by M. J. Trow
By the time Constable Hollingsworth had taken this statement with the aid of Lestrade, who helped him with the spelling, it was nearly dawn. Sergeant Valentine flew in, without taking his coat off, to inform his superior that trouble was brewing at the Oval.
‘Surrey going to lose again?’ Lestrade yawned.
‘No, sir. Suffragettes, sir. They’re going to take over the ground.’
Lestrade frowned at Miss Fendyke, in whose mouth butter would not melt. ‘Women!’ he said.
Inspector Edgar-Smith sat his roan at the edge of the pitch, his seventy mounted policemen behind him. The early-morning sun fell on the ground mist that lent an eerie stillness to the scene. Bemused gentlemen carrying cricket pads and wearing tasselled caps walked the gauntlet, one or two of them whistling in an attempt to lighten the moment. At the far end of the ground a steadily growing army was mustering, fanning out from the van to form wings to right and left. Slowly, their banners rose in the dawn, elaborate gold letters on fields of green, purple and white. Edgar-Smith lowered the rim of his helmet to read their legends – ‘Brixton Matchbox Makers’, ‘Golders Green Confirmation Wreath Makers’, ‘Pimlico Vamp Beaders’. Determined eyes under broad-brimmed hats met the steady stare of the police. Flags rose and fell, fluttering on the breeze. Only the crowd spoke, mostly men, confused, uncomfortable, stumbling along the tiers of wooden seats to take their places, colliding with each other, craning their necks to scan the monstrous regiment of women. None of them had known the fair sex so silent. It was designed to unnerve and it did.
By the time Lestrade, Valentine and Hollingsworth arrived, the sun was up and the mist had gone. A thin blue line of policemen stood with arms folded in front of the horses. There was no sound except the occasional snort and pawing of the ground. The animals were silent.
Lestrade lifted his boater to see the opposition.
‘Cunning bitches,’ murmured Edgar-Smith. ‘They’ve positioned themselves to the east, y’ see. Got the sun behind them.’
‘Why are your men here?’ Lestrade looked up at the man, an ox in the saddle.
‘We got a tip-off there’d be trouble. I’ve sent for reinforcements from Hyde Park. I can have another hundred men here by ten. If only they’ll hold off till then.’
‘And a baby Howitzer, I suppose,’ Lestrade asked.
‘No.’ Edgar-Smith missed the point. ‘We don’t need the army. I can handle things.’
Lestrade scanned his own lines. ‘I believe I hold the senior rank,’ he said.
‘Of plain-clothes, yes.’ Edgar-Smith did not take his eyes off the banners.
‘Of all ranks,’ Lestrade reminded him.
‘Except the Mounted Division.’ Edgar-Smith was adamant. He was also right. A Superintendent of Scotland Yard had no jurisdiction over the Mounted Branch. And clearly Edgar-Smith was determined to get his man. Or, in this case, his woman. ‘They’ll attack from the flanks,’ he said. ‘First right, then left. They’re weakest over there, by the popcorn stand. That’s where the whole thing will start.’
Lestrade went as close as he dared to the man’s stirrup. He had never been at home in the saddle or even close to one. ‘You sound as if there’s going to be a battle,’ he murmured.
Edgar-Smith glanced at him for the first time. ‘Of course there is,’ he said. ‘And Mrs Pankhurst and I are the opposing generals. You can do what you like with the Infantry, Lestrade. My boys are ready. One twitch of that line and we’ll charge.’
‘Charge?’ Lestrade took off his boater. ‘Are you mad? They’re unarmed women.’
‘Unarmed women?’ Edgar-Smith spat his contempt on the carefully rolled grass. ‘Look for yourself,’ he said. ‘Look at those forearms, those fists. You don’t see many clinging vines there, do you, Lestrade? What are they carrying in their handbags, do you suppose? Hankies? Smelling salts? No, Superintendent; bricks. And if they catch you with two of those, you’ll know all about it.’
Lestrade felt his flesh crawl.
‘And that’s not the worst of it. See those hats?’
Lestrade did. Row upon row of them.
