Lestrade and the Deadly Game

by M. J. Trow

  ‘Two?’

  ‘That the same man who killed William Hemingway also killed Hans-Rudiger Hesse.’

  Lestrade shook his head. ‘Not possible,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, the murder weapon. In my experience, murderers usually use the same weapon – a knife or an axe. Hemingway was poisoned. Hesse was stabbed. Take my word for it, we’re looking for two different men. My problem is that with resources so stretched at the Yard, I’m saddled with both.’

  ‘I see,’ she said, standing up. She whirled to her handbag on the cabinet and snatched out something from inside. Lestrade could hardly believe his eyes. He was staring, as she held her arm at full length, into the muzzle of a little pistol.

  ‘This is a Derringer,’ she said. ‘Very handy for killing Presidents of the United States . . . or Superintendents of Scotland Yard. I’m not likely to miss from this distance. And if I do, there’s a second shot.’

  She laughed and clicked the hammer on to empty barrels. ‘If, of course, it’s loaded. Actually, you’re lucky. It usually is.’

  ‘Do you have a licence to carry that?’ he asked her, gulping down the brandy.

  ‘Why, Superintendent dahlin’,’ she suddenly drawled in her best Southern Belle, ‘Ah really don’t believe Ah need one, y’ all. Anyway,’ the voice had become hard again, ‘none of this matters, because there’d be no point in killing you with a pistol when I’ve already poisoned your brandy.’

  For a brief instant, his pulse leapt. He stared at the glass, sniffed it. Was his tongue tingling? The muscles of his gut tensing?

  ‘Relax.’ She sat down again, patting his hand. ‘The point I’m trying to make is that if I wanted to murder you – or anyone – I’d have a back-up, just in case.’

  ‘In case?’ he said, his heart slowly descending from his mouth.

  ‘In case something went wrong.’ She shrugged. ‘You know the deck of an eight-metre yacht is a pretty public place to die. How else was the murderer supposed to despatch Hemingway? If he’d clubbed him with an oar or fired a salvo from a passing warship, it’d be a tad obvious, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘As you say,’ said Lestrade, catching her drift. ‘A tad.’

  ‘Whereas with Rudi, he was alone. And he took the weapon that came to hand. The paper-knife.’

  ‘How did you know it was a paper-knife?’ he asked her.

  ‘Tsk, tsk,’ she scolded. ‘You’re a suspicious old sourdough and no mistake. It was in all the papers. Don’t you read those?’

  ‘Not if I can help it,’ he said. ‘But what is the link between Hesse and Hemingway?’

  ‘That’s what I intend to find out.’ She snatched up her handbag. ‘And for that I need the resources of Fleet Street. Can you manage by yourself? I think you’ll find the Duchess has paid your hotel cheque.’ She stopped at the door and smiled. ‘Will I see you in London?’ she asked.

  ‘Knowing you as I do, Miss Adams, I have no doubt of it.’

  And she blew him a kiss, as emancipated women will.

  The Four

  Hundred

  Metres:

  Fifty Seconds Dead

  A

  dmiral Crichton was of less use as far as information was concerned than Philip Hunloke. Yes, he knew of Hemingway’s absorption with prunes. Yes, he knew that Captain Őverland had presented him with some. No, he had no idea where they came from. So while the Olympic Committee sent a telegram from Baron de Coubertin himself expressing sorrow to Hemingway’s nearest and dearest, and arrangements were made for the post-mortem and the funeral, Lestrade took his leave from the young men and the sea and crossed by the steam packet to Portsmouth. But he had been gone for four days and the little lad he had employed to look after his Lanchester had been called away on urgent business and the superintendent’s cherished motor car, itself a Mark of Esteem from the Highest in the Land, was standing off the roadway on four blocks of bricks, its silver-spoked wheels gone. Lestrade arranged for it to be refitted, complete with spare, and to have it driven back to the Yard by a constable. He himself took the train, much to the relief of other road-users in the vicinity.

  He returned to the windy corners of Scotland Yard and a little after luncheon to find a man built like an elephant waiting for him.

  ‘’Ello, guv.’ Constable Hollingsworth seemed relieved to see him. ‘Oh dear, been doin’ a bit of shadow boxin’?’ He nodded at the superintendent’s swollen forehead.

  ‘Something like that,’ said Lestrade, ‘only the shadow punched back. Who are you?’

