by M. J. Trow
‘Right,’ said Lestrade, ‘what do we know about Parmenter?’
Dew flicked through his notepad. ‘Third son of Ezekiel and Roberta Parmenter of London and New York. Educated at Eton and Harvard.’
‘Where?’ Lestrade asked.
‘Eton, sir.’ Dew was a little surprised. ‘It’s a public school.’
‘No, I mean Harvard,’ Lestrade corrected him.
‘Ah, that’s another public school,’ Dew was less assertive this time.
‘Actually, it’s an American university,’ Skinner told them.
‘Go on, Dew,’ ordered Lestrade.
‘He seems to have become involved in ballooning in the United States and spent half of each year there.’
‘That’s all?’
‘He was something of a daredevil by all accounts. High-wire stuff as well as ballooning. He crossed the Niagara Falls on a rope several times, like that Blondel bloke.’
‘Did he carry a lute?’ Skinner asked.
They all looked at him.
‘All right, Walter,’ Lestrade said, ‘you’ve done well. Lilley, Poplar Workhouse. The victim in the fraud perpetuated by Hughie Ralph.’
‘Ah.’ Lilley rummaged for his notepad. ‘It was Bethnal Green, sir.’
‘Bethnal Green?’
‘George Hypericum Elliott was very difficult to find. He kept getting a pass to find work and then disappeared. In the end, he’d turn up under an assumed name at a different workhouse. When I finally tracked him down he was called Lawrenson.’
‘Lawrenson?’
Lilley nodded. ‘George Hypericum Lawrenson.’
That name rang a bell for Lestrade but he couldn’t place it. ‘What did he say?’
‘He’s dying, sir,’ Lilley had turned his usual colour of the snow beyond the window. ‘TB, he told me. I felt very sorry for him, sir.’
Lestrade nodded. ‘It’s that sort of job, laddie,’ he said. ‘You’ve just got to keep a sense of prospective.’
‘There’s something about this case, sir,’ Lilley said.
‘Elliott?’ asked Lestrade.
‘Elliott, Ralph, the Manders, all of them.’
‘What’s that?’ Lestrade was prepared to turn any stone by this stage.
‘Why don’t we just let him go, sir – the murderer, I mean?’
Dew sprayed tea all over Skinner’s tweed.
‘Why should we do that, constable?’ Lestrade asked quietly.
‘Well, sir, I mean . . .’ He resorted to his fingers. ‘If we’re right . . .’
Lestrade assumed that wasn’t the royal ‘we’.
‘. . . then all these victims have deserved all they got. One, Captain Fellowes ran out on his men. In effect, he murdered them. Two, Mr Tetley may or may not have stolen the archaeological credit from Mr Jones. He may even or may not have killed him. Three, Mr de Lacy bludgeoned . . .’ The word shook him once he had said it. ‘. . . caused the death of Mrs de Lacy – you said so yourself. Four,’ he was running dangerously low on fingers, ‘Captain Hellerslyke was responsible for the death of Miss Hardinge . . .’
‘Even so, Lilley,’ Skinner broke in, ‘the whole fabric of society is at stake. As J. S. Mill was the first to point out . . .’
‘What Constable Skinner is trying to say,’ said Dew, ‘is that we can’t take the law into our own hands. We’re not judges and juries.’
‘Precisely so, Dew,’ said Skinner and Dew scowled at the junior man.
‘But this . . .’ Lilley was unusually persistent. ‘This is not justice.’
Lestrade’s pencil stub rapped out an insistent refrain on the desk and the hubbub died down. ‘What else did Elliott tell you?’
‘He’d had it cushy all his life – servants, nannies and so on. Only kid. Spoiled to death . . .’ He suddenly didn’t care for the analogy. ‘Hughie Ralph ruined him, all right. He invested thousands in his African railway schemes, believing they were genuine. When he found out they weren’t, it was too late. He lost his friends, his family. Blokes ignored him in the club. He went to pieces and they found him lying blind drunk in an alley somewhere, coughing blood.’
‘Let that be a lesson to us all, gentlemen,’ Lestrade said.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to afford railway shares, sir,’ chuckled Dew.
‘Indeed not, Walter.’ Lestrade reached across and rattled a tin on the filing cabinet. ‘I was referring to the tea kitty. Somebody hasn’t put in his tanner.’
Dew blushed crimson and dug deep into his pockets.