‘Well, they’re held on with the deadliest fashion accessory known to man – hatpins. They can take a man’s eye out at forty paces.’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this.’ Lestrade was bewildered.
‘With respect, Superintendent, you’ve had it cushy in plain-clothes. Here at the chalkface we’re used to dealing with the real world. Look at it – the unacceptable face of womankind.’
Lestrade glanced behind him, then back to Edgar-Smith. ‘Give me a minute to talk to them,’ he said. ‘Has anybody tried so far?’
Edgar-Smith reached forward, patting the pommel of his truncheon lovingly. ‘This does my talking for me,’ he said.
‘Yes, very eloquent,’ commented Lestrade. He hauled out his half-hunter. ‘It’s eight thirty,’ he said. ‘Give me five minutes. Your word you won’t start anything until then?’
Edgar-Smith flicked out his watch. ‘Five minutes,’ he said, ‘then we make some arrests.’
Lestrade nodded. He took off his jacket and gave it to Hollingsworth. He motioned Valentine to him. ‘I’m going across to talk to them,’ he said.
‘Bloody ’ell, guv’nor,’ mumbled Hollingsworth, who knew raw courage when he saw it. ‘Watch out for your cashews out there.’
‘Bless you,’ said Lestrade. ‘If anything goes wrong, if you see Edgar-Smith go for his truncheon, then stop him. I don’t care how you do it. But stop him. If he’s unleashed on those ladies, it’ll make Bloody Sunday look like a Sydenham Park picnic.’
‘We’ll stop him, sir,’ Valentine assured him and Lestrade turned to face his enemy. Perhaps to meet his Maker.
‘Which one is Mrs Pankhurst?’ he asked without turning
‘In the centre,’ Edgar-Smith told him. ‘The square-faced old boot under the WSPU banner.’
Lestrade strolled out from the line of blue. A murmur rose from the crowd to his left and right. Knuckles whitened on flagpoles; boots stiffened in stirrups. Valentine whispered to the nearest copper to block the way in front of the horses in the event of trouble.
An umpire, already swathed from head to foot in other people’s sweaters, ran across to the bare-headed, shirt-sleeved superintendent. Valentine looked on. Was this the end of the umpire?
‘Excuse me,’ the umpire said, ‘the chaps are wondering when we can start play.’
Lestrade kept his eyes fixed on the knot of ladies in the centre. ‘We’ll let you know,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, keep them back. We can’t be held responsible.’
The umpire melted away, shrugging to the pavilion as he went. Lestrade came to within a dozen or so yards of the ladies’ line when three huge women crossed his path.
‘We are the Forlorn Hope,’ one of them said. ‘To reach our leader, you must pass through us.’
‘Mrs Pankhurst?’ Lestrade shouted. The name rang around the Oval, echoing and re-echoing in the morning. The women took up the chant, ‘Pankhurst! Pankhurst!’
The crowd started to boo and hiss. Edgar-Smith’s men drew their truncheons and carried them at the slope, against their shoulders. In a moment of indecision, the bobbies shifted feet, leaving gaps for their horsed colleagues to ride through.
There was movement behind the Forlorn Hope and the chanting subsided. A small woman in the colours of her order squeezed through powerful biceps to confront Lestrade.
‘Superintendent Lestrade, madam,’ he said, ‘Scotland Yard.’
‘Pig!’ an elderly voice screamed from the ranks.
There was laughter.
‘We’ve met, Superintendent. Though I believe you were an Inspector then.’
‘Indeed we have, madam. The Hallowed House case. You were a lady then.’
It was the wrong thing to say. A stone hurtled from nowhere to ping painfully off Lestrade’s nose. He felt his eyes fill with tears and the blood trickle over his moustache. But he didn’t flinch. He knew that if he cr
ouched now or changed position in any way, Edgar-Smith would have a field day.
‘Please, Mr Lestrade,’ Mrs Pankhurst said. ‘We don’t want to hurt anyone,’ but the glint in the eyes of the Forlorn Hope told him otherwise. ‘We merely intend to disrupt this gentlemen’s game. Women have been playing cricket since the eighteenth century, you know.’
Lestrade didn’t know. ‘You are free to continue playing, madam.’ He said as distinctly as possible with a mouthful of blood.