  The elephantine man clicked his heels together and bowed stiffly. ‘I am Inspektor Aloïs Vogelweide,’ he said, ‘of de Berlin Politzei.’

  He shoved his papers to Lestrade who read, as though with a practised eye, the heavy Germanic script.

  ‘These seem to be in order,’ he said.

  ‘Ah zo,’ Vogelweide beamed. ‘You read Deutsch?’

  ‘I thought you said you were German.’ Lestrade was confused.

  So was Vogelweide, but he swept on with the ruthless efficiency for which Prussians are famous. ‘I am coming ahead of the Kaiser,’ he explained, ‘who will be beating your Köenig Edward’s boat at Cowes next week.’

  ‘I see,’ said Lestrade, clicking his fingers in Hollingsworth’s direction. ‘Do you drink tea in Berlin?’

  ‘In Berlin, ja, but not over here. Turkish coffee, bitte.’

  ‘You heard the Inspektor, Hollingsworth,’ Lestrade said. ‘Bitter Turkish coffee.’

  ‘Strike a light, guv, I’ll have to send out to Abdul Pasha’s in the Strand for that.’

  ‘Then do it, man,’ Lestrade told him. ‘We’re always glad to help our friends from over the water.’

  The constable exited, muttering.

  ‘I am here to look into de matter of Hans-Rudiger Hesse,’ Vogelweide explained. ‘Your Englischer newspapers zay zat he vas murdered.’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Lestrade, carefully lifting the bowler off his bandage.

  ‘Vat are you doing about zis?’ the Inspektor asked.

  ‘Everything we can,’ Lestrade told him. ‘Perhaps in the meantime you would be able to tell me why anyone would want him dead.’

  Vogelweide paused for a moment, as though to translate Lestrade’s words in his head. ‘He vas a very distinguished journalist,’ he said. ‘Fearless and vizout de corruption. Such men make enemies, ja?’

  ‘Perhaps?’ said Lestrade.

  ‘Zo vat is it zat you are zinking?’ Vogelweide pumped him.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Lestrade again, ‘that the killing of Mr Hesse on English soil was merely a coincidence. That someone followed him here from Berlin.’

  ‘Zo?’

  ‘So.’ Lestrade crossed to the door and opened it. ‘Perhaps your best bet would be to make your enquiries at home – in Berlin.’

  ‘Nein,’ Vogelweide smiled. ‘I have three zergeants vorking vull time on zat. In ze meantime, I vill arrange for ze body to be zent home so zat zere can be a funeral in Berlin.’

  ‘Very well,’ Lestrade said.

  The huge Inspektor clicked his heels. ‘Ven I have done zis, I vill look in on you again, old shap, and ve vill vork togezzer, ja?’

  ‘No,’ said Lestrade. ‘I cannot really help. Turkish coffee is one thing, but co-operation? I suspect that our methods would be totally different.’

  ‘Nonzenze,’ chuckled the big man. ‘Ve are both detectives. Ve are both after the zame thing – ein murderer. I would like to do zis vith you, but if I cannot, I vill do it vithout. Gutentag. I vill take my coffee later.’

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Lestrade, as emphatically as he could. ‘And don’t do anything I’d do,’ and he watched the man click his way down the corridor.

  ‘Good morning,’ he heard Inspector Gregory call as he met Vogelweide on the stairs.

  ‘Iz it?’ he heard the German answer.

  ‘Constable Bourne?’ The superintendent put his head round the door to the outer office. ‘A wor
d in your ear.’

  The detective constable minced in. ‘Yes, Superintendent,’ he said.

  ‘That man who just left.’

  ‘Derek Hollingsworth, sir?’

  ‘No, the other one.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ smiled Bourne. ‘The big one. Looked like a circus strong man.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the one. Well, he’s a policeman, rather like you are supposed to be. But for all his smiles and heel-clicking he’s a foreigner. And for all he has no jurisdiction over here, I can’t help feeling he’s going to get in our way.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Your job, Bourne, whether you decide to accept it or not, is to shadow him. Everywhere he goes, you go. Got it?’

  Bourne’s eyes lit up. ‘Everywhere, sir?’

  Lestrade’s eyebrows arched a little. ‘Use your discretion, constable,’ he said.

  ‘I take it with me everywhere, sir,’ and he left.

  The gun shattered the stillness of the morning. From the puff of smoke the watches ticked. Straw boaters and feathered hats craned forward to catch the moment as the five men got into their stride.