‘I’m off for luncheon,’ Lestrade said. ‘They’ve let me out today,’ and he made for the lift.
Across the slushy yard below his office the inspector trudged, wrapping his muffler round his battered face. The snow crystallized on his new bowler, then melted on the felt. He caught the extended hand from the hansom door.
‘Sholto,’ a voice greeted him.
‘Harry.’ Lestrade felt his hand pumped heartily as Squire Bandicoot hauled him in.
‘Sholto.’ Letitia, radiant as ever in the crisp air, reached over and kissed him. ‘You got my telegram.’
‘I did,’ he said, tipping his hat. ‘You both look well.’
‘Mr Lestrade.’ A frail figure unwrapped itself from a pack of furs.
‘Miss Balsam.’ Lestrade tipped his hat again. ‘How are you?’
‘Very well,’ she smiled. ‘Letitia and Harry have brought me up to do some Christmas shopping in town. Aren’t they kind?’
‘They are,’ said Lestrade. He knew that of old. Harry Bandicoot had saved his life and got him out of more scrapes than he cared to remember. ‘When did you get here?’
‘Yesterday,’ Harry told him. ‘We’re staying at the Grand. Luncheon is on me. Sholto, can you join us for dinner?’
Lestrade looked a little awkward, not an unusual pose for him. ‘I’m not sure I have the dress for it,’ he said.
‘Nonsense.’ Letitia took his arm. ‘Come as you are. Look.’ She rummaged in her portmanteau and produced a sepia photograph of a little girl. Lestrade’s little girl. He looked at it and smiled. Then he turned quickly away to look at the red brick of the Yard.
‘The Grand, driver,’ called Harry and the hansom lurched forward.
LESTRADE HADN’T HAD a lunch like that in a long time. And it was good to talk to Harry and Letitia again. Miss Balsam spent most of the meal asleep, snoring demurely until Letitia nudged her awake. She was tired. All the excitement of the trip to London and the years had taken their toll. Letitia tucked her up in her room while Lestrade and Harry went to the hotel’s billiards room.
‘Call,’ Harry tossed the coin.
‘Heads,’ said Lestrade.
‘You break.’ Harry hung up his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. ‘I heard no more about Richard Tetley, Sholto. Has the trail gone cold?’
Lestrade’s white ball came back to him without colliding with any of the others. ‘In a manner of speaking, Harry,’ he said. ‘You know of course I shouldn’t divulge anything about the cases I’m working on.’
Bandicoot held up his hand. ‘I know,’ he said, racking up the points on the brass scorer. ‘I was on the Force once, remember.’
‘I remember,’ nodded Lestrade. ‘You never got me that coroner’s report, by the way.’
‘The Chief Constable wouldn’t budge, Sholto.’ Bandicoot chalked his cue. ‘I did try, but he was adamant. Just wouldn’t call in the Yard officially.’
‘Guthrie got to him first.’ Lestrade crouched for his shot. ‘Never mind. By the way, did you know a chap called Parmenter?’
‘Parmenter?’ Bandicoot paused to think. He couldn’t do anything else while he did that. ‘“Armpits” Parmenter? Captain of Fives at Eton?’
‘I thought his name was Henry, at least according to Walter Dew’s report.’
‘Henry, yes.’ Bandicoot played his shot, a crafty one that caught Lestrade’s knuckle resting idly on the cush. ‘We called him “Armpits” because he was always sweating. Cap
tain of Fives, Athletics, Sculls.’
‘You were no slouch in your day, Harry. Was Parmenter a rival?’
‘Not really. He was four or five years my senior. We only boxed once.’
‘What happened?’
‘I knocked him out.’
‘Somebody knocked him out of a balloon.’
‘I remember that. About three years ago, wasn’t it? I never really knew the chap, but it was a terrible accident.’
‘Yes, only it wasn’t an accident, Harry. Two men, brothers by the name of Mander, pushed him.’
‘Good God!’
‘Did you know the Manders?’
‘Mander?’ Bandicoot paused. Lestrade was certainly taxing the man’s mental capacity today. ‘Weren’t they in the paper recently? Aren’t they dead too?’
Lestrade nodded. ‘There are times in this job when I think I know more dead people than live ones. Set ’em up again, Harry. It’s my shout,’ and he went off in search of the bar.
Bandicoot did not meet Lestrade on a daily basis. He had no idea how rare an event that was.
