Lestrade and the Sign of Nine

by M. J. Trow

  ‘Well, there you are,’ George remained unconvinced. ‘That can’t be natural, for a start.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ they heard the curate say, ‘that’s odd.’

  The Yard men followed his gaze. Out across the garden, beyond the summerhouse, where the elms stood gaunt and naked and the black stream ran underground, vague shapes were moving through the night.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ George had leapt backwards, sending the chair sprawling.

  ‘What’s that, Mr Bull?’ Lestrade whispered, standing his ground.

  ‘Er . . . damned if I know,’ the curate said and began to back along with George.

  ‘Late visitors?’ Lestrade prayed that his voice wasn’t betraying the tightness in his chest.

  ‘Surely not,’ Bull attempted to remain rational. ‘They’d come to the front door.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ George hissed.

  ‘Shut up, George!’ Lestrade ordered, but he was glad the sergeant was wearing his regulation brown trousers. ‘Is that the nun?’ he asked Bull.

  George had covered his head with his arms by this time but Bull and Lestrade still looked on, their backs to the far wall. ‘Possibly. I see two figures.’

  ‘It is them!’ George muffled through his fingers. ‘It’s that bloody monk and that bloody nun.’

  The monk and nun slid noiselessly over the spring grass, pausing now and then as if to check the house for lights or sound. One billowed white in the eerie light, the other dark as death with a pale face, tall and thin.

  ‘He’s a big bugger,’ Lestrade heard himself whisper, but the voice was not his own. It was from somewhere else, outside himself. His hand had already found the brass knuckles in his pocket by the time the sash of the window flew up. The scraping wood elicited a scream from George and a similar one from the nun, who fell forward into the room with a heavy thud.

  It was Lestrade who had the presence of mind to fumble for a Lucifer first and he found himself staring into the pale face of a constable of the Suffolk Force, the match flame twinkling on his helmet plate.

  ‘Evenin’ all,’ he saluted when his heart had descended a bit. ‘We was under the impression that the house was empty. The family ’ad gorn away for a while.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ Bull asked.

  ‘Well, initially,’ said a voice from the floor, ‘I did. It was passed on to me by my superiors.’ The nun got up, the pale duster coat falling open to reveal what passed on the Suffolk-Essex border for a detective. ‘Flannel, CID.’

  ‘Lestrade, Scotland Yard,’ said Lestrade. ‘This is Sergeant George. Er . . . George?’

  But the sergeant of that name lay in a dead faint against the skirting board.

  ‘He hasn’t been well,’ Lestrade explained.

  ‘Who has?’ Flannel blew his nose vociferously. ‘Three bloody hours I’ve spent in that perishing garden. Oh, begging your pardon, Mr Bull.’

  ‘Why wasn’t I told you were surveilling the house?’ the curate asked now that his heart had descended.

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ the Suffolk Inspector told him. ‘I only follow orders. “Check the Rectory” they said. Check the Rectory I have.’

  ‘Can I come in now, Inspector?’ the tall constable still had one foot in and one foot out of the window.

  ‘Oh, yes, right you are, Topsy. This is Constable Turvey, gentlemen, what for want of a better word I will call my right-hand man.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Lestrade helped him in. ‘Only it’s brass monkeys out there, which is why me an’ Mr Flannel come in ‘ere. Mind you,’ he grunted at the dismal grate, ‘not much better in ’ere, is it?’

  ‘Look, Mr Bull,’ Flannel said. ‘You haven’t got a poultice, have you? I feel a shocking cold coming on.’

  ‘Walk this way, Inspector. I’m sure old Hettie has something putrefying in the kitchen. Will he be all right, Mr Lestrade?’

  Lestrade knelt and slapped George around the head a few times. The sergeant groaned. ‘As rain,’ the Inspector said. ‘So, Turvey, did you know we’d been called in?’

  ‘Yessir,’ said the constable, reclosing the window. ‘We ’ad ’ad a note to that effect.’

  ‘What can you tell me about the late Amos Flower?’

  ‘Not a lot, really,’ the lofty law-enforcer shrugged before diving his numb hands into the fire. ‘Blimey, stingy lot these churchmen, ain’t they? He lived over at Puttock End. I turned the cottage over myself. Nothin’ there, of course.’

  ‘You’re sure you know who he was?’ Lestrade helped the disoriented George to his knees.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I mean, you do accept that he was simply Amos Flower, part-time gardener?’

