Lestrade and the Sign of Nine

by M. J. Trow

‘Yes?’ he said, realizing that the niggers stood between him and his brass knuckles, hanging with his Donegal behind the door.

  ‘The stage,’ said one of them. ‘You’ve got a death scene to rehearse.’

  He toyed with staying where he was. He toyed with tackling them. But they were four to his one. And two of them were very big niggers indeed, quite colossal Coons. He’d probably have more room to manoeuvre on stage.

  ‘Very well,’ said Lestrade. ‘I hope somebody’s brought a snake.’

  He led the way down the twisting spiral of the stair where the sulphur lights burned dim. Someone had thoughtfully re-lit every other of the footlights and in a row facing him on the opposite side of the stage, stood five other Culpepper Coons, still in their burnt cork, still in their top hats and garish trousers. But they carried no banjos. Instead they swung regulation truncheons, rosewood, twelve inches long, policemen for the use of. The four crossed to form a line with the five, facing the former Queen of Egypt, still wearing his scorched frock and his rouge.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Lestrade. ‘One thing I learned at Mr Poulson’s Academy all those years ago is that four and five make nine. Nine as in Nine Men’s Morris. That, I confess, is what threw me. That’s why no two eye-witness accounts were alike. I was looking for one murderer, but I should have been looking for nine murderers. Not one blunt object, but nine of them. And who’d have suspected the good old truncheon? Well, I never.’

  The nine took one pace forward, like automata, their eyes bright in the dull brown faces, their lips curled in the white circles, the astrakhan of their wigs shimmering under their pink toppers.

  ‘One moment,’ Lestrade held up his hand, thinking desperately. ‘Aren’t I permitted one last request?’

  ‘Name it!’ Culpepper snapped.

  ‘An indulgence,’ said Lestrade, wondering if he could leap the orchestra pit in one bound, what with the encumbrance of buckshot, third degree burns and an Egyptian frock. ‘Let me discuss your lives and crimes one last time.’

  Culpepper glanced along the line. ‘Be our guest.’

  ‘Section D,’ said Lestrade. ‘You . . . gentlemen . . . are members of it.’

  ‘We are?’ asked Culpepper.

  ‘You are,’ Lestrade was sure. ‘Oh, yes, Assistant Commissioner Monro gave me some guff about the Special Irish Branch, but I wasn’t remotely fooled by that.’

  ‘You weren’t?’ Culpepper checked.

  ‘Not in the slightest. Section D is a department of killers, of trained assassins.’

  ‘And what was our motive?’ the head Coon asked.

  ‘You have extended what a police force is supposed to be,’ Lestrade said. ‘You have become jury – even your number is the same as a coroner’s jury; judge – but the sentence is always the same; the executioner – death by blunt instrument. But I was a problem, wasn’t I? I knew too much. Isn’t that what this little show this evening is all about, Mr Culpepper . . . or should I call you Inspector Littlechild?’

  ‘Littlechild?’ Culpepper frowned blackly.

  ‘And which one of you is Constable Huxtable?’ Lestrade scanned the line with his pointing finger.

  ‘Oh, that’s me,’ the fifth from the left stood forward.

  ‘Know too much?’ Culpepper laughed and the line behind him began to rock with mirth too. ‘Don’t be puerile, Lestrade. Is that what you think this is all about? This “little show” as you put it? Did you think that we thought you were on to us? Lads, I think it’s about time we introduced ourselves to Mr Lestrade, don’t you? From the left . . .

  The first nigger took a step forward. ‘Constable Widger, sir, Cornwall Constabulary.’

  Then the second. ‘Matthew Spatchcock, sir, Hertfordshire Constabulary.’

  And the third. ‘Nutty Slack, sir, D Division, Metropolitan Police.’

  Then the fourth. ‘Myrddin Williams, Mr Lestrade, Glamorgan Constabulary, innit?’

  The fifth, Huxtable, already stood forward. ‘Topsy Turvey, sir, Suffolk Force.’

  And the sixth. ‘Constable Chingford, Inspector, J Division, the Met.’

  And the seventh and eighth stood forward together. ‘Dick Head, sir, and Ben Bolger, T Division.’

  ‘Also of the police of the Metropolis,’ Bolger concluded.

  ‘Which leaves me, Lestrade,’ said Culpepper, ‘the ninth man of the Morris. I don’t know who this Littlechild is, but you know me as Chief Inspector Edward Towgrass, Hertfordshire CID.’

  ‘Towgrass?’ Lestrade was almost speechless.