  Kent Icke of the Daily Graphic took up the commentary on his loud-hailer:

  ‘And it’s J. C. Carpenter; J. C. Carpenter of the United States on the inside with that unmistakable action. Just look at those nether limbs going, ladies and gentlemen. Behind him is W. C. Robbins, also of the United States – he’s looking strong, not pushing the pace. And in the third position – they’re not using strings today – it’s a cracking pace out there; our own, our very own Wyndham Halswelle, neck and neck with his running mate of Worplesdon Harriers, Martin Holman. And beginning to trail at the moment, the Negro J. P. Taylor on the outside. He’s widely tipped as the favourite, but things are looking rather black for him at the moment. Robbins, Robbins now moving up – just look at that swing. It looks as though a good time will be had by all. Taylor making ground . . . And what’s happening? Robbins, Robbins has cut across Halswelle – oh dear, oh dear. He’s crossed Halswelle and the London Scot’s had to manoeuvre. Oh, what a calamity! Robbins is with Carpenter on the inside. I don’t know what the track judges will make of that. They’re on the long home straight now. On the straight. And it’s still anybody’s race. Except Holman’s. He seems to be losing it. He’s falling back. Here’s Halswelle. Halswelle’s challenging Carpenter. Oh dear. Carpenter . . . This is astonishing. Quite astonishing. Carpenter’s running diagonally for the tape. Halswelle’s having to go for the outside. The crowd are on their feet – aren’t you, ladies and gentlemen? I’ve never seen such a thing in my years as a sports loud-hailer. Well, well. Carpenter gets the gold, Halswelle the silver . . . But wait a minute. The tape’s gone down. The track judges have dropped the tape. One of them’s waving to me. At least, I think he’s waving. Carpenter thinks he’s got it. He’s starting on a lap of honour. There’s a track official talking to him now. Oh dear, Carpenter seems to have knocked him over. I can’t quite hear what he’s shouting . . . it sounded like “You cannot be serious”. Well, well. I always knew Americans were appalling sports, but this takes the biscuit. And it’s over to Dorian O’Hehir at the long jump pit.’

  Amid the furore at the tape, the shouting and recriminations, no one noticed Martin Holman collapse by the trackside. He looked pale and his chest was heaving. It was some minutes before officials with white armbands bundled him on to a stretcher and carried him from the field. By evening he was dead.

  They put the body into the mortuary at the White City. Curious they should build one, really, unless they expected their athletes to die. It was his heart, of course. He was unfit. He hadn’t trained enough. Worplesdon Harriers weren’t what they had been. The doctor who happened to be in the crowd signed the death certificate and he was still there when Lestrade arrived.

  ‘Dr Harris,’ he said, taking off the boater the sweltering heat of the day had forced him to adopt, ‘how are things in Camberwell?’

  The greying, moustachioed medico looked up. ‘Lestrade,’ he said, ‘what brings you here?’

  ‘The nose of one of my sergeants, doctor,’ Lestrade told him.

  ‘Not Dew!’ Harris sneered.

  ‘Walter Dew is Chief Inspector now, doctor. Ever since the Hallowed House case.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ muttered Harris, ‘I’d forgotten. Did you like old Watson’s “Six Napoleons”, by the way? Well, his and Conan Doyle’s?’

  ‘I always thought there were only three,’ Lestrade told him with the hauteur of a man who attended French History Classes for Policemen. Harris looked at him oddly. It was a common enough reflex. ‘No, actually, it was Sergeant Dickens. He’s on duty at the Exhibition and found all this rather odd.’

  ‘Odd?’ Harris repeated. ‘The Games are afoot, Lestrade. This poor fellow merely fell martyr to the heat. It could kill us all, you know. When Watson was in Afghanistan . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ Lestrade interrupted. ‘Tell Inspector Gregory some time.’ He looked at the corpse. ‘Heat?’ he asked Harris.

  ‘Heart, actually. I’d guess and say his right vena cava wasn’t as superior as all that.’

  Lestrade lifted the lids. ‘How long has he been dead?’

  ‘Three hours or so,’ Harris said. ‘Had a veritable army of medical chappies here for most of the day. Poor blighter.’

  Lestrade eased aside the long shorts. ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  Harris was astounded anew at Lestrade’s innocence. ‘It’s a leg, Lestrade,’ he said.

