Lestrade and the Deadly Game

by M. J. Trow

  ‘They’re restaging the four hundred metres,’ the Scotsman said.

  ‘Because of Holman?’ Lestrade wheezed.

  ‘Because of Carpenter,’ Halswelle explained. ‘He cut me up twice and they disqualified him. I’m not altogether happy about it. It’s not using strings to run in that causes it. There’s bound to be some argie-bargie.’

  ‘What can you tell us,’ gasped Lestrade, ‘about Martin Holman?’

  ‘Good man,’ said Halswelle earnestly, barely, on his eighth lap, breaking into a sweat. ‘I’ll miss him.’

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

  Lestrade had been looking for a line to stop Halswelle running. Evidently, he had found it. The London Scot looked at him. ‘What are you saying?’ he asked.

  Lestrade longed for something to lean against. Other than Halswelle, there was nothing. And it would have been too undignified to collapse, even for a moment, on the man’s shoulder.

  ‘Don’t you read the papers?’ Lestrade rasped, his chest heaving with the effort of his forty yards or so. ‘The morning editions?’

  ‘Only the sports columns,’ Halswelle explained. ‘Kent Icke, Bill Waring, Alan McLaren.’

  ‘Is there anywhere we can talk privately?’ Lestrade asked, at last feeling the iron ball which was his throat relaxing a little.

  Halswelle surveyed the little stadium, the sweep of silent seats. He and Lestrade were the only ones there. ‘I don’t think you can get anywhere much more private than this, do you?’

  He suddenly dropped to the ground, lay on his back and thrust his legs in the air, sawing the sky with them as though inverted on an invisible bicycle. Lestrade stepped back just in time to avoid a running shoe up his moustache.

  ‘Martin Holman was murdered,’ he said. ‘By person or persons unknown.’

  For a moment, Halswelle lost his stride, then recovered it. ‘How?’ he asked.

  Lestrade was grateful to sit down beside him. ‘He was poisoned.’

  ‘How?’ Halswelle repeated.

  Lestrade looked at the strong features, a little crimson now with the rush of blood to the head. He said again, ‘He was poisoned.’

  Halswelle’s feet crashed down and, as they did so, his body came up like a mole trap. ‘Poisoned by what? How was it done?’ he asked.

  ‘An acquaintance of mine in the medical profession spent all last night examining his stomach contents.’

  ‘What did he find?’

  ‘Well, eventually, he found the stomach. And in it a quantity of poisonous toadstools.’

  ‘Boletus luridus,’ Halswelle said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Lestrade’s Latin had never got beyond the first declension and sometimes not even to there.

  ‘Boletus luridus, Superintendent. It’s a fungus.’

  ‘Poisonous?’

  Halswelle shook his head. ‘Suspicious,’ he said. ‘It depends on the alkaloids present as to how powerful these poisons are. Muscaria can certainly be fatal to some people.’

  ‘You seem very knowledgeable about poisons, Lieutenant,’ Lestrade could not help observing.

  ‘Not poisons,’ said Halswelle. ‘Fungi.’

  ‘How do you know which one Holman ate?’

  ‘I don’t,’ shrugged Halswelle. ‘But I know which ones I picked for him.’

  ‘You picked?’

  ‘Yes. In Worplesdon Wood a few days ago. I was out running and I was staggered to see them so early in the season.’

  ‘Why did you pick them?’

  The Lieutenant leaned towards him. ‘Because, Mr Lestrade, Martin was an artist. Oh, amateur of course, like his athletics. But he was quite well known in London circles for his still life. He wanted a quantity of fungi with a certain texture for a work he was completing. Naturally, he asked me.’

  ‘Because of your knowledge of them, naturally?’

  Halswelle nodded. ‘Luridus has the colour he wanted. My God, I didn’t expect him to eat them, merely paint them.’

  ‘Did you warn him not to eat them?’

  ‘No, of course not. I didn’t think it necessary. The British are a fungiphobic lot, Superintendent. If they don’t buy it at the grocer’s, they don’t usually eat it. Oh, this is awful.’

  ‘May I ask how you know so much about toadstools?’

  ‘A lifelong interest,’ Halswelle said. ‘Some men fish. Others ride. I pick fungi.’

  Lestrade struggled to his feet, wondering if he could manage the walk back for his jacket and boater.

  ‘There’s one more thing.’ Halswelle was up beside him. ‘Something you should know about Martin Holman.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I believe he was being blackmailed.’