  ‘Well, of course,’ said Turvey. ‘Who else would he be?’

  ‘No one,’ smiled Lestrade. ‘No one at all. George? George? Can you hear me, George?’

  ‘I think so, guv’nor,’ the sergeant felt the lump on the back of his head where he’d gone down. ‘That is, if you just said “Can you hear me?” I did, yes.’

  ‘That’s the ticket. No, keep your head down between your knees for a minute. No, not my knees, Sergeant. The constable here will talk.’

  ‘Not me, sir,’ Turvey assured him. ‘I know when to keep silent. You won’t learn anything from the likes of me.’

  As soon as Lestrade had struck a match in the man’s face he had been sure of that. ‘Tell me,’ the Inspector said, ‘are there any more of your lads out there?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Turvey said. ‘Just me and the Inspector. Why?’

  ‘Oh,’ Lestrade felt the hairs on his neck moving. ‘It’s just that there are two figures out there on the lawn’ and he heard the thud and the groan as Sergeant George slid gracefully to the floor again.

  The two figures floated out beyond the trees, one of them peering into the streambed before swinging wide to approach the house.

  ‘They must be your blokes,’ Turvey said, his fist tightening on his truncheon.

  Lestrade shook his head. ‘Me and George,’ he whispered. ‘That’s all there is.’

  ‘You don’t believe this ’aunted ’ouse story, do you, sir?’ Turvey asked.

  Lestrade remembered the wizened thing he had seen in the hall, the ghostly maze chalked up on the wall. The wall through which the thing had vanished.

  ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Unless . . .’ and he said no more before the sash crashed upwards and a tall figure in a tweed Ulster put his right leg to the floor.

  There were screams all round and Constable Turvey hooked his truncheon under the throat of the sprawling figure. A shot rang out, illuminating the library in a sudden flash of light. Lestrade leapt for the gun and grappled with its owner, half in, half out of the window. When he’d hauled him in far enough, he dropped the window to bounce with a sickening crunch and the figure stopped struggling.

  Turvey was sitting on the other one, pinning him to the floorboards.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ Lestrade was making good use of his match-striking technique tonight, ‘if it isn’t Ianto and Dewi,’ he let his adversary go and loosened the window frame from his neck.

  ‘Damn you, Lestrade, you nearly broke my occipital.’

  ‘Sorry, Doctor,’ the Inspector said. ‘I’d have offered to buy you a new one. I suspect, however, that when we can get some light into this room, we’ll find that you will be buying Mr Bull a new bit for his ceiling. Do you have a licence for that pistol?’

  ‘Of course I do. My God, Holmes, are you all right?’ he hastened to the prone figure of his friend, pushing the constable off him.

  ‘Do I detect the fact that you know these gentlemen, sir?’ Turvey pocketed his truncheon.

  ‘Sadly, yes,’ sighed Lestrade. ‘After a fashion. When I saw them last, they were rather badly disguised as Welsh miners.’

  ‘What are they disguised as now?’ Turvey wanted to know.

  ‘Private detectives, unless I miss my guess.’

  ‘Golly, how exciting,’ Curate Bull was back. ‘I thought I heard s
omething go bang in the night.’

  ‘You did,’ said Lestrade. ‘It was the sound of whatever credence Sherlock Holmes once had, shattering. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Your job for you, Lestrade,’ Holmes allowed the good doctor to massage his neck. ‘You know who old Amos is, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Lestrade loudly, ‘I think this is more than enough excitement for one night. Where are you staying, gentlemen?’

  ‘The Barley Arms,’ Watson told him. ‘They do a capital Colchester clam.’

  ‘Excellent, we’ll join you,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Please, Mr Holmes,’ Lestrade interrupted, ‘it’s late. Sergeant George can stay here, with your permission, Mr Bull.’

  ‘Oh, yes, absolutely. Of course. He can share old Hettie’s poultice.’

  ‘Constable, give my regards to Inspector Flannel. I had intended to visit him tomorrow. Perhaps he’ll join me at the pub for breakfast?’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Lestrade checked his number two one last time while the curate saw Holmes and Watson out. ‘I must apologize, sir,’ Holmes was saying. ‘My assistant and I were merely trying to find somewhere to shelter.’

  ‘Oh, quite all right,’ Bull understood. ‘Dashed inclement, March.’

