade said at last.

  ‘It appears we were,’ grunted Mander. ‘How did he die?’

  ‘He was stabbed, sir. His body was found yesterday morning in Epping Forest, near the village of Bowells.’

  Mander looked at Davenport, at Lestrade, at the distant figure of Dew waiting with the black police station wagon.

  ‘It’s a fine day for a flight, Mr Lestrade. Care to join us?’

  ‘Well, I . . .’ and he found himself being bundled into the basket by the capable hands of the Royal Engineers, rather as those of the Yorkshire Hussars had bundled him recently into the saddle of Minstrel, the black charger.

  ‘Watch out, Davenport,’ Mander called as the major was hauled aboard. ‘Get a whiff of that sulphuric acid and granulated zinc and I’ll guarantee it’ll bring tears to your eyes.’

  ‘Here, Paddy.’ Davenport slapped his thigh and the wolfhound leapt bodily into the basket, knocking Lestrade to one side.

  ‘Cast off,’ roared Mander and the little army of Engineers scurried in all directions, loosening ropes, untying knots and otherwise letting go. Lestrade gripped the sides of the basket as the thing swayed and creaked.

  ‘Let go ballast!’ ordered Mander and he and Davenport began throwing the roped weights over the side. ‘Look out below!’ The Engineers scattered and let out a cheer as the balloon began to rise. Lestrade’s stomach lay with the wolfhound at his feet. The dog was snoring loudly, but the noise was lost as the wind began to take the balloon and it drifted lazily to the south.

  ‘Compass bearing?’ Mander asked Davenport.

  The major crouched over a control panel in one corner of the basket. ‘Er . . . thirty . . . no, wait a minute, thirty-five . . .’

  Mander pushed him gently out of the way and looked for himself. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘we’ll be clear of the trees in a moment.’

  Lestrade didn’t know whether to look up, where the great grey balloon with its ropes sailed like a stately globe overhead, or down, where the figures of the Engineers began to look like red and white ants and the gas pumps on the wagons like tiny coffins. To all sides of him, the horizon was yawing crazily, trees and houses now far below.

  ‘It’s a grand day for it,’ Davenport shouted over the wind and he and Mander proceeded to arm themselves with layers of scarves and gloves. The cold whipped through Lestrade’s Donegal and in a sudden snatch of wind, his bowler was gone, to tumble and fly like a dust speck over the South Downs. He thought he’d better focus on something and do his job before he saw his breakfast again. ‘When did you see your brother last?’ he asked Mander.

  ‘Three days ago,’ came the reply. ‘Here at Farnborough.’

  Lestrade glanced down briefly. Farnborough had gone. In its place a mad patchwork of winter fields, the uplands still grey with frost.

  ‘Can you think of anyone who would want to see him dead?’

  Mander looked grimly at Davenport who squinted meaningfully back at him.

  ‘No one,’ Mander said.

  ‘You don’t seem very upset by the news of your brother’s death, Mr Mander,’ Lestrade thought it was time to observe.

  The balloonist looked at him. ‘My brother and I were not close, Inspector. We shared the same face and the same passion for aerial ascent but of recent years we’d drifted apart.’

  Lestrade thought it sounded like him and his stomach.

  ‘You see, it’s not true that identical twins feel things simultaneously, although . . .’


  ‘Although?’ Lestrade sensed an oddness of mood.

  ‘You say my brother was stabbed?’

  ‘Through the neck. The weapon was not a knife, at least, not a conventional one. Why?’

  ‘I’m not feeling myself this morning,’ Mander told him.

  Lestrade was not at all surprised by that. He felt as though his feet were floating round his ears.

  ‘Exhilarating, isn’t it?’ shouted Davenport, impervious to the increasing greyness of Mander.

  ‘Davenport, keep your hand on that tiller,’ Mander snapped, ‘Lestrade, pass me that water bottle, will you?’

  Lestrade found it lying near the prone wolfhound who raised its shaggy head and growled at him. It was the story of Lestrade’s life. Mander swallowed greedily, as though his life depended on it.

  ‘Can you tell me what you and your brother were engaged upon here, Mr Mander?’

  ‘I cannot discuss that, Lestrade,’ he said. ‘You must look elsewhere for your murderer.’

  ‘Was there a lady in his life?’ Lestrade asked.

  Mander began to twist his neck and tug at his cravat beneath the furs. ‘No, not particularly. But as I said, we were not close. It’s funny though, I did have a lady visitor apparently, yesterday evening . . .’ and he attempted a smile but it turned to a scowl and he vomited loudly over the side. Lestrade turned away from the spectacle, to come face to face with the wolfhound who had risen on his haunches and was resting his paws on the ropes. He drew his warm, wet tongue the length of the inspector’s face.

  ‘He likes you!’ laughed Davenport, wrestling quietly with a pair of binoculars. ‘Something wrong with these damn things.’ He shook them.

  Mander rejoined the group. ‘Davenport, we’d better get down.’ His voice was a croak. ‘I’m not well. I haven’t felt sick in a balloon in twenty years. Lestrade, I had a visitor . . .’ and he turned again to retch over the side. Suddenly, he slumped to his knees. Lestrade caught him and hauled him into a sitting position.