  ‘A motley crew, I’ll allow,’ Towgrass said. ‘And not without our faults. Poor old Widger there collapsed at the sight of the corpse of Hereward Rodney. It was a bit gratuitous, Turvey, thumping the old lecher so hard. I’m not sure propping him up on his eagle was such a good idea, with hindsight.’

  Lestrade took half a step sideways. The orchestra pit was still his best bet. If he could make it to the aisle, he had a chance in the darkness to reach the street and call for help.

  ‘But then, I’m afraid old Tom had problems later, didn’t you, Widger?’

  ‘’Fraid zo, zir,’ said the Cornishman, ‘I panicked a bit, Mr Lestrade, at the Last Post. I was all right with Mr Kelly. But I couldn’t bring mysen to kill a woman.’

  ‘That’s where I came in,’ Head said. ‘Ben and me was on ’and to direct Tom. After all, ’e was a stranger an’ there was two of ’em. While Ben was strengthenin’ ’is resolve with stirring speeches, sod me if old Pa Kelly didn’t get up and land me one on the forehead.’

  ‘And you told me you’d fallen down the steps,’ Lestrade reminded him, ‘tsk, tsk, what a fib.’

  ‘These men aren’t chosen by accident, Lestrade,’ Towgrass said, ‘they were handpicked by me. Dick here is one of the fastest thinking uniformed men I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Who left the bit of uniform on the barbed wire?’ Lestrade asked.

  ‘Er . . . that was me, sir,’ Slack confessed. ‘Deeply ironic, really. It wasn’t my uniform at all, but the only civvy suit I got – blue serge.’

  ‘So you all did each other’s murders?’

  ‘Ar, aye, yus,’ they all chorused according to their dialects.

  ‘Of course,’ said Towgrass, twirling his truncheon. ‘That way there could be no suspicion. Every copper at the scene of the crime had an alibi. Even those first to the body behaved normally, as shook up as the next man because they had no idea exactly when and where the nine targets were to be hit. And even though Bolger and Head got carelessly involved, it didn’t matter. One policeman looks just like another under the helmet. Mind you, liaising by telegram wasn’t easy. You’ve no idea of the complexity of arranging Rest Days. But we did it. Not one man went off sick or lost a day’s pay to accomplish his killing.’

  ‘Spooky old house, though, Borley, innit?’ said Williams.

  ‘You killed Amos Flower?’ Lestrade checked.

  ‘No,’ chuckled the Welshman, ‘I killed Pretty Boy Partridge.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Lestrade, his palms outstretched, playing for time.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Towgrass, ‘perhaps you’d like to account for the murder on your own patches? Widger?’

  ‘The Rector,’ said the Cornishman, ‘Mr Rodney. He were molestin’ the young girls of the parish. We knew it by rumour and innuendo; but we couldn’t prove it, for all Sergeant Smith tried his best.’

  ‘He didn’t tell me that,’ Lestrade complained.

  ‘That’s what we relied on,’ Towgrass said. ‘The natural reticence of the provincial force, the reluctance to help any outside enquiry there may be. Especially from Scotland Yard. Go on, Widger.’

  ‘Even the girls’ families didn’t want to know. The Porthluneys and the Tresilians clammed up like clams and young Emily Carrick’s dad carted ’er off to Lunnon.’

  ‘That’s where I came in,’ said Towgrass. ‘I had a fishing holiday in Mevagissey last year and met Constable Widger on the Harbour wall. We got talking, Constable Widger and I. We
came to an understanding, didn’t we, Tom?’

  ‘We did, sir. An understandin’ that the Reverend Rodney would die.’

  ‘And die he did,’ nodded Towgrass. ‘Matthew?’

  ‘Osbaldeston Ralston,’ the Hertfordshire man said. ‘He’d been rooking people right, left and centre for years. He even stole the local police benefit back in ’seventy-nine but there was no proof. The Chief Inspector says to me one day “Of course, Spatchcock”, he says, “we don’t really need proof, do we?” and I says “How’d you mean?” and he slams a truncheon down on his desk. Well, I got his drift straight away. See, I reckon I’ll make detective in about twenty years.’

  ‘Indeed you will, Matthew,’ Towgrass grinned. ‘Indeed you will. Slack?’

  ‘Byngham Batchelor,’ said the constable. ‘No ordinary thief. ’E stole uvver people’s works an’ sold ’em like they was ’is own. A harrogant bastard wiv it. So Bolger bashed ’is ’ead in. And stole ’is wallet an’ tie-pin.’