  It was one of those rare moments when Sergeant Valentine was sitting still. The day had been oppressive in its heat and he and the superintendent stood on the roof walk of Scotland Yard, high above the limes and the sparkling brown of the river. Feet below, tiny people milled around the Embankment; theatregoers going to the theatre, drinkers dying for a drink, characters in search of an author. But if Lestrade had a moment to observe to himself that all human life was there, Valentine did not. It was nearly dusk. He had places to go.

  ‘Your best guess, then, from the search of Holman’s rooms?’ Lestrade asked, watching his cigar smoke float away across the rooftops.

  ‘The letters are interesting, sir,’ Valentine said, ‘but it’s the diary that says it all.’

  ‘Does it?’

  ‘Well, nearly all.’ Valentine whipped a small notebook from his pocket. ‘Look at this. March the fourteenth: “M getting difficult. Wants more.” And this for April the third: “She’s bleeding me dry. Can’t reason with her. We must have it out.” And for June the twenty-second: “M putting the squeeze on. Must see G and confess all.”’

  ‘M?’ Lestrade repeated. ‘G?’

  Valentine shrugged. It was his most relaxed gesture.

  ‘What did Bourne and Hollingsworth come up with about him?’

  ‘Do you really want to know, sir? All right. Bourne said that he quite approved of Holman’s curtains, but the chintz of the settee just didn’t go . . .’

  ‘Yes, I’m not sure his ulterior design sense was what I had in mind. I’ll swear Bourne was a woman in a previous incantation. What school did he go to?’

  ‘Holman?’

  ‘Bourne.’

  ‘Haberdashers’ Aske’s – for a term.’

  ‘I knew it!’ Lestrade clapped his hands and a group of pigeons moved along there. ‘What about Hollingsworth?’

  ‘Ah, well, this is better. He spent the morning at Messrs Glanville and Fritillary, Purveyors to His Late Majesty King Richard III.’

  ‘What do they do?’

  ‘Supply brawn and other parts of pigs to the gentry. You know when the nobs have their luncheon baskets from Fortnum’s?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, apparently, there’s usually a Glanville and Fritillary jar of Something or Other in Jelly packed in those.’

  ‘And Holman worked for them?’

  ‘Yes. He was highly thought of. Had a promising future.’

  ‘So he was the brains behind the brawn?’

  ‘You might say that, sir.’

  ‘Who did Hollingsworth talk to?’

  ‘Er . . . the manager, sir. A Mr Glanville.’

  ‘“G”,’ muttered Lestrade.

  ‘Well, it’s not really all that amazing, sir, bearing in mind the family name and all.’

  ‘No, I mean “G” – the letter G. You said Holman’s diary said “Must see G and confess all.”’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Had Hollingsworth seen this diary?’

  ‘No, sir. Detective Constable Bourne did the rooms. I popped in for a short while.’

  ‘Yes, of course you did. What time is it?’

  Valentine tore out his half-hunter. ‘Half-past eight, sir. I must dash . . .’

  ‘Yes, you must. Get me a cab and have it wai
ting at the side stairs. I think Mr Glanville and I must have a teensy chat.’

  In the corner of a quiet little restaurant off Ludgate Hill, two newspapermen sat over a candlelit supper, enjoying the warmth of each other’s company, the wine and the glow of a summer’s evening.

  ‘It’s very kind of you, Richard, to let me have the run of the Mail offices.’

  He clicked his glass against hers. ‘My pleasure, Marylou. Just don’t let old Harmsworth find out.’

  ‘I thought he represented all that was new and pioneering in journalism,’ she said. ‘In the States we think highly of him.’

  ‘Maybe, but for all his bravado – and his undoubted genius as a newspaperman – I’m not sure he’d like an American snooping around the office.’

  ‘Will he get The Times, do you think?’

  ‘Bound to,’ Grant grinned. ‘He’s working his way through Fleet Street systematically – up one side and down the other. What he really wants, of course, is the Law Courts at the bottom – or is it the top?’

  ‘Richard.’ She tapped him with her napkin. ‘That’s unworthy.’

  ‘I know,’ he laughed, ‘but if you can’t be bitchy about your boss, who can you be bitchy about?’

  ‘What about Lestrade?’ She changed the subject.

  ‘Yes,’ he reflected, ‘I could probably be bitchy about him.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant and you know it,’ she said. ‘Seriously, Hans-Rudiger was a good friend. All I know about journalism I learned from him. Is Lestrade up to snuff, as you British say?’