‘But that’s just what we can’t do,’ she told him. ‘Not here. Not at Lord’s. Not at any of the county grounds. There is no Ladies’ Taverners. No phrase such as Ladies and Players. There are no groundswomen. And why is the last batter not known as twelfth woman? Look behind you, Mr Lestrade.’ The little grey woman pointed to the line of mounted police, the horses tossing their heads and flicking their tails. ‘They smell blood,’ she said. ‘That is the unacceptable face of Asquith’s Britain.’
Silence fell. Lestrade closed – one step, two. He felt his nose beginning to spread across his cheeks. The Forlorn Hope flanked their general, hatpins gleaming in their hands.
‘They will ride you down, Mrs Pankhurst,’ Lestrade whispered. ‘The man at their head is an animal. His sole regret in life is that his men’s truncheons aren’t longer. Tell your men – er . . . your ladies – to go home. There’s nothing to be achieved here.’
She moved closer to him. One step. Two. They were almost nose to nose. ‘I wish I could, Mr Lestrade,’ she said.
There was silence again. Then a voice to Lestrade’s right shattered the morning. ‘Oh, bugger this!’ All eyes turned to see a little man from the crowd hop over the white fence and scurry across the hallowed turf towards the left wing of Mrs Pankhurst’s army. ‘Ethel, you’re coming home this minute, my girl. If I’d a known you’d be here, I’d have fetched a carpet beater to you!’
It was the red rag Lestrade had feared. The left wing recoiled for a moment, then fell back, leaving Ethel alone in the path of her advancing spouse.
‘I’m the only carpet beater in our house!’ Ethel suddenly shouted and without warning swung her handbag across her husband’s head. ‘That’s for sixteen years of hell, George Witherspoon.’
George Witherspoon swayed for an instant as the blood trickled down through his hair. Then his eyes crossed in disbelief and he went down. Sure enough, as Edgar-Smith had predicted, the left flank surged forward, toppling the fragile popcorn stand as it went. Out of the collapsing hut tumbled an equally fragile popcorn seller, before they ripped his striped apron off and impaled it as a trophy of war on one of their banners.
‘Pimlico Vamp Beaders!’ Mrs Pankhurst shrieked, waving her arm. There was a ghastly falsetto roar as the purple cohorts of that calling tore along the perimeter fence, punching, kicking, lashing out at the men in the front rows who buckled like a house of cards and fell back, their pride not the only thing hurt.
Lestrade whirled to see Edgar-Smith’s truncheon high in the air and his horsemen break forward with the running bobbies. Hollingsworth in a crucial moment of decision tried to see if it was possible to trip up a horse. It wasn’t and he rolled to the ground, clutching his ankle in agony. Valentine, eager, resourceful, a young detective in a hurry, mindful of his guvnor’s words and vaguely aware of the actions of the 92nd Foot at Waterloo, grabbed stirrup leathers to right and left and lifted his feet off the ground. That too failed and he landed painfully on his face amid the droppings of Edgar-Smith’s horses.
Now the right wing, stronger, more determined, snatched their handbags and dashed forward at Mrs Pankhurst’s command. The Confirmation Wreath Makers were a doughty lot, piercing the blue sky with their staves, shrieking like banshees. Lestrade lunged for the general and briefly, in the dust of the Oval, he and Mrs Pankhurst danced what was almost a polka before he was beaten to the ground by all three of the Forlorn Hope.
‘The main body will advance,’ he heard the general shout. ‘We are Emancipated Women. We cannot fail.’
On the steps of the pavilion, the Surrey XI and the Middlesex XI forgot their enmity born of leather and willow. The umpire pointed in appalled and silent disbelief before the strangled cry burst from his lips. ‘They’re going for the square. The stumps. My God, the stumps.’
A thousand heels bit deep into the hallowed turf. As the Vamp Beaders crossed to the centre, they were hit in the flank by twenty-two white-clad cricketers, their blood up, trying to snatch the wickets from the jaws of death itself. In the event, it was Edgar-Smith’s horsemen who did more damage, cantering across the Silly Mid On and into the Slips. Wickets, balls, batsmen, bowlers and ladies by the dozen tumbled to them and the Oval became a battlefield that day in July, the Year of Our Lord 1908.
