by M. J. Trow
‘Sorry, Lady R.’ He stopped sprawling on the chaise-longue. ‘I was just soliloquizing to myself.’
‘Of course you were,’ she said. ‘One cannot, in my experience, soliloquize any other way.’ She bowed her grey head closer to Lestrade. ‘Thank God he was doing it silently.’
‘Did Mr Term have any enemies?’ Lestrade asked. ‘Anyone here, perhaps?’
‘I really don’t know what you mean,’ another young man bridled from the far corner of the room.
‘Indeed, Mr . . . er . . .’
‘Bell. Clive Bell. I merely dabble, as we all do, in poetry. It is of course the mirror of the soul.’
‘Of course,’ nodded Lestrade. ‘So you wouldn’t say that you and Mr Term were rivals.’
‘In no sense. But you might ask Giles . . . Giles!’
‘Hello.’ The voice came again from beyond the French windows. A tall, elegant young man with a full beard and carefully coiffured moustache swung casually into the parlour.
‘Lytton Strachey.’ He bowed to Lestrade.
‘Haven’t we seen you somewhere before?’ Lestrade’s eyes narrowed.
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Strachey said. ‘I am a writer. I don’t do Police Reviews. Not even for ready money.’
‘Oh, come now, Giles, your “Ballad of Reading Gaol” is legendary,’ another young man piped up from a corner.
‘It’s merely average,’ sighed Strachey, lolling in a chair so that his feet were virtually up the chimney. ‘And besides, it’s someone else’s.’
‘Oh, I haven’t introduced you,’ Lady Rivers said of the last unidentified young man in the room. ‘This is John Maynard Keynes.’
Lestrade nodded.
‘I’d be grateful for your views on the cost-effectiveness of the Metropolitan Police Force, Mr Lestrade,’ the moustachioed young man blurted. ‘In quintessential terms of supply and demand, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Lestrade, ‘I’d be delighted to oblige, but now, I fear, I am on a case.’ He turned to one of the two young ladies, both of whom appeared to be wearing hammocks. ‘Did you know Mr Term?’ he said to the prettier of them.
‘Indeed,’ she answered. ‘He was always very kind about my canvasses.’
Lestrade took in the paint-daubed hair, the thumb with the red ring from habitual gripping of the palette, the teeth slightly worn in the centre from clamping on a brush. Or perhaps it was a pipe. ‘You are a painter, Miss . . .?’
‘I merely dabble, Mr Lestrade,’ she said. ‘My name is Vanessa Bell. This is my sister, Virginia.’
He turned to the gawky one, with a long nose rather like a violin case. ‘And you . . . Mrs . . . er?’
‘Stephen,’ she said. ‘Miss. Yes, I knew Hilary. He was a charming young man. He would visit us occasionally in Gordon Square and here.’
‘Did any of you join him on the athletics field?’ Lestrade asked the roomful. ‘Did any of you fence?’
Lytton Strachey shuddered. ‘What a bestial thought, Superintendent,’ he said. ‘We here are pledged to the pursuit of truth. We despise conventional thought processes and the use of biceps.’
‘Yes,’ said Lady Rivers, ‘I am a great believer in natural childbirth.’
‘I think you’re thinking of forceps, Lady R.,’ said Bell, struggling with a pipe.
‘I jogged with him once at Cambridge,’ said Keynes. ‘He was a King’s man, like myself. I do not share my friends’ fear of the sports field, Mr Lestrade, but I’m afraid that two years in the India Office . . . well, you know how the Civil Service grinds a man down?’
Lestrade nodded. He knew only too well. ‘When was the last time any of you saw him?’ he asked.
Strachey looked at Bell. ‘You had luncheon with him, Clive, last month I believe.’
‘That’s right. At the Trocadero.’
‘Did he seem . . . strange?’ Lestrade asked. Looking at the group before him, the question seemed superfluous.
‘In what way?’ Bell asked.
‘Well, I don’t know. Worried? Frightened, even?’
‘Lord, no. Hilary didn’t know the meaning of the word,’ Bell told him.
‘I can’t believe that,’ said Lady Rivers. ‘I mean, I know Cambridge isn’t what it was.’
‘But then,’ said Virginia suddenly, ‘what is the meaning of worry? Of fright? Indeed, of life itself?’
There was a silence.