  ‘These blotches,’ the superintendent clarified the situation.

  ‘Lividity.’ Harris poked the dead athlete’s quadriceps femoris with his bodger. Not surprisingly, he didn’t react at all. ‘In layman’s terms, the blood, once it has ceased to pump, drops to the part of the body nearest the ground. It answers the call of gravity.’

  ‘Thank you, doctor.’ Lestrade was patient. ‘But these pinpricks on the top of the leg.’ He poked the sartorius with his pencil.

  ‘Ah.’ Harris had to think on his feet, never his most comfortable position. ‘Obviously he’s been turned over.’

  ‘Obviously. How long did you say he’s been dead?’

  ‘About three hours. I’d been called away in the meantime. Why?’

  ‘He’s quite limp,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘Well, of course. He’s dead,’ Harris explained.

  ‘What about rigor mortis?’ Lestrade asked. ‘He should be stiff as a board by now.’

  ‘Oh, it varies, Lestrade.’ Harris dismissed the matter with his years of experience.

  ‘It does. Unless the deceased has been involved in physical exertion – Holman ran most of the four hundred metre race. Unless he’d had convulsions – a track official told me he’d had several and really shouldn’t have run. In which case, rigor sets in very rapidly.’

  ‘You’re quite good at this sort of thing, aren’t you?’ Harris said grudgingly. ‘So what do you surmise?’

  Lestrade flicked the knife with the brass knuckles from his pocket. He placed the point carefully against the dead man’s forearm and nicked the skin with it. A drop of blood oozed out and trickled down on to the slab.

  ‘What are you doing, man?’ Harris was amazed. Had Lestrade turned surgeon now? Or was it vampire?

  ‘Running blood,’ said Lestrade. ‘I never believed stories of bleeding corpses until I became a detective sergeant. At that point, I saw the light.’

  ‘Which is?’ asked Harris, still very much in the dark.

  ‘Which is that in certain cases of poisoning, rigor mortis comes and goes. It’s my guess he’s been stiff already and he’ll be stiff again in a couple of hours – and the blood remains, as you medical men would say, fluid.’

  ‘Good God.’

  ‘Can you perform a post-mortem, doctor?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Er . . . well.’ Harris brushed his moustaches, covering fluster with bluster. ‘You want cause of death, I suppose.’

  ‘I know that already.’ Lestrade wiped h
is knife tip on his jacket and clicked back the blade into the knuckles, ‘Holman was poisoned. What I want is a look at his stomach contents.’

  ‘I haven’t brought my saw,’ Harris explained.

  ‘Borrow one,’ suggested Lestrade. ‘Doctor, I need answers. Strictly between you and me, Holman is the second athlete to die by poisoning in the space of a week.’

  ‘Really? Lord, yes. I read it in The Times. That sailor chappie in the Solent. Good God, Lestrade. What does this mean?’

  The superintendent shrugged. ‘I shall have to ask a lot more questions before I can answer that one, doctor,’ he said. ‘And at least one of them concerns prunes.’

  While Mr Edward Henry held a Press Conference to assure the gentlemen of the Press and therefore the public that there was no cause for alarm, that everything possible was being done and that London was still the safest capital in the world, Lestrade travelled to Worplesdon. He left his Lanchester at home, having no wish to have his wheels stolen again, and went instead by train. There was not a single case on record of anyone stealing the wheels of a locomotive.

  He arrived at the track mid-afternoon and the lone figure trotting round the small arena was pointed out to him as Lieutenant Wyndham Halswelle. He was conventionally handsome, with a rather long nose and centre parting; aerodynamically perfect, although Lestrade didn’t know it, for covering middle distances at speed.

  ‘Jock,’ said Halswelle, shaking Lestrade’s hand. ‘The inevitable handle, I’m afraid, for an officer of the London Scottish. Care to jog with me?’

  ‘Jog?’ repeated Lestrade.

  ‘Run slowly,’ Halswelle repeated.

  ‘Well, I’m hardly dressed . . .’

  ‘Take your jacket off.’ Halswelle helped the Yard man to disrobe. ‘And your hat. I can’t stay still, you see. In training.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve got a sergeant like you. You have another race to run?’ Lestrade felt his lungs tightening already. Combine Worplesdon in July with too many years and too many cigars and you have the explanation for the wreck that was stumbling along beside Halswelle in the deserted stadium.