As the blue helmets of reinforcements rushed across the pitch, as cricketers sat with their bloodied pads and broken stumps, crying into their tasselled caps, ladies sheathed their hatpins and quickly dropped piles of masonry from their handbags. The banners came down, the lathered horses wheeled into line again.
A battered Superintendent Lestrade, his nose black and red, his waistcoat brown with the sacred soil of Surrey, stumbled back to his own lines. Valentine and Hollingsworth were there, looking worse than he did.
‘Sorry, sir,’ gasped Valentine. ‘We did what we could.’
Lestrade nodded. He noticed a placard lying in the dust that read ‘Hang Winston Churchill’. He picked it up. ‘Evidence,’ he smiled at a red-faced bobby, ‘Inspector Edgar-Smith.’
The inspector saluted with his truncheon and wheeled his roan to the head of his troops.
‘For all you’ve done today,’ wheezed Lestrade, returning the salute with the placard. Suddenly, he twisted it, whirling it up in both hands, and brought it cracking down on the man’s helmet. The truncheon fell from his grasp, the reins hung slack and an insensible Inspector of the Mounted Division rolled quietly over his crupper and lay still.
There was a deafening cheer from the ladies and, had they been able to break the police cordon, they would have carried Lestrade from the field, shoulder high.
Death in the Fives Court
O
n the day that the Americans pulled out of the four hundred metres re-run, the day that ‘Jock’ Halsewelle ran it alone in fifty seconds dead, the day that Richard Grant earned the Headline of the Year award with HALSEWELLE THAT ENDS WELL, Sholto Lestrade was on the carpet (again) in the office of the Assistant Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis.
Edward Henry was the Policeman’s Policeman. He had a reputation second to none, this diminutive copper who had tamed a sub-continent and brought the word ‘dabs’ to the civilized world. He had read the reports, he had seen the Stop Press in the dailies. He couldn’t wait for the evening editions.
‘Lestrade.’ He looked squarely at his superintendent, the boater tucked in the crook of his elbow, the new white bandage across his face. ‘I don’t know whether to suspend you or shoot you. Good God, man. How could you? A fractured skull, the hospital report says. They’re not sure he’ll survive.’
‘Edgar-Smith, sir?’
‘Edgar-Smith be buggered,’ snapped Henry, though the prospect was unlikely. ‘I’m talking about this fellow George Witherspoon. What were you doing?’
‘Attempting to talk Mrs Pankhurst out of it, sir.’
‘And you failed, Lestrade,’ the Assistant Commissioner reminded him, ‘failed signally.’ He crossed behind his man, turning with a snarl. ‘And as for your treatment of Edgar-Smith! Beneath contempt!’
‘He is, sir,’ Lestrade agreed.
‘Privately, Lestrade,’ Henry fumed, ‘I happen to agree with you. The man is a perfect pig with all the finesse of a Dreadnought. That’s why I’ve transferred him to the curatorship of the police museum. But publicly, he’s resting. I can’t have my officers brawling in public. Can you imagine the field day the gentlemen of the Press will have with this? I understand that the ladies of the WSPU have made you an honorary woman?’
Lestrade blushed under the bruising. ‘Well, I’m flattered of course,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t accept such an honour.’
Henry picked up a paperweight, speechless in his fury. But he was a man of decorum, a martyr to restraint, and he put it back again. ‘You’d better sit down,’ he said. ‘If I shot you I’d be arrested and if I suspended you I’d be even more short-staffed than I am now. Apes like Edgar-Smith don’t grow on trees, you know.’
Lestrade collapsed gratefully into a chair. ‘Indeed not, sir.’
‘Bolsover,’ said Henry.
‘Sir?’
‘The Marquess of Bolsover. What news of his son’s death?’
Lestrade slapped his forehead and instantly regretted it as the room swam in his vision.
Henry’s face relaxed into a look of utter incomprehension. ‘You’d forgotten all about it, hadn’t you?’
‘In a busy life,’ he said, ‘it’s the one thing that had to go.’