LESTRADE MANAGED TO borrow an evening suit from the Islington Lost Property Department and it didn’t fit him at all badly. In fact, on second thoughts, as he passed a mirror, it didn’t fit him at all. He even managed to get back to the Grand in time for dinner. Nanny Balsam would not join them. Let the young folks have fun, she said and she retired early with her knitting. She had retired already in fact, from nannying, but there was always someone to knit and sew for. Rupert and Ivo, the Bandicoot boys, were four now and growing fast and Nanny Balsam loved making frothy dresses for little Emma.
Harry ordered and Lestrade managed to identify the soup before devouring it. Conversation was easy and pleasant as it always was when he was with Harry and Letitia. He hadn’t realized how much he needed a rest like that and was tackling the trout when a worried-looking Constable Dew hurtled through the dining-room and whispered in Lestrade’s ear. The inspector straightened and his face turned grey.
‘Where?’ he asked.
‘The Highway,’ Dew told him.
‘Letitia, Harry.’ He tugged the napkin from his neck. ‘I have to go.’
‘Trouble, Sholto?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid so. It’s a gang war and a bad one.’
‘I’m coming too, Sholto.’ Bandicoot was on his feet.
Lestrade looked at him. ‘Out of the question,’ he said.
‘Sholto.’ Harry looked back at him through steady blue eyes. ‘Remember Hengler’s Circus?’
Lestrade remembered. He had been staring death in the face. He had been curled up, bound hand and foot, bundled into a cannon and was about to be launched into eternity when Harry Bandicoot had happened by. The murderer had fired, but Harry had fired faster and Lestrade was still here because of it. Yes, Lestrade remembered.
‘Letitia,’ Lestrade said, ‘this could be dangerous.’
She hesitated for less than a second, then smiled, squeezed the inspector’s hand and said, ‘Then you’ll need Harry.’
Both men bent to kiss the radiant lady, one on each cheek, and they left. Walter Dew stood there, grinning inanely at Mrs Bandicoot. He had a loving wife too.
‘Dew!’ Lestrade bellowed and the constable scurried after them.
DOCKLAND WAS OFF LESTRADE’S usual beat. In fact it was out of the Metropolitan area altogether, but when trouble on this scale brewed, it was all hands to the pumps. It was a strangely silent scene into which Lestrade’s cab whirred, the horse padding through the new snow, lit by the isolated green gaslamps of the East End.
A large crowd of policemen from the City and Metropolitan forces stood at one end of the Ratcliffe Highway, stamping their feet and blowing on their hands in the cold. Beyond that, and to one side of them, an even larger force of roughs in caps and mufflers muttered darkly. Two hundred yards away a solitary omnibus stood at an odd angle in the centre of the Highway, its horses unharnessed and waiting nearby, snorting periodically to break the silence. Now and then, a head would peer over the top rail of the open-topped ’bus and vanish again. Only one head remained there in the lurid snow-light, framed by the halo of the nearest gaslamp.
The crowd of policemen parted to let Lestrade, Dew and Bandicoot through. In the centre sat a quaking figure, crouched on three orange boxes that audibly groaned beneath him. He was clutching a head wound.
‘Lestrade,’ the figure hissed, ‘where have you been?’
‘I was off duty, sir,’ Lestrade explained.
Assistant Commissioner Frost was less than impressed. ‘Well, now you’re here, do something.’
‘Certainly sir.’ Lestrade was calm. ‘But first, may I know the situation?’
‘The situation is this. In those doorways is one of the worst gangs in London – Rupasobly’s. See that man on the ’bus – the one on the top deck? Well, he’s one of Rupasobly’s people. And he’s dead. The rest of them on the ’bus are Maguire’s. Except for the driver, the conductor and a woman passenger. Maguire is holding them hostage.’
‘What for?’
‘He says he’ll kill them unless we guarantee him and his men safe conduct out of the city.’
‘His men killed Rupasobly’s man?’
‘He says not.’ Frost nursed his head. ‘But you know these Irish. They’d kill anybody for the price of a pint.’
‘Have you talked to Rupasobly?’
‘I tried.’ Frost held up his bloody handkerchief. ‘One of his thugs threw a snowball at me. It had half a brick in it. Talk to him, Lestrade. Make him see sense.’
‘What’s to say I won’t get the other half of the brick?’ Lestrade asked.
