Lestrade and the Sign of Nine

by M. J. Trow

  ‘Ladies of the Night,’ Derringham said. ‘Ah, Foskett, the tea. It’s all right, I’ll be mother,’ and he waved the old boy out. ‘One lump or two, Lestrade?’

  ‘Two, please.’

  ‘Good, I like a man who’s fastidious.’

  ‘Ladies of the Night?’ Lestrade reminded him.

  ‘Ah yes. Not just any ladies, mind you. Not for him the demi-mondaines of Duke and Jermyn Street, oh dear no. The wretches of the Abyss were more his cup of tea. How’s the thé superieur? To your taste?’

  ‘Oh effluently, thank you,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘I have it shipped in from the Carnatic,’ Derringham said. ‘Mysore.’

  ‘Lovely. So Sir Anthony enjoyed slumming?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. Clap of course was the least of his worries.’

  ‘What was the most of them?’

  ‘Well,’ Derringham paused, his little finger jutting from the porcelain, ‘it’s not for me to speak ill of the dead, but I did detect a certain falling off, shall we say, in his advocacy of late. I was his junior in Regina versus Bickerstaff.’

  ‘The mass murderer of Chipping Ongar?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘But he did it, didn’t he?’

  ‘Of course he did it, Lestrade; what’s that got to do with it? Bickerstaff Senior owned half of Essex. Tony and I cleaned up as they say.’

  ‘You knew he was guilty?’

  ‘Lestrade,’ Derringham was amazed, ‘I am quite amazed. How long have you been a policeman?’

  ‘Er . . . thirteen years, sir.’

  ‘At the Yard?’

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘And you still ask a question like that? A man’s guilt or innocence is an irrelevance in this day and age. A chap can have blood all over his fingers, but a good advocate will get him off. Alternatively, he can have been out of the country on the Night in Question and he’ll swing. It all depends on his counsel.’

  ‘And Sir Anthony was the best?’

  ‘Formerly, yes. Latterly . . . Personally, I think he’d lost it.’

  ‘It?’

  ‘That essential dash and fire. That ability to look straight into the eyes of a jury and tell them a load of bilge. That ruthless attack that reduces police officers to mindless wrecks . . . although to be fair, that last isn’t usually too difficult.’

  ‘And to what do you attribute this loss?’

  ‘Syphilis,’ Derringham chirped. ‘Softening of the brain. Henry VIII, Beethoven, he’s in jolly good company.’

  ‘Was there anywhere specific he . . . frequented?’

  ‘God knows,’ said the QC. ‘Essentially it’s a solitary vice, Inspector. At least, before he meets his Unfortunate it is. Not the sort of thing he’d want a colleague tagging along for. Especially a colleague who has taken silk.’

  ‘And Lady Rivers knew?’

  ‘Put a pair of detectives on to it, I understand.’

  ‘A pair of detectives? Not . . .?’

  ‘Yes, I believe so. Grand and Batchelor.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘They have an office off Chancery Lane. I’ve used them myself before now.’

  ‘Er . . . this is rather by the way, Mr Derringham, but you’ve never been tempted to use a pair called Holmes and Watson?’

  ‘No,’ the lawyer shrugged. ‘Never heard of them.’

  Lestrade breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘Anyway,’ Derringham poured himself another cup, ‘I don’t wish to be uncharitable. You’re doing your job, I know, but I am a very busy man as you can see. Why all these enquiries into poor Tony’s death? You can’t be surprised at a street crime in the Nichol, surely? The man’s astrakhan coat alone would have been incentive enough to any of our unwaged brethren east of the Bar.’

  ‘Quite likely,’ nodded Lestrade, wrestling with a recalcitrant tea leaf wedged somewhere on his tongue. ‘But this was no ordinary street crime. To begin with, nothing has been stolen. And then, there was this.’ He passed the advocate a piece of paper.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s a board game plan,’ said Lestrade. ‘A game called Nine Men’s Morris.’

  ‘What has it to do with Tony?’

  ‘That’s the question I am trying to answer, sir,’ Lestrade said. ‘It’s a copy of what was daubed in blood just feet away from the body. And we’ve seen it before.’

  ‘Really?’

  The Inspector nodded. ‘In a variety of forms, it’s turned up near four other bodies since February.’

  ‘Has it now?’

  ‘All over the country. All bludgeoned to death in the same way.’

  ‘My, my. What’s the link?’