‘Well.’ Lestrade cleared his throat. ‘I must be going. Thank you, Lady Rivers, ladies, gentlemen. If anything else about the late Mr Term springs to mind, perhaps you’d contact me at Scotland Yard.’
‘I’ll see you out, Superintendent,’ said Lady Rivers.
When he had gone, Lytton Strachey stretched out his endless legs still further. ‘What a repulsive little chap,’ he said. ‘Not a very eminent Victorian, is he?’
‘Wasn’t Hilary one of Bolsover’s Boys?’ Maynard Keynes asked.
‘Good Lord, I believe he was,’ frowned Bell. ‘Still, Lestrade must know that already.’
Virginia hissed, ‘People! When are we going to get out from under the voluminous skirts of Lady R. and meet when we want to, where we want to, and to discuss what we want to discuss – the enjoyment of beautiful objects, the pleasures of human intercourse?’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Bell. ‘It’s so difficult, isn’t it? We’re all so wretchedly busy. At least we’re agreed on Thursday evenings. As to when we can start, Lord knows. How about 1922?’
In the passageway, as Lestrade and Lady Rivers reached the front door, the doorbell rang. Lady Rivers did the honours and standing there, in a very fetching pelisse and bonnet, was a lady who looked rather familiar.
‘Ah,’ beamed Lady Rivers, ‘our newest recruit to the Circle. Something of a poetess in her own country, I understand. Superintendent Lestrade, I’d like you to meet Miss Marylou Adams.’
The pair of policemen sat huddled in the office, the green lamps burning far into the night. The weather was cooler, the night air over the city still and silent. A breeze wafted in from the river.
‘Autumn, guv’nor,’ said Dew. ‘I can smell it on the wind.’
‘It’s just Mungo Hyde’s river, Walter,’ Lestrade said. ‘Tell me, how long have we been together now? Forty years?’
‘Twenty, sir. Ever since the Ripper case.’
‘Yes. I remember. And you’re still calling me “sir”,’ Lestrade chuckled.
‘I wouldn’t have it any other way, guv’nor,’ Dew said.
‘Neither would I, Dew,’ the superintendent answered. ‘So read the wall to me. Not forgetting the shoeboxes.’
Dew looked up at the noticeboards, cluttered with diagrams, photographs of corpses, pencilled jottings. He couldn’t bear to look at the hundreds of depositions stacked up in the cardboard boxes to right and left.
‘Murder number one,’ he said, ‘Anstruther Fitzgibbon, eldest son of the Marquess of Bolsover. Shot to death with a horse pistol in a classic locked-room mystery.’
‘Now, Walter, you’ve been reading Conan Doyle again.’
‘Sorry, guv’nor,’ Dew smiled.
‘What do we know about our man from that?’
‘He’s careful,’ ruminated Dew. ‘He wears gloves. He is at least passably familiar with old guns. He’s handy with a wire or horsehair loop. And he read a book called Nena Sahib that gave him handy hints on how to do it.’
‘Which brings us,’ Lestrade lit himself another cigar, ‘to murder number two.’
‘Murder number two,’ Dew peered through the curling haze, ‘Hans-Rudiger Hesse, German journalist.’
‘Crime writer,’ Lestrade reminded him.
‘Yes, sir. Over here to cover the Games. He called here, having read that you were on the Fitzgibbon case, to tell you how it was done.’
‘And perhaps by whom, Walter.’ Lestrade blew smoke rings down his nose. ‘That’s the maddening thing. What happened to him?’
‘Stabbed with his own paper-knife.’
&n
bsp; ‘Because he had to be shut up. That’s why this one isn’t as clever as the others. Our man had no time. He knew Hesse. Otherwise, he wouldn’t know he’d been to see me and why. And that’s why Hesse breaks the pattern. He’s not an athlete. And he’s not British. He just happened to have the bad luck to be an old hack who remembered an old case. Murder number three.’
‘William Hemingway. Upper-crust sort of bloke who was poisoned over three days almost certainly by eating prunes.’
‘Given to him by person or persons unknown prior to the start of the eight-metre class boat race.’
‘Yacht,’ Dew corrected him.
‘What does this one tell us about our man?’ Lestrade ignored the correction.
‘He’s back on track, now. Hemingway is an athlete of sorts and he’s British.’
‘And?’
‘Er . . .’
‘Our man knows his poisons. And he knows the customs of these sailors exchanging gifts with each other.’