  ‘Poor old George,’ Lestrade placed the man’s bowler on his chest. ‘Quite out of spirits.’

  ❖7❖

  T

  hey rattled south, courtesy of the London and North Eastern Railway – Detective-Inspector Lestrade, Detective-Sergeant George and a little old lady intent on her copy of the Railway Library.

  ‘I’m sorry, guv,’ George was mumbling about last night. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘Terror, George,’ Lestrade said.

  The little old lady glanced over her pince-nez.

  ‘But don’t worry about it. We all have our off days.’

  ‘So the second pair were Holmes and Watson again.’

  ‘Like bad pennies,’ Lestrade nodded. He reached for a cigar but the disapproving inrush of breath from the little old lady made him put it away again.

  ‘What were they doing there?’

  ‘You know Holmes’s methods,’ said Lestrade. ‘He’s one of those irritating b . . .’

  The old lady’s eyes widened.

  ‘. . . bachelors who have time and money to wander the country in search of other people’s business.’

  ‘But he’s dogging our every step.’

  ‘Holmes is the least of our worries, George. It’s time you and I recopulated on these crimes.’

  The lady’s left eyebrow flickered a little.

  ‘Do you . . . er . . . think we should, sir?’ the sergeant asked, jerking his head in her direction.

  Lestrade waved aside his objection. ‘Murder One,’ he said.

  ‘Hereward Rodney,’ said George, ‘but . . .’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Lestrade. ‘No maze. Even so, I’m prepared to bet my pension he’s the first of many. Go on.’

  ‘Rector of Mevagissey, found bludgeoned to death, slumped on his own brass eagle in the church of St Peter.’

  ‘Found by?’

  ‘The oldest curate in the world.’

  ‘Who also saw . . .?’

  ‘Probably the murderer. Tall bloke, posing as a Bishop.’

  ‘Who had the ability to leap nine-foot walls. Motive?’

  ‘Something to do with the Rector’s unhealthy interest in the young ladies of the parish. My money’s on one of the parents.’

  ‘All right,’ Lestrade watched the riveting Essex countryside flash by. ‘Murder Two.’

  ‘Osbaldeston Ralston, found floating in his duck pond in the early hours.’

  ‘By?’

  ‘A copper. Er . . . Constable Spatchcock.’

  ‘Cause of death?’

  ‘Blows to the head.’

  ‘Clues?’

  ‘A maze this time. Fussock the butler had it on him. Did we ever find out why?’

  ‘Still waiting to hear from old Fussock himself. I know the telegraph isn’t what it was, but two weeks . . . Motive?’

  ‘He was heavily in debt but seemed to have made a huge amount of money recently by rooking people. Universally detested. Either of the sons could have done it – or that cracker who was the daughter of Admiral Ratcliffe.’

  ‘Or Squire Cotterell or Mr Hands, both of whom were Ralston’s guests on the night he died. Murder Three.’

  ‘Byngham Batchelor, writer of sorts. Found on the steps of a terrace in Lisson Grove, his head stove in.’

  ‘Clues?’

  ‘Same method of attack as all the others. Screwed up bit of paper with the maze stuffed into his false teeth.’

  ‘Motive?’

  ‘Seemed he was in the habit of pinching other people’s work when he doubled as a publisher’s editor. Making a small fortune out of somebody else’s talent does get some people a bit miffed.’

  ‘Indeed, Murder Four.’

  ‘John Guest, coal owner. Found at the foot of a quarry in somewhere unpronounceable in South Wales. Same method of murder. Same maze design scrawled on the rock above him.’

  ‘Though not at first. Other clues?’

  ‘A piece of blue serge material on barbed wire nearby, which could of course have nothing whatsoever to do with the crime.’

  ‘Quite. It’s my guess it came from a copper at the scene and is therefore a blue herring. Sighting?’

  ‘Not clear. Some bloke seen running away by a Peeping Tom. Not the most reliable of witnesses.’

  ‘Motive?’

  ‘A nasty bastard who let people die every day in his mine, just for profit. If he was anything like his old man, he was totally deranged.’

  ‘Murder Five,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ George leaned forward. ‘Now this, if I may venture the opinion, sir, is the lynchgate of the whole thing.’

  ‘It is? Why?’

  ‘Because, as you so brilliantly observed . . .’

  ‘You’ve already got the job, George. Boot-licking I can do without.’