  Lestrade sighed. ‘When I’ve established that,’ he said, ‘I’ll have my murderer.’

  ‘One moment.’ A thought had occurred to Derringham. ‘Foskett!’

  The ancient clerk of that name appeared at the door.

  ‘What was Sir Anthony working on when he died?’

  ‘The Ilchester Impersonation, sir.’

  ‘Oh yes. That’s right. Nothing gripping there, Lestrade, I shouldn’t have thought. Alöis Ilchester stands accused of impersonating a Greenwich pensioner. Mind you, they’d have hanged him for that in the good old days. Foskett, I seem to remember some chap calling for Sir Anthony on Monday.’

  ‘The day before he died,’ Lestrade observed.

  ‘That is correct, sir,’ the old man said.

  ‘Did he see Sir Anthony?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘No sir. Sir Anthony was at his club, at luncheon.’

  ‘And this visitor was in connection with the impersonation case?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. He wouldn’t state his business.’

  Lestrade grunted. ‘Or leave his name, I suppose?’

  ‘Oh, yes sir. He left a name. It was Merrill.’

  Lestrade and Derringham looked at each other. ‘Was it now?’ said Lestrade. ‘No address, though?’

  ‘Why yes. Er . . . let me see,’ the old clerk shuffled away and returned in a trice with a ledger. ‘The Home Office, Whitehall. Opening hours 11-6.’

  It was not to the Home Office that Lestrade went first. After all, this Merrill might have no connection with River’s death at all. It was not unusual for a Home Office boffin to contact a leading advocate and no doubt Mr Merrill would turn out to be somebody’s private under-under secretary and no harm done.

  And there was more pressing business. For three days, two East End roughs had been held in custody in Leman Street Police Station, charged, in the first instance, with resisting arrest and one with the carrying of a firearm for no really good purpose. The taller of the two had attacked young Tyrrell with what appeared to be a violin bow as the constable had brought him down in a rugby tackle to the south of Fournier Street. It was little things like that that disturbed Lestrade. Orders had been issued by the Superintendent of H Division into whose territory the felons had run, that no one but Inspector Lestrade was to interview the men. That no one of course, did not include Sergeant George.

  ‘Watch my lips, George,’ the taller rough was saying. ‘You know me perfectly well. I am Sherlock Holmes of 221B Baker Street.’

  George was not convinced. ‘Every time I see you, Mr Holmes,’ he said, ‘you’re in a different disguise. You were keeping a welcome in the hillside when I saw you last. More recently, I understand, you were being a ghost.’

  ‘Ah, so you admit it’s me.’

  ‘I admit nothing of the sort, sir. I am merely pointing out that as Mr Sherlock Holmes is constantly purporting to be someone else, I cannot be sure he really exists. Is he purely a figment of someone’s fevered imagination?’

  Holmes lolled back in the chair in the dank little cell, without a light. ‘You’re curiously quiet, Lestrade,’ he said. ‘It’s not like you.’

  ‘What were you doing in the Nichol on Thursday night?’

  ‘We . . .’

  ‘Shut up, Watson,’ Holmes hissed. ‘The grown-ups are talking. We were mere
ly pursuing our enquiries.’

  ‘That’s my line,’ Lestrade said, clasping his fingers over his waistcoat.

  ‘We are, in an odd sort of way, on the same side, Lestrade,’ Holmes thought he’d never have to admit it. ‘It’s merely that our methods differ. Public sector, private sector. Right hand, left hand.’

  ‘Either could have killed Sir Anthony Rivers. Why did you resist arrest?’

  ‘Resist arrest?’ Holmes shrieked. ‘When two burly idiots come running out of the darkness at you, you don’t stop to examine their credentials. In any case, they both behaved improperly. As soon as I am allowed my one telegram, I shall be suing the lot of you for wrongful arrest.’

  ‘Quite. I . . .’

  ‘Do shut up, Watson,’ Holmes snarled. ‘I feel one of my heads coming on.’

  ‘It’s just that I shudder to think how many tea and toasts poor Mrs Hudson will have made over the last three days. You’ve no right to keep us here, Lestrade. Or haven’t you heard of Habeas Corpus?’

  ‘One case at a time, please, Doctor,’ the Inspector said.

  ‘Aha,’ chortled Holmes. ‘An own goal, I think, Lestrade. Well done, Watson, old fellow. And do forgive my petulance earlier.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I want to,’ Watson bridled.

