by Trow, M J
Conan Doyle fainted.
Lestrade had meant to wait until the all-too-good doctor recovered, to offer his apologies for offending him. It must have been the conversation on top of those rather sickly pastries. But somehow he couldn’t face it. Conan Doyle would have wanted to know why he had been asking those bizarre questions. And at the back of his mind, Lestrade wanted to preserve his anonymity, at least for the moment. He had not broken Conan Doyle down and yet his reaction, if he were not guilty, was surely an odd one. A squeamish doctor? Who wrote murder stories for a living? It strained credulity. And his chosen method of murder when pressed by Lestrade – suffocation. The Man in the Chine, the Inky Boys – four of Agrippa’s victims had died by a form of suffocation.
Lestrade left instructions with the waitresses of the Sally Lunn and then, collecting his baggage, caught the last and only evening train to town.’
‘Devil of a time to call,’ snapped Watson, looking ludicrous in nightcap and shirt.
‘I have no time for niceties, Doctor,’ Lestrade answered him. He was tired, wet, dispirited. In the reflection of the carriage lights, rattling north on the brave curve below Arundel Castle, he had seen the face of Constance Mauleverer. Distant. Smiling. Then it had vanished and he saw only his own face, darkened by the darkness of murder. In that carriage, he had faced Death itself. He imagined as he stared beyond his own shadowed face, scarred by plate glass and sabre, Agrippa, sitting opposite him and a little behind. A big man, one moment in broad hat and muffler, as he had been when furtively meeting Harriet Wemyss months before in Macclesfield. The next, hunched, ancient, gnarled – Madame Slopesski with her bright blue eyes, the wrong colour, and the curse in her throat and the pointing finger. Again, the apparition became a series of nightmarish scenes from Struwwelpeter – tall Agrippa, the long-legged scissor-man, the hare with the shotgun and over all there danced that face with its sad cheeks – ‘anything to me is sweeter, than to see shock-headed Peter.’
No, Lestrade had no time for niceties. He had roused the sleeping cabbie at Waterloo and the hansom had creaked and clattered its way through the dark Sunday night, through the shining wet streets. There had been no lights burning at 221B Baker Street, though a ragged urchin was nodding off on the steps. Watson glanced down at him and tapped him with his foot. ‘Go home, boy. Nothing for you tonight.’ He showed Lestrade in. ‘One of our Irregulars,’ he said, gesturing in the lad’s direction. ‘They’re all so loyal, you know.’
Lestrade followed the flickering oil lamp up to the parlour. ‘Mrs Hudson sleeps so soundly. Sleep of the just, I suppose.’
‘Where is Mr Holmes?’
Watson stared at him. ‘But isn’t that why you’ve come?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t follow.’
Watson straightened himself. ‘Sherlock Holmes is dead.’
Lestrade felt his jaw drop. He recovered himself. ‘Cocaine?’
Watson flashed him an angry stare. ‘No, by God. Professor Moriarty.’
‘Who?’
‘The Napoleon of Crime, Holmes used to call him.’
‘Perhaps I had better come in again, Watson. I don’t know what you are talking about.’
‘Have a seat, man. And a drink. God knows I need one.’
Watson poured them both a voluminous brandy and sat by the fire’s embers. ‘Holmes had been aware of Moriarty’s activities for some time. One of three appalling brothers, the man is a monster – a villain of international reputation. I wonder you haven’t heard of him, Lestrade.’
‘That’s Gregson’s department, Doctor – the Special Branch.’
‘Anyway, Holmes was determined to face the man. He traced him to Switzerland. Master of disguise though he is, he daren’t show his face here in England, not with Holmes after him.’ Watson swigged heartily at his drink. ‘I received this letter from Holmes and two telegrams. They all speak of optimism. He was to meet Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls – a well known tourist spot near Interlaken.’
‘And?’
Watson produced a voluminous handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. ‘I received another letter only this morning, by special messenger. Holmes did meet Moriarty, apparently. They fought. Moriarty had a pistol. Holmes grappled with him and … they both fell over the edge.’
A chill silence descended. Watson hung his head, visibly sobbing. Lestrade felt uncomfortable. He had never liked Holmes, but the man had gone bravely. In the way he would have liked. He poured another drink for himself and Watson. He nudged Watson’s shoulder with the glass and grunted to him.