‘And he knows Hemingway’s personal dereliction for prunes.’ Dew thought of that all by himself.
‘Right you are, Walter. Murder four.’
‘Martin Holman. Down on his luck. Involved in a pretty amateur bit of embezzlement as well as running. About to tell his boss all when he drops dead at the White City.’
‘Again, poison. Again British. Again an athlete. Murder five.’
‘Ah, now the break of pattern again.’ Dew rocked back, clutching his knee. ‘A woman this time – Effie Jennings.’
‘But still athletic – in all senses of the word – and British.’
‘And we have an eyewitness this time. The chauffeur – whatsisname . . . Mansell – saw her with a man the night before she died. A man who might well have brought her that poisoned unmentionable.’
‘Which tells us what about our man?’ Lestrade asked.
‘Er . . . he goes like a train, sir.’
‘Yes, well we’ve only got Mansell’s word for that. But we know he understands the rough and tumble of the Fives Court – and he’s a whizzo at mixing his lethal compounds. Tell me about Besançon Hugo.’
‘The pattern broken again. Our man messed that one up, guv’nor, if you ask me.’
‘I do ask you, Walter. In what way?’
‘Hugo was a Frog and not actually an athlete. And he was shot – harking back to the first murder, perhaps, but it showed all the signs of panic.’
‘You’ll go far, Mr Dew.’ Lestrade was impressed. ‘Our man was actually preparing for murder number seven when he was interrupted. He couldn’t risk Hugo checking the blade he’d fixed. And I’ll tell you something else.’
‘What’s that, Guvnor?’
‘Our man got lucky the next day.’
‘In what way?’
‘It’s my guess that he intended to smear the tip of the Frenchman’s blade with poison, not merely sharpen it to a lethal point.’
‘Still, the result was the same.’
‘It was indeed. Murder number eight.’
‘D’Abernon “Tyrrwhit” Dover. Shot in the back by an arrow.’
‘Difficult shot?’
‘Not really. White shirt under the moon. Less than fifty yards away. He’s British. He’s an athlete, but the weapon’s odd.’
‘Poetic, though, wouldn’t you say?’
Dew shrugged. Poetry wasn’t his strong suit.
‘It’s the victims, Walter.’ Lestrade slammed the flat of his hand down on the depositions on his desk. ‘That’s what really gets me about this case.’
‘In what way, sir?’
‘They’re so bloody ordinary.’
Dew frowned. ‘Is that so unusual?’ he asked.
Lestrade turned to the window and watched the black barges trailing in the mauve and crimson of the river. ‘Yes, damn it, it is. You and I have investigated more murders than Edward Henry’s had hot dinners, Walter. We know the hidden rule of violent death. The only people not inviting it are the poor buggers who stop a bullet or a maddened ox by accident; who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. For everybody else – and I mean everybody else – there’s always a reason. There has to be a motive. We know that at least Hans-Rudiger Hesse and probably Effie Jennings knew their killer. Besançon Hugo saw and may well have recognized him before he died.’
‘But that Effie Jennings . . .’ Dew began.
‘Oh, yes, I know her morals may have been looser than a llama with diarrhoea, Walter, but this is 1908. You and I have got to move with the times.’
‘What about Martin Holman?’
‘You said it yourself, Walter. An amateur. Amateur artist. Amateur embezzler. He wasn’t in the right league to be in somebody’s way.’
Dew fell silent. ‘Anstruther Fitzgibbon!’ he suddenly shouted. ‘Not as other men. Talk of unnatural practices with chaplains and regimental mascots and things.’
‘Yes, I’ll grant you odd, but unless a flock of outraged goats engineered his death, it still doesn’t give us a motive.’
Dew was speechless again. ‘What about one murder?’ Inspiration shone hopefully on his brow. ‘One intended victim and the others merely a blind?’
Lestrade nodded. ‘All right, Walter, I’m game. Which one is it? Shall we toss a coin? Stick a pin in the wall? You see, the only thing wrong with that theory is the risk. It’s risky enough to kill once, but to kill eight times only increases the risk eight times. It needs meticulous planning and a hell of a lot of luck.’
‘Perhaps that’s what he had, sir,’ Dew said. ‘After all, the bugger’s still at large.’
Lestrade nodded grimly.
‘Hang on, guv’nor.’ Dew frowned again, a sure sign that his old grey cells were working overtime. ‘You said eight murders.’