  ‘Funnily enough, I’ve been doing a bit of spade work on the dear old Superintendent. Last year he solved the Otterbury case in record time – a bank job, Farrow’s in Cheapside. City Force didn’t have a clue.’

  ‘How is he on murder?’

  ‘Ah, well. He handled the Hallowed House case a few years ago. Some say, of course, he’s a numbskull.’

  ‘Really? Who?’

  ‘Well, Arthur Conan Doyle for one. He and John Watson have been pillorying the man for years. I’m amazed he stands for it.’

  ‘Oh, that’s the Sherlock Holmes stories?’

  ‘That’s right. No, it’s very difficult to gauge a man like Lestrade. The Yard’s come on no end of course now that Edward Henry’s Commissioner. Tell me, Marylou, what are your thoughts on Hans-Rudiger?’

  She was silent for a moment. ‘It’s not as simple as Hans-Rudiger,’ she said. ‘I believe that whoever killed him also killed Captain William Hemingway in the Solent.’

  ‘What’s the connection?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s just it. I can’t find one.’

  ‘And Martin Holman?’

  ‘Who?’ She frowned.

  ‘Ah, Marylou,’ he scolded her, ‘the fatal trap. The problem in going back over old stories – even last week’s – is that you can miss the new ones. Martin Holman collapsed and died after the four hundred metres two days ago.’

  ‘Is there a connection?’

  Grant nodded grimly. ‘I believe there is. He was poisoned, as was Hemingway.’

  ‘You covered this?’

  ‘No, my junior, Chaim Gestetner. Used to work on the Daily Star of David. He talked to the doctor who carried out a post-mortem on Holman. It was fungicide.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Death by eating toadstools.’

  ‘My God. Do the police have any clues?’

  Grant laughed. ‘They don’t usually,’ he said.

  ‘Is Lestrade on it?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’ He closed to her. ‘Marylou, I think we’re on to something big here. Two athletes and one newspaperman covering athletics are dead and all in the space of a fortnight.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Er . . . sorry . . . two weeks. London is swarming with Europeans, as well as some of your exalted countrymen. I don’t have to tell you the tensions that tax our world, Marylou. Greeks versus Turks; Turks versus themselves; Frenchmen versus Germans; Englishmen versus Frenchmen. This whole French Exhibition thing is merely a front to cover God knows what hostility. Remember Fashoda . . .’

  She nodded. ‘I was at school at the time.’ She smiled wistfully.

  ‘Bitch,’ he grinned. ‘Take it, then, from a slightly older and slightly wiser generation. We are staring down the muzzle of international terror. And what a heaven-sent opportunity the Games are. But this time the sniping is not only verbal. It’s real.’

  ‘What can we do?’

  Grant leaned back, tapping the side of his wine glass. ‘How close can you get to Lestrade?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Do you think it’s important?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. If we’re to get this story – you for the Post and me for the Mail – we’ve got to know the moves. You must find out exactly what the police are doing.’

  ‘But how will we know what the murderers are doing?’

  ‘Quite,’ he sighed. ‘If we knew that, we’d have the biggest story of the decade.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ she said. ‘The biggest story of the decade,’ and their glasses met and their eyes flashed in the flame.

  It was a worried Mr Glanville who spoke to Lestrade that night. There was no need to summon him untimely from his bed for Mr Glanville was already at his offices, armpit-deep in dusty ledgers in an office which looked as though it still belonged to Mr Scrooge.

  ‘You people move damned fast,’ he said. ‘I didn’t discover a problem until this afternoon. Who called you?’

  ‘No one, sir,’ said Lestrade. ‘I am here on an entirely different matter, though I suggest they will turn out to be one and the same – your matter and mine. Let me guess – your books don’t balance.’

  ‘Correct,’ said Glanville, wiping his forehead profusely. ‘Like a stork with no legs. I’ve got the auditors in next week. Where’s it all gone?’

  Lestrade placed his boater on the topmost ledger. ‘Some of it into the pockets of the late Mr Holman. The rest into the pockets of a lady whose name begins with M.’

  After he had lifted his lower jaw from the desk, Glanville turned quite pale. ‘I can’t believe it,’ he mumbled.

  ‘The lady whose name begins with M?’

  ‘Martin Holman,’ he said. ‘He’s been with us for years. A stalwart of the firm. No, no. It must be a clerical error.’

  ‘Check your figures again, Mr Glanville – especially those initialled by Mr Holman. I think it’s there you will find a certain creativity in the accounting.’