  ‘As you observed, the deceased in the garden at Borley was not who he claimed to be, but an underworld character . . .’

  ‘Oh, how thrilling!’ the Yard men jerked up as the old lady slammed shut her book. ‘I cannot contain myself any longer.’

  ‘Madam, please,’ Lestrade adjusted his tie. ‘You’re old enough to be our mother.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ she sat down next to him, all shawl and mothballs, ‘but I could not help but overhear your conversation. Are you really detectives?’

  ‘Er . . . yes, madam.’

  ‘From Scotland Yard itself, perhaps?’

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  ‘Oh, how exciting. I’ve just been reading Murder Most Fowl. It’s set in a chicken farm in Neasden.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ winced Lestrade.

  ‘So you see, I am something of an amateur sleuth myself. Oh,’ she gushed, ‘not in your league of course. But even if I say so myself, I guessed the murderer in Death Sneaks Up Behind One by page sixty-eight.’

  ‘Remarkable,’ sighed Lestrade. ‘How many pages in the book?’

  ‘Sixty-nine,’ she said. ‘But in The Big Snooze I’d worked it out by . . .’

  ‘Madam,’ Lestrade interrupted, ‘I’m sure your detective powers are legendary, but we were wrong to have discussed delicate and confidential matters in your hearing. I’m sure you appreciate that we cannot discuss them further.’

  ‘Oh, quite, quite,’ she raised her hand. ‘It’s just this mention of a maze. What does that signify?’

  ‘I really don’t know, madam,’ Lestrade confessed. ‘Now, please . . .’

  ‘No harm I showing her, guv,’ George suggested.

  The Inspector looked at his number two with something approaching horror. The man was breaking every rule in the book. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘but if this ever comes out, you and I will be back to the
horse troughs forever.’

  He showed her the rough sketch of the maze that George had made after the third murder.

  She chuckled softly. ‘My dear detectives, this isn’t a maze.’

  ‘It isn’t?’ frowned Lestrade.

  ‘Dear me, no, it’s a game board, popular since the Middle Ages, I believe. It’s known as Nine Men’s Morris.’

  ‘Morris!’ Lestrade and George chorused.

  ‘Madam,’ Lestrade kissed the little old lady’s hand, ‘you’ve made a comparatively young man very happy. Tell me,’ he whipped a novel out of his Donegal pocket, ‘have you read this one?’

  She took the volume. ‘Ah, Slaughter on Shaftesbury Avenue, sadly, yes. The murderer is . . .’

  ‘No, no,’ beamed Lestrade. ‘Really. You’ve already told us who the murderer is, madam.’

  Where the river bends at Chiswick Ait, within a spittoon-shot of the distillery, stands Upper Mall at Hammersmith and it was here that Lestrade stood the next morning. Yes, it was April Fool’s day. Yes, his leg was still playing him up. Yes, Sergeant George was having a Rest Day, the first in a long time, to recover his composure after the unnerving incidents at Borley. But all that was a mere bagatelle, for Lestrade sensed the case was in the bag.

  The door of the picturesque house, garlanded with ivy and peacock’s feathers, was opened by a still-attractive woman in her middle years. With his decade of experience in these matters, Lestrade divined at once that she was not the downstairs maid.

  ‘Mr Morris’s housekeeper?’ he asked.

  She smiled. ‘Housekeeper, confidante, letter-writer and, I hope, his inspiration. I am Jane Morris.’

  ‘Oh, I do beg your pardon,’ Lestrade tipped his bowler. ‘Inspector Lestrade, Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Oh, what a pity,’ she let him in. ‘William was expecting a tapestry expert from the Gobelin Works. You don’t know anything about vegetable dyes, do you?’

  ‘Sadly, no, madam.’ Lestrade was too ashamed to admit he’d missed that lecture and he couldn’t remember it appearing on the curriculum at Mr Poulson’s Academy for the Sons of Nearly Respectable Gentlefolk all those years ago.

  If the hall was unusual, the drawing-room was an experience. Entwined flowers covered the wallpaper, pomegranates and grapes swelled out of the woodwork, the hinges on the doors were ornate beyond belief and knights and dragons did battle up and down the curtains. She squeezed him into an appallingly uncomfortable Medieval chair whose slats pinched Lestrade’s bum even through the Donegal. Obviously, people’s bums were of a different shape in the Olden Times.