‘They found their bodies. Locked together on a ledge one hundred and fifty feet below. Their necks were broken.’ Watson drained the glass.
Lestrade sat down heavily. He sat up almost immediately, pulling a fiddling-stick from beneath him, with a grimace.
‘Oh, sorry, Lestrade,’ mumbled Watson. ‘His last bow.’
‘Quite.’ Lestrade allowed a certain interval. ‘Is there nothing else you want to tell me, Doctor Watson?’
Watson looked up at the ferret-like features. They weren’t ferret-like really. That was unkind. And the man was no buffoon either. He must write to Conan Doyle about that. But then, there was no point now, was there? The Great Detective was dead. There would be no more Sherlock Holmes stories.
‘How did you know?’ he asked.
Lestrade stood up. He thought his heart had stopped. ‘I didn’t at first.’ He was wondering which of them, Watson or Conan Doyle, had played Madame Slopesski so convincingly and he was on the point of realising that neither of them had blue eyes when Watson handed him a letter.
‘You’d better read this,’ he said. ‘It’s from the Minister Plenipotentiary in Geneva. Came this morning by special messenger.’
‘Sir,’ Lestrade read silently. ‘I regret to inform you of the death yesterday of Mr Sherlock Holmes, late of 221B, Baker Street. As you know, Mr Holmes had been staying at the Travellers’ Rest Hotel in Interlaken for the past three weeks. During that time he became increasingly unwell and took to wandering in the town and on the hills. He as warned about the dangerous slopes and precipices, but he persisted. At approximately ten o’clock on the morning of the fourteenth inst., Mr Holmes was seen to be walking near the Reichenbach Falls when he became extremely agitated, eye-witnesses testified. He began screaming loudly, “Damn you, Watson, will you never leave me alone?” and leapt at a gentleman who happened to be standing nearby – a Professor Moriarty of Heidelberg University, who was on holiday with friends studying rock strata in that part of Switzerland. The Professor and Mr Holmes were seen to disappear over the water’s edge and their bodies were later found on a parapet one hundred and fifty feet below. Their necks had been broken. It grieves me, sir, to be the one to break this news to you. The hotel authorities took the liberty of searching through Mr Holmes’s papers and your name came to light. In the absence of any other information, I would beg you to inform his next of kin and make arrangements for burial. Yours …’
Lestrade dropped the letter to his side.
‘How did you know,’ Watson’s voice was barely audible. ‘About the cocaine, I mean? Did you know he’d always planned to kill me?’
‘I guessed,’ Lestrade lied. He wanted to stay on the offensive. Watson was vulnerable now and he might yet get a confession.
‘Look,’ Watson wearily dragged himself over to the wall. ‘Had you asked about these bullet holes, Holmes would have told you they were target practice – neat in the Queen’s cypher, eh? What he would not have told you was that every one of those shots was fired when I was only inches away. Yes, I know it defies belief. But eleven times Holmes pretended the gun went off “by accident”. He never had the nerve, you see, to kill me. Until … five weeks ago, we had a row. A blazing one. He accused me of treachery, deception, hiding his cocaine, pouring glue over his violin. Mrs Hudson left the room in sheer panic. I’d never seen him so incensed before, although, I suppose, I knew it was always coming. He packed his bags and left. He r
efused to say where he was going.’
‘The letters? Telegrams?’
‘I made them up. The only letter I have received is the one in your hand, telling me of his death. What hurts most if that in his deranged mind, he thought that poor old geologist was me. I suppose there may have been a passing resemblance.’
‘And the Napoleon of Crime?’
‘I made that up, too.’
Another long chill silence.
‘Why did you come, Lestrade? At this hour of night? If you didn’t know about Holmes …’
‘It will keep,’ smiled Lestrade. He was getting soft. Or old. Or both. As he made for the door, he told himself it was because Watson was Constance’s uncle.
‘Lestrade.’ Watson’s voice was stronger now. He faced the inspector across the shadowed room. ‘I’m not going to let Holmes die for nothing. I shall write to Conan Doyle tonight. Holmes will live again. He shall not die at the Reichenbach Falls – and a Professor of Geology at Heidelberg University shall achieve undying fame.’ Watson was smiling. ‘And you will never catch him, Lestrade, only Holmes will.’