  ‘Why, I repeat,’ said Lestrade, ‘were you in the Nichol?’

  ‘You know perfectly well why, Lestrade,’ Holmes said. ‘You know I recognized the sketch of Pretty Boy Partridge, the Napoleon of Crime. The Nichol was his old stamping ground. That was where we’d learn something about his death.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘No. Because we’d only just set foot in the place when a police whistle blew and we were being chased.’

  ‘You were seen running away from the scene of the crime,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘We were running away from two very large men intent on doing us harm,’ Holmes persisted. ‘It’s a natural enough reaction, God knows. We had no idea that a prominent advocate lay dying streets away.’

  ‘Do you know what this is, Mr Holmes?’ Lestrade showed him the same piece of paper he had shown to Roger Derringham.

  ‘Of course,’ said the World’s Greatest Detective. ‘It’s the game plan of Nine Men’s Morris.’

  Lestrade nearly fell off his chair. Then he looked closely at Holmes. Could he, in one of his interminable disguises, have been the old lady on the train? Unless he had shoes strapped to his knees at the time, unlikely. He turned to Watson. ‘May I have a second opinion, Doctor?’

  Watson screwed up his baggy eyes to focus. ‘Well, er . . . it’s not for me to contradict Holmes, but it looks like a maze to me. Or a spider’s web.’

  ‘Of all the people I have discussed this with, Mr Holmes, you and one other are the only two who have correctly identified it. Tell me, Doctor, was there a time when you and Mr Holmes were apart during your sojourney to the Nichol?’

  ‘No,’ remembered Watson.

  ‘Not even a moment?’

  ‘Not even a moment. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because, Watson,’ Holmes said darkly, ‘my recognition of this piece of paper has somehow put me squarely in the frame. Your failure to recognize it has got you out of it. It follows therefore, that in Lestrade’s warped sense of logic, I killed Sir Anthony Rovers and you were merely my alibi, my stooge.’

  ‘I say, Holmes’ Watson protested. ‘Steady on.’

  ‘Am I correct, Lestrade?’

  ‘After a fashion,’ the Inspector nodded.

  ‘Well, I take it back,’ Holmes told them, ‘I always said you were the best of a bad bunch. Now I’d like to reserve judgement. What is the significance of the Morris game?’

  ‘One of those little snippets we kept back from the newspapers,’ Lestrade said. ‘This, or something like it, was found near the bodies of Osbaldeston Ralston, Byngham Batchelor, John Guest and Amos Flower, also known as Pretty Boy Partridge. It was also found in his own blood near the body of Anthony Rivers.’

  ‘Why?’

  Lestrade leaned forward. ‘You’re the Great Detective, Mr Holmes. You tell us.’

  ‘Holmes?’ Watson said, but the great brain was already working, the forehead furrowed, the brows knitted.

  ‘We should start with the game,’ Holmes said. ‘Nine Men’s Morris. There are also versions played with six or three men, but nine is the most popular. A form of it has been played since the fourteenth century at least and it is also known as Nine Men’s Mill or Merrill . . .’

  ‘What?’ Lestrade leapt to his feet, overturning the chair. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Er . . . we should start with the game . . .’

  ‘No, no. The last bit. The last bit.’

  ‘Er . . . it is also known as . . .’

  ‘Merrill. You said Merrill.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘George. Take a photograph of Mr Holmes. Usual thing. Side. Front. Back. Get PC Bailey over from the yard. Or Snowdon if it’s Bailey’s Rest Day. He’s to process it double quick and you’re to take it over to a bloke named Foskett at 24 King’s Bench Walk. Got it?’

  ‘Got it, guv. What about these two?’

  ‘After the photos, let ’em go. And, Mr Holmes . . .’

  ‘Yes, Lestrade.’

  ‘Let us get on with our job, please, in the future.’

  ‘If I thought you could do your job, Lestrade,’ sighed the Great Detective, ‘it would give me the greatest of pleasure.’

  ‘Where will you be, guv?’ George asked.

  ‘The Home Office,’ Lestrade said.

  Now Lestrade had met bureaucracy before. Many times. He was part of it in his own singular way. But in the corridors of power at the Home Office he was shunted from private secretary to under secretary to doorman and back again. The magic hour of six had arrived and the cleaners were in, trailing those same corridors with buckets and mops. A world-weary Inspector of Scotland Yard was just about to leave before he was thrown out when a man rather of his stamp, but clean shaven and infinitely better dressed – come to think of it, scarcely like him at all, really – hailed him in the back passage.