  Glanville sucked his pen, scratched his head, ran a troubled finger up and down the rows of double entry book keeping like a schizophrenic librarian. He leaned back in his chair, exhausted, defeated. ‘My God, my God. Who can you trust these days?’

  ‘Who indeed? You didn’t know?’

  Glanville shook his head. ‘Not a clue.’ He stood up. ‘You’d better come out, Miss Fendyke.’

  There was a gasp and a rustling sound, then a filing cabinet door slid back and a rather elegant lady stood there, in stays and drawers. Her face was bright crimson.

  ‘There’s no point in hiding anything now, Madeleine,’ Glanville said.

  Miss Fendyke clearly disagreed in that she hauled the linen cover off the nearest typewriter and attempted to cover what was left of her modesty.

  ‘Madeleine,’ said Lestrade, ‘did you know that Mr Holman had his fingers in the till?’

  She looked apprehensively at Glanville. ‘Yes,’ she said at last.

  ‘Madeleine!’ he roared. ‘How could you?’

  ‘You old skinflint!’ She turned on him. ‘Yes, I was blackmailing him. Yes, he was stealing from you. Only you were so besotted with me, you dirty old lecher, that you didn’t notice. If only you’d paid us all better, none of this would have happened. Martin wouldn’t have needed to help himself and I wouldn’t have to sit on your revolting lap.’

  Both Glanville and Lestrade looked at the lap in question. As corporate laps of providers of brawn to the gentry went, it seemed q
uite respectable.

  ‘But Madeleine, we had something . . .’

  ‘You’ve probably got something,’ she snapped. ‘I just hope you haven’t given it to me.’

  ‘Mr Lestrade,’ Glanville sobbed, ‘I had no idea. No idea of any of this.’

  ‘Miss Fendyke, do you have a dress?’

  ‘In my locker,’ she said.

  ‘Could you put it on? I’m afraid I must ask you to accompany me to Bow Street Police Station.’

  She stood upright, jutting a pretty impressive chest in Lestrade’s direction. ‘Am I under arrest?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ll work out the formalities later,’ he told her. ‘For the moment you are not obliged to say anything. Anything you do say will be taken down and may be used in evidence. Do you understand?’

  She nodded, flashing fire at the quivering Glanville and flounced off to her locker.

  ‘Er . . . Superintendent,’ said Glanville, ‘my wife . . . she doesn’t understand me, you see. Madeleine and I . . . well, it won’t have to come out, will it? About the whips, I mean? And the manacles?’

  ‘I don’t see why it should, Mr Glanville,’ said Lestrade.

  ‘And the chains . . .’

  Lestrade’s face turned sourer. ‘I am concerned with the death of the late Mr Holman,’ he said. ‘Anything else is by the way . . . at the moment.’

  He led Miss Fendyke towards the stairs.

  ‘And the mastiff wasn’t my idea,’ Glanville called after him. ‘Not really.’

  In the station wagon, Miss Fendyke was very forthcoming. She also told Lestrade quite a lot he wanted to know. And some that he didn’t. It was as well that Walter Dew wasn’t with him. A married man with certain sensibilities would have found Miss Fendyke’s frankness rather alarming. Martin Holman had worked for Messrs Glanville and Fritillary for nearly fourteen years. He had an excellent record, but Messrs Glanville and Fritillary were the sort of employers who expected total loyalty and believed that working for them was reward in itself. Whereas any employee was entitled to countless jars of Things in Jelly, actual cash was in short supply. Miss Fendyke had found her own salvation in this context. First, as third secretary to old Mr Fritillary, she had wormed her way into his confidence. Yes, he did a lot of dictating after hours. Yes, he had died with a smile on his face. Second, she had become first secretary to the present Mr Glanville – and Lestrade had gathered something of their relationship. Mrs Glanville had all the warmth of an ice cap and the bolster that lay between her husband and herself in bed was rumoured to be made of barbed wire. Although there again, probably not, because Mr Glanville would have enjoyed the challenge of that. Third, Miss Fendyke had discovered the ends of Holman’s fingers firmly embedded in the firm’s till and had put the screws on so to speak to the tune of nearly five hundred pounds over a two-year period. Miss Fendyke was almost socially secure when the idiot had run out of breath on the White City track. Yes, he had pretensions to being an artist, but although critics made favourable noises about his still life, nobody actually bought anything. Holman used to say it didn’t matter. One day he would come into money and then Messrs Glanville and Fritillary could jump into one of their own vats and he would buy his own gallery and studio et cetera, et cetera. Miss Fendyke was sure it was all a pipe dream.