As Lestrade reached the stairs, he heard the scratch of bow on violin. Rosin on catgut. He never went back.
On the day the papers carried the story of the return of Holmes’ body to London for burial, the body of Philip Faye was being examined in the white-tiled laboratory at Scotland Yard. Around the corpse stood Melville McNaghten, moustached and cravated, Dr Forecastle, the pathologist, Inspector Lestrade, back on duty, and Constable Bandicoot, attending his first autopsy.
‘I’m not one to carp, Lestrade,’ whispered McNaghten, ‘but if you’re right in the supposition that the name fits, then this is the ninth victim in this case of yours.’
‘Tenth,’ Lestrade corrected him calmly.
‘It can’t go on, Lestrade. We’re being made to look fools. All of us. Have you seen the morning papers?’
‘Burial of Sherlock Holmes?’ asked Lestrade.
‘Damn you, Lestrade. Burial of us all unless this man is caught. It’s not just your career at stake now. The Commissioner is most alarmed. The public won’t remain patient for ever, you know.’
‘Cause of death?’ Lestrade ignored McNaghten’s blustering, addressing himself to Forecastle and the matter in hand.
‘Suffocation.’
Lestrade swept from the room without further ado. He was Waterloo bound, for the Southsea train. Bandicoot hesitated in mid-corridor. McNaghten stopped him. ‘Lestrade!’
‘It’s Conan Doyle,’ the inspector answered. ‘I wasn’t sure at first. I thought it was a double act – he and John Watson of Baker Street.’ Lestrade was thrusting a few essentials into a Gladstone bag. He always kept a spare shirt and collars at the Yard for just such a sudden departure.
‘Conan Doyle?’ echoed McNaghten. ‘What on earth made you suspect him?’
Lestrade paused, searching the middle distance for an answer. ‘Call it intuition,’ was all he could muster. Then he had gone, Donegal flapping, into the chill morning sun.
Bandicoot looked at McNaghten. ‘Should I go with him, sir?’
‘No need, Constable,’ was the reply. ‘Had the inspector bothered to wait for one moment, he would have discovered that I was to have lunch within the hour with Doctor Conan Doyle. He is in London for the funeral of Sherlock Holmes. I wonder Lestrade was not there himself.’ McNaghten turned to go. ‘On second thoughts, Bandicoot, you’d better get after him. Lestrade would never forgive me if I let him go all the way to wherever Conan Doyle lives on a fool’s errand. Besides, he’ll charge expenses to the Yard, and that would never do.’
And so it was nearly two before Lestrade and Bandicoot walked the Embankment. Leaves, crimson and yellow, were curling at their feet, gusting now and then across their faces. Lestrade was silent, nonplussed for the moment.
‘Would it help to talk about it, sir?’ Bandicoot was first to break the silence. ‘I mean, I hope to be a senior officer one day and I’d like to understand something of the thought processes involved.’
Thought processes? Lestrade mused to himself. What the hell were they?
‘It’s funny, Bandicoot.’ Lestrade reached a bench and sat down, tilting the bowler back on his head. ‘I felt so sure this morning, but now … Listen to this. John Watson is related to two of Agrippa’s victims – your school chum Edward Coke-Hythe and Const … the wife of Albert Mauleverer. What if Agrippa intended, for reasons we don’t yet know, to kill a certain victim – or indeed two certain victims? What if those victims were Coke-Hythe and Mauleverer?’
‘Then why go on?’ asked Bandicoot. ‘Why is Philip Faye lying in the Yard mortuary?’
‘Because Agrippa is a methodical murderer. Because he has used the Struwwelpeter stories and intends to follow them to the letter. Who can explain the workings of a mind like his?’
‘And Doctor Watson is the common factor?’
‘At first I suspected Mrs Mauleverer. Two reasons told me I was wrong. First, these murders are not the work of a woman. They are too physical, too violent. Second, she has a perfect alibi for the murder of Forbes.’
‘Perfect?’
Lestrade shifted a little uncomfortably and muttered, ‘She was with me.’
‘Ah, quite.’ Bandicoot tried not to let the smirk show on his face. Lestrade tried not to let him know he had seen it.
‘The only other common factor is Watson.’
‘But could not Mrs Mauleverer have killed her husband and Edward Coke-Hythe?’ Bandicoot persisted.