  ‘Inspector Lestrade?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, private secretary to the Home Secretary. May I have a word?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The civil servant led the way through a part of building which Lestrade had not found in the last two hours. The photographs of former Home Secretaries grew fewer and the paintwork patchier. At a door without a label, Ruggles-Brise stopped.

  ‘Beyond this door, Lestrade, is your Lord and Master and mine, the Right Honourable Hugh Childers, Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for the Home Office. He is not a man to be trifled with, Lestrade, and he is deeply worried. He wants a word. I shall be outside should either of you need me.’

  He opened the door to reveal a cosy little office lit by oil lamps. A large bearded man the wrong side of fifty-eight sat behind a scarred desk covered in worn leather. A fire crackled in the grate.

  ‘You sent for me, sir?’

  ‘Did I?’ the Home Secretary looked up. ‘No, Evelyn, don’t go. You’re Lestrade, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir. You’re the Home Secretary.’

  ‘Hugh Culling Eardley Childers,’ nodded the Home Secretary. ‘But for how much longer I don’t know. What are your views on the Home Rule issue, Lestrade? Oh, of course, you’re a policeman. You don’t have any views. How’s Charlie Warren settling in?’

  ‘Er . . . the new Commissioner and I aren’t exactly on chatting terms, sir.’

  ‘No, no, quite. Well, to business. You know, Lestrade, I thought I’d seen all sorts in my time. I’ve sculled at Wadham, punted at Trinity, farted around in the Antipodes for years before settling back here at home. You don’t get any thank yous for representing Pontefract for five years either, I can tell you. Nor do you win accolades at the Treasury, the Admiralty, the War Office or the Exchequer. That little saunter through my life thus far, that
condensed curriculum vitae, will give you some idea that I’m no stranger to problems. But I’ve got one now, haven’t we, Evelyn?’

  ‘We have, Home Secretary.’

  ‘Lestrade, I’d ask you to sit down, but I don’t want to embarrass you, with your lowly rank and so on. You’d only feel uncomfortable. What can you tell me about the death of Sir Anthony Rivers?’

  ‘Very little at the moment, sir. Except that it’s one of a series.’

  ‘A series? Is it, by Jove? Evelyn, why wasn’t I informed?’

  Evelyn was clearly a little non-plussed. ‘Er . . . I had no idea, Sir Hugh. No idea at all. Would you like me to see that heads roll?’

  ‘Yes, just a few. Anyone without an Oxbridge degree, that sort of thing. But not just yet. I want you to hear this. I understand you’ve been asking questions today, Lestrade, here at the Home Office?’

  ‘That is correct, sir.’

  ‘Why, in heaven’s name?’

  ‘My information is that Sir Anthony was visited on the day before his death by a Mr Merrill from this office.’

  ‘This office? Do we have a Merrill in this office, Evelyn?’

  ‘No, Sir Hugh. No one at all.’

  ‘Well, then, Lestrade. Are you answered?’

  ‘No, sir, I’m afraid not. I was quite prepared for Merrill not to be his real name.’

  ‘Aha, a soubriquet, eh?’

  ‘I’ve no idea what his nationality is, sir. But why should a man give his address as this office if it is not?’

  ‘Is it usual,’ Ruggles-Brise broke in, ‘for murderers to leave correct addresses?’

  ‘Invariably, no.’

  ‘Then why should this one be so?’ Childers asked.

  ‘It may not be, but next to Buckingham Palace or Scotland Yard, this is the most ludicrous address for anyone to give. So ludicrous that it just might be the right one.’

  ‘It’s . . . oh, this is difficult . . . it’s not so much the manner of Sir Anthony’s death that concerns us here, Lestrade,’ the Home Secretary fidgeted. ‘Shocking of course though that is. No, it’s more his lifestyle that concerns us. You know, of course, that he was a personal friend of the GOM?’

  ‘The . . . er . . .?’ Lestrade was confused.

  ‘Should I pop out, Sir Hugh?’ Ruggles-Brise asked.

  ‘No, no, Evelyn my boy. Good God, man, we have no secrets here. You do realize, Lestrade, how vital it is that this should not get out? I’ve had a word in the collective ear of Fleet Street already.’