‘He knows you, Lestrade. You’ve got a knack of dealing with the riff-raff. If this gets out of hand, it’ll get ugly.’
‘I’m afraid it will,’ nodded Lestrade as another cab arrived on the scene. ‘Here’s Chief Inspector Abberline. Bandicoot, Dew, with me,’ and he crossed to the far wall. ‘Dew, get your truncheon out,’ he ordered.
‘Sir?’
‘Your truncheon, man. Get it out. Hold it up in the air. Harry, are you armed?’
Bandicoot looked askance. ‘Good Lord, no.’
‘Right. Put both hands in the air. Gentlemen, we’re going to walk across the street that way.’ He jerked his head behind him. To Bandicoot, it seemed an odd way to walk, but his ex-guv’nor knew best. This was alien territory to the Somerset squire. He’d only once entered the East End when he was a copper and he’d narrowly escaped a beating then. Toffs were particularly likely prey for men without scruple, without money and without hope. ‘We will walk slowly, spread out and there will be no sudden moves. Understood?’
Bandicoot and Dew nodded. The body of policemen shifted to watch as the three of them padded softly through the snow, churned now by cab wheels and stamping, shifting size twelves. They made an odd sight – two men in regulation bowlers and Donegals, the inspector’s rather better made than the constable’s, both of them with the condensation freezing on their regulation moustaches. The third, a head taller, in topper and astrakhan, cut in altogether a different style. All three men had their hands in the air.
‘Chubb!’ Lestrade shattered the silence. ‘Chubb Rupasobly. Come out, come out, wherever you are.’
A single snowball crashed and broke on Lestrade’s shoulder. It contained nothing but snow.
‘Who wants him?’ a voice shouted.
‘Inspector Lestrade,’ he answered.
‘What’s that in your hand?’ the voice shouted back.
Lestrade raised his brass knuckles higher and threw them ostentatiously into the snow. Dew did the same with his truncheon.
‘What about the swell?’ the voice called.
‘That’s you, Harry,’ whispered Lestrade. ‘Show them your hands are empty.’
Bandicoot turned them in the air. Lestrade walked on.
‘That’s far enough!’ the voice shouted.
‘I want the organ grinder,’ said Lestrad
e loudly, ‘not his monkey.’
There was a ripple of whistles and applause from the distant omnibus. A tiny figure broke silently from the darkness of the buildings and stood before Lestrade in wide-awake and cigar, his fingers dazzling with rings.
‘Hello, Chubb,’ said Lestrade.
‘Mr Lestrade,’ trilled the midget, ‘this is a pleasant surprise.’
Lestrade nodded. ‘Mrs Rupasobly?’ he asked.
‘Very well,’ the midget said, the grin fixed on his evil face.
‘And all the little Rupasoblies?’
More guffaws from the ’bus.
‘This isn’t a social call, Mr Lestrade. Who’s the fancy dan?’
‘This is Harry Bandicoot, Chubb. He’s a friend of mine. And this . . .’ He turned to Dew.
‘We know ’im,’ Chubb said, clenching his teeth. ‘So what’s to do?’
‘I want to talk, Chubb. This is a bit public, isn’t it?’
‘Come this way, then.’
‘Sholto.’ Harry half turned and dropped his hands. Rupasobly backed like a cornered rat into the shadows. There was a flash in the darkness that Lestrade recognized as a knife blade.
‘No!’ he shouted. ‘It’s all right, Chubb. Bandicoot here is new at this. He doesn’t know the rules.’
There was a silence.
‘It’s your move, copper,’ Chubb hissed.
‘Lestrade!’ a voice roared from behind the trio. Lestrade recognized it as Abberline’s. ‘Come away. You’re not achieving anything by talking to that deformed animal.’
There was an inrush of air. Another single snowball hurtled across the street, missing Lestrade by inches and crunching into the centre of the police circle. There was a squeal.
‘I expect that smarts, Mr Abberline,’ called Rupasobly. ‘There was half a brick in it.’
‘Chubb.’ Lestrade took two paces forward. ‘We can reason this out. What do you want?’
‘The head of Cosh Maguire,’ hissed the dwarf. ‘Oh, and his balls too. I may as well have the set. I can make a pawnbroker’s sign out of them.’
Lestrade closed to the edge of the darkness. A dozen more chivs gleamed in the frosty starlight. ‘Chubb,’ Lestrade said quietly, ‘the whole area is ringed with coppers. You can’t get out!’