‘Yes, she could, but that would mean that the murder of Forbes at least was the work of a copy-cat, someone who also knew the Struwwelpeter pattern. Remember, the press have not yet made that link. We are still the only ones who know the pattern. No, it strains credulity.’
‘And Conan Doyle?’
‘Co-author with Watson of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – you know, in the Strand Magazine.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, I don’t.’
‘You’re missing nothing,’ Lestrade observed. ‘In Kent, I met Agrippa. Oh, I know, it’s not in my report. I didn’t tell McNaghten, you, anyone. But it was Agrippa all right; disguised, yes, cleverly, very cleverly. But Agrippa nonetheless; I am sure of it. Through Watson I knew that Conan Doyle was an ardent spiritualist – and who better to play a leading medium than an ardent spiritualist?’
‘So it was Watson and Conan Doyle?’
‘Two murderers would be convenient.’ Lestrade was talking to the middle distance again. ‘Easier to accomplish the murders, provide alibis, leave a trail of red herrings, but …’
‘But?’
‘But, Bandicoot, it increases the risk enormously. Can one trust – really trust – the other? Remember his life depends on it. One slip, one wrong word – and the drop. No, that too strains credulity. Oh, I over-reacted this morning. Conan Doyle had chosen the method when I asked him how he would kill a man. Suffocation, Bandicoot. The method of despatch of one Philip Faye.’
‘Then why don’t you arrest Conan Doyle? Or at least interrogate him?’
Interrogate? thought Lestrade. Where did Bandicoot find these words? Had he perhaps swallowed a dictionary? Or perhaps his mother had been frightened by one? ‘No, he’s not our man. He’s been in London for four days. And our revered Chief is lunching with him as we speak. Could we establish a link between the good doctor and our latest corpse, I wonder? I doubt it.’
Bandicoot looked confused.
‘When you’ve been in this business as long as I have …’ Lestrade checked himself; he’d always vowed he would never say that, but it was too late now, ‘… you learn to work on intuition – a feeling, vague, unsure, but there. Somewhere between your fob and your half hunter, Bandicoot. That something tells me Conan Doyle is not our man. We’ll let him and Watson go on writing their detective rubbish. We can’t hang them for that.’
Lestrade got to his feet. ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a Saveloy in the Coal Hole.’
Unsavoury
was the word with which Bandicoot finally came up. The best word he could find in the circumstances to fit the late and unlamented Philip Faye. Lestrade was cool, detached about the whole thing; he had after all seen it before, but it opened up a whole new world to Bandicoot. The radical press and the Evangelists called it White Slavery. Lestrade shrugged and called it a fact of life.
‘Little girls,’ Sergeant Dixon had repeated. ‘Oh, yes, big market. Deflowering’s the name of the game, Bandicoot. Course, it’s not so common now as it was. When you’ve been in this business as long as I have …’
‘So Philip Faye was a procurer of young girls?’
‘So it says ’ere in the records. Course, it wasn’t illegal until Mr Labutcher’s Bill.’
‘I think that’s Labouchere,’ corrected Bandicoot.
‘Right. Well, anyway. There’s still money to be made. Big money. There’s many a gentleman will pay well for a virgin. Don’t say much for London, do it, that you’ve got to find ’em about twelve years old for ’em to be …’
‘Virgo intact?’ asked Bandicoot.
‘I don’t see their birth sign has much to do with it,’ commented Dixon sagely. ‘They say they’re all the same length lying down. Mind you, I’m a family man, me. If any pimp laid hands on my girls, I’d break his neck.’
‘Or suffocate him?’ Bandicoot was proud of that quip. It was worthy of Lestrade.
‘I don’t think immoral earnings was Mr Faye’s only vice,’ said Lestrade, sweeping towards the lift. ‘Come on, Bandicoot, we’ve got work.’
Faye ad served a four-month sentence for procuring back in ’86. Since then, he appeared to have been clean – or lucky. But Lestrade had discovered, via his usual street sources, that the deceased had recently been moving in a rather different circle. He had gravitated, if that was the right word, from little girls to big boys.
‘I always thought he had a hand in the Cleveland Street business in ’87,’ Jones grunted, picking his teeth with a gold pin. ‘Mind you, there were too many big names involved in that. Half the Royal Horseguards, for a start.’