‘That’s right,’ said Lestrade.
‘But the latest one, Martin Sheridan. That makes nine.’
‘Let’s leave that, Walter.’ Lestrade had dropped his voice.
‘But it doesn’t fit. Sheridan was an American.’
‘It’s probably a copycat killing, Walter,’ Lestrade said quickly. ‘Let’s go back. We must have missed something.’
‘But the Sheridan case may give us a clue, sir,’ Dew persisted. ‘Perhaps the one we need.’
‘Walter, there’s something I ought to tell you . . .’ Lestrade began, but before he could finish, the door crashed back and a flushed-looking Sergeant Valentine dashed in.
‘Sirs,’ he blustered, ‘there’s been another one. Henley. Can you come? There’s no time to be lost.’
‘Of course not, sergeant.’ Lestrade reached for his battered boater. ‘There never is. Number nine,’ he muttered under his breath.
‘Well, well,’ said Dew, grabbing his jacket. ‘Number ten.’
‘In there?’ Lestrade shrank back from the duckboard.
‘Well, of course,’ said the captain. ‘We’re racing on Friday, Superintendent. We really have to practise. If you want to ask us questions, you’ll have to do it as we’re going along. Rowed before?’
‘Well, no, I . . .’
‘Never mind,’ the captain grinned, ‘you’ll get used to it. Hop in.’
For a moment, Lestrade was thrown. Did the man mean that literally? Was it vital for the weight distribution? Would he upset the whole damned apple cart? In the event, he reasoned that two legs were better than one and he clambered aboard.
‘Steady!’ the little man at the back – or was it the front – called out. ‘You’ll have us over.’
The boat rocked alarmingly and the upright oars wobbled from true.
‘Hope your slide’s greased,’ the man behind Lestrade mumbled. ‘Steady your rowlocks.’
Lestrade thought they were reasonably steady, all things considered, and he sat down.
‘Er . . . excuse me,’ said the man in front of him, ‘I think you’ll find there should be one of your feet on each side of me. Not two. Unless you’ve got four feet, that is?’
Lestrade shifted accordingly and an oar
fell heavily on his shoulder.
‘Watch out, there,’ the captain called. ‘Right, gentlemen. May I explain the presence of this . . . oarsman . . . in our midst. Superintendent Lestrade is from Scotland Yard. He wants to ask us a few questions about dear old Lin.’
‘Poor old Lin,’ a few of them chorused.
‘I’d be grateful, gentlemen, if you could help me,’ said Lestrade.
‘You’re going to end up pretty far downstream, Mr Lestrade,’ the little man in front of him said. ‘Would you like your chappies there to accompany you?’
‘Good idea, Reggie,’ said the captain.
‘Is there room?’ Lestrade’s knees were wedged under the rim. The whole thing seemed rather snug to accommodate Dew and Valentine.
‘No, no, they can follow the coach along the towpath. Help yourselves to bicycles, gentlemen,’ the captain called. ‘By the way,’ he passed his right hand under his left armpit, past the man between him and Lestrade, ‘I’m Harry Blackstaffe, of Blackstaffe’s Blades.’
‘Delighted.’ Lestrade leaned forward.
‘Look, old chap.’ The man behind him nudged him. ‘I think you’ll find that jacket and those braces will be a bit of an encumbrance once we start.’
‘Keep your thole clean,’ the little man reminded him. That went without saying, really.
‘Blades,’ commanded the captain. ‘Over to you, Reggie.’
‘On the feather,’ called Reggie. ‘Could you bend a bit lower, Mr Lestrade, only the wind’s rather high this morning. I fear you’ll be blown backwards if you sit like that.’
Lestrade did his best. His knees were either side of his elbows and his arms were locked straight.
‘And . . . pull!’ shouted Reggie, clamping a loud-hailer to his mouth. ‘And . . . pull. Blade. Feather. Blade. Feather. Steady, W.A.L. Steady. That’s the way. Pull. Pull.’
Lestrade couldn’t believe it. The boat hurtled away from the landing place like a hare out of a trap and the brown water of Mungo Hyde’s river sprayed past, lashing them all, but especially him, with brown foam.
‘Put your back into it, Mr Lestrade. It’s all about leg thrust and body swing in this business.’
Lestrade could second that. But already he sensed his body thrusting and his leg swinging. The left one, that was. He’d lost all feeling in his right.