  ‘If there’s one thing I can’t tolerate, it’s literary plagiarism,’ Bolger told the company. ‘Constable Slack conveyed the situation to me at the Inter-Divisional Beetle Drive of November last. I was, quite naturally, appalled.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Lestrade. ‘That’s why, despite immaculate hearing, Slack claimed not to have heard Batchelor scream. He screamed all right, but had you admitted that and got there fast, you’d have seen Bolger making his getaway. That could have raised awkward questions, couldn’t it?’

  ‘Williams?’ Towgrass said.

  ‘John Bloody Guest,’ the Welshman tapped his palm with the truncheon. ‘An absolute bugger ’e was, an’ no mistake. Been killin’ blokes for years down Yns-y-Bwl pit. Authorities couldn’t touch ’im for it. But I ’ad ’eard, on the grapevine so to speak, of a group of blokes in the police – and what force I did not then know – ’ad a final solution, you might say, for blokes like John Guest. Retribution. Lovely word, innit? Retribution. Sort of rolls off the tongue. Sounds even better in the Welsh . . .’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Williams,’ Towgrass interrupted. ‘So the good constable contacted me. Turvey?’

  ‘Well, the entire Metropolitan Force ’ad been lookin’ for Pretty Boy Partridge for years. We knew who ’e was, but not even Inspector Flannel could prove it. I s’pose ’e wanted the collar for ’isself eventually, Mr Lestrade, that’s why ’e didn’t voice ’is suspicions. ’E ’ad it comin’, mind you. Partridge, that is, not Flannel. Although, I don’t know though.’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Lestrade said, ‘Chingford, that Sir Anthony Rivers had to die for visiting fallen women?’

  ‘God bless you, no sir. Half J Division would need topping in that case. No, it was the fact that ’e was such a bloody good lawyer, sir. Got some real bastards orff, ’e did. That made ’im a bastard ’isself. ’Is comeuppance was way overdue if you ask me.’

  Lestrade hadn’t but that seemed irrelevant.

  ‘And the Kellys?’ he asked.

  ‘Murderers both,’ said Head. ‘We couldn’t get a search warrant to dig the garden at the Last Post.’

  Lestrade had some experience of that himself when trying to put his nose behind the curtains of 221B Baker Street.

  ‘We knew they’d done for a load of travelling salesmen. Cut their throats for the valuables they carried. You saw what a ninny Inspector Pentridge is, Mr Lestrade. Well he’d been a bloody sight worse before his promotion, I can tell you.’

  ‘I can corroborate everything my colleague has vouchsafed to you,’ Bolger added.

  ‘So there you have it, Lestrade,’ Towgrass said. ‘The complete catalogue of crime. You see, they all needed it, Lestrade. Good God, man, you’ve been a copper long enough. You’ve seen all kinds of riff-raff get off because of clever lawyers, bungling coppers, namby-pamby judges . . .’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Lestrade nodded. ‘You said as much to me once.’

  ‘I know I did,’ grunted Towgrass. ‘Got a bit carried away. Not that you noticed.’

  ‘And am I one of your bungling coppers?’

  Towgrass closed to his man, the Chocolate Coloured Coon eyeball to eyeball with the Queen of Egypt. ‘I’ve never liked you, Lestrade, I’ve never made any secret of that. Even so, I speak as I find. You’re a damned good copper. But your problem is, you’ve got a heart. A conscience. I know and you know, there have been . . . shall we say . . . irregularities in your conduct? Times when you’ve given a criminal the benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘Only when I haven’t been sure,’ Lestrade stood his ground.

  ‘Well, that’s once too often,’ Towgrass said. ‘We’re sure. The Nine Men’s Morris are always sure. We don’t make mistakes. We’re the nine points of the law. You’re a weak link, Lestrade – a copper with a soft streak. There’s no place for you in Gladstone’s England.’

  ‘So . . .’ Lestrade felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. ‘I am the ninth victim?’

  ‘You are,’ said Towgrass. ‘And you’re all mine,’ and he brought the truncheon up above his head. Lestrade was faster, driving his sandaled foot into Towgrass’s groin. Both men went down, each clutching bits of himself. It was Lestrade’s gammy leg that had done the kicking. He didn’t have time to think what it was about Towgrass that was gammy. In an instant the rest were on him, dragging him upright, gripping his arms, wedging him tight between them. Towgrass, his eyes watering, staggered to his feet. Lestrade still had his legs. He lashed out with the good one this time, but Towgrass was ready and he batted it aside with his truncheon, before driving his fist into Lestrade’s stomach. The Inspector jack-knifed, but a nigger behind him ripped back his hair, forcing his head to snap painfully on his shoulders.

  ‘That’s it, Matthew,’ gasped Towgrass. ‘Now, move your hand, there’s a good lad.’

  Lestrade shut his eyes. His whole life flashed before him in the darkness. The bright buttons on his old dad’s tunic, the warm sudsy hands of his dear old mum, the . . .

  ‘Lestrade, you’re under arrest!’

  Lestrade’s eyes opened. His and all the others’ turned to the darkened auditorium when a medium-sized man with a Webley Mark Something or Other in his hand walked into the sulphur glow.

  ‘Dr Watson,’ shouted Lestrade, never so glad to see an unfriendly face in his life.

  ‘Who are you?’ Towgrass snapped.

  ‘Dr John Watson, of 221B Baker Street and I am making a citizen’s arrest. You fellows will have to have your rehearsal without the Inspector.’

  ‘No, no,’ Towgrass’s scowl cracked into a chill smile. ‘Inspector Lestrade is breaking no law,’ he explained, lowering his truncheon. ‘He doesn’t usually wear these clothes. It’s only an act. Isn’t it, Sholto? Sholto?’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Lestrade shouted, struggling to break free. ‘I always wear this or something very like it. I have a complete ladies’ wardrobe at the Yard.’

  ‘Stop prattling, Lestrade,’ Watson commanded, waving the gun around. ‘I’m not arresting you for transvestism. I’m arresting you for murder.’

  ‘Whose?’ Towgrass demanded.

  ‘Everybody’s’ said Watson. ‘Who are you, sir?’

  ‘He’s Edward Towgrass,’ Lestrade shouted. ‘And he’s . . .’ but a powerful cudgel punctuated his sentence and he dropped to his knees.

  ‘I say, steady on,’ said Watson. ‘That sort of thing can wait ’til he’s safely in a police cell.’

  ‘Watson,’ Lestrade moaned, arms outstretched. ‘Save yourself, man.’

  ‘Myself? Oh no, Lestrade. You’re the one who needs to be saved.’

  ‘That’s right,’ the Inspector groaned, but Watson appeared to have split himself in four and was revolving eerily around the orchestra pit.

  ‘Sholto Lestrade,’ Watson cleared his throat, ‘I arrest you for the murders of Hereward Rodney, Osbaldeston Ralston, Byngham Batchelor, John Guest . . . er . . . who are you gentlemen?’

  Towgrass dropped down from the stage so that he was on Watson’s level.
‘We realized that Lestrade was guilty,’ he said. ‘Only a moment ago we were going to beat a confession out of him.’

  ‘Quite,’ Watson said, but the gun was still raised. ‘It was obvious, really.’

  Two or three of the Coons were dropping silently on to the area below the stage, their truncheons still in their hands.

  ‘Er . . .’ Watson began to draw back. ‘As soon as we realized that Lestrade was present at every murder, we realized . . .’

  ‘We?’ Towgrass halted.

  ‘Holmes!’ Watson shrieked, not at all liking the look in the niggers’ eyes.

  ‘Fire!’ came a shout from backstage. ‘But not, Watson, until you see the whites of their eyes.’

  A lone figure swept across the stage in a death-defying dash more amazing than anything of which the Armbrusters were capable. The Ulster, the deerstalker, the firm jaw, all quite unmistakeable. And with Mrs Hudson, on the end of the same rope, was Sherlock Holmes, the Great Detective. Like a pendulum on a grandfather, the sleuth and his housekeeper swept the remaining niggers off the stage. A single shot rang out in the semi darkness and Chief Inspector Edward Towgrass lost his head. A small red circle punctuated the burnt cork of his forehead and the back of his skull splashed scarlet across the stage.

  The niggers still on their feet stood stupidly as Holmes and Mrs Hudson swung to a standstill at the end of their tether and proceeded to round up the Coons, who looked numbed and dazed.

  ‘Are you all right, dear fellow?’ Holmes asked.

  ‘I killed a man, Holmes,’ Watson muttered mechanically, staring at the smoking Webley. ‘I just killed him.’

  A shattered Sholto Lestrade staggered off the stage with the aid of a small housekeeper. ‘Don’t feel too badly about it, Doctor,’ he said. ‘You’ve not only saved my life, you’ve brought nine murderers to book into the bargain.’

  ‘Have I?’ Watson frowned. ‘By Jove, how capital.’

  ‘Your collar, I believe, Mr Holmes,’ Lestrade said.

  ‘I know,’ tutted Mrs Hudson, brushing him off and straightening her own deerstalker. ‘The number of times I’ve told him about it.’

  ‘No, Lestrade,’ Holmes ignored her. ‘There’s no satisfaction for me here. I must confess that I had come to the conclusion, wrongly as I now see, that you were the murderer in this case.’