by M. J. Trow
‘Don’t tell me,’ Lestrade said. ‘Nothing is quite as it seems in the circus.’
‘Exactly. Underneath that one big happy family, there are passions and jealousies and hatreds.’
‘I’ve already found that out,’ Lestrade nodded.
‘Take the Walker brothers, for example – Whimsical and Whamsical. You’ve met them?’
‘No.’
‘My fellow clowns. They hate each other. Haven’t spoken for years, though they share the same caravan.’
‘Why not?’
Stromboli shrugged. ‘That’s circus for you. Was it a mistimed trick? A piece of slapstick that went wrong? I don’t know. But this I do know – both of them hate me more than they hate each other.’
‘Why?’
‘You said it yourself,’ Stromboli leaned back against the wheel arch, ‘and I’m blushing under my makeup to admit it – I’m the greatest clown in the world. Bringing me in has brought additional tension to the clowns. I shouldn’t think either of them is particularly fond of Lord George Sanger at the moment, either. It was, after all, his idea that I joined.’
‘All right,’ Lestrade sat up again, careful this time to mind his head. ‘Who else?’ he said. ‘Who else should I know about?’
‘Ha, ha,’ said the clown. ‘You’ve got to put a few more cards on the table than that, Lestrade. I’ve got a stake in this too, you know. I could be next.’
The detective chewed thoughtfully on a wisp of straw, then realized it had come from the llama enclosure and threw it away. The great clown was right. He needed a friend. Somebody on the inside. As a sergeant of detectives, he usually had an Inspector above him, directing, controlling, organizing. Below him were always constables; dim, perhaps, rookies invariably, but people at least off whom to bounce ideas. But there was no one, no one in this whole mad menagerie he could trust. Unless . . .
‘This is how we do it at the Yard,’ he said. ‘We have a board. On the wall. Green, it is. And on it are pieces of paper. Names. Places. Coincidences. My guv’nor – that’s the Inspector in charge of the case – ties up all the ends he can, oh, with my help of course.’
‘Which I’m sure is invaluable,’ Stromboli patronized.
‘So . . .’ Lestrade shifted in the kipsey-sac so that he was as comfortable as possible.
‘We’ve got two men dead,’ Stromboli scarcely had to remind him.
‘All right. Tell me about the first one.’
‘Joey Atkins. I hardly knew him. First-rate cudgel man, though.’
‘Cause of death?’
‘Er . . . bullet.’
‘Ball, to be precise. The gun that killed him was an old-fashioned percussion-cap pistol. The ball must have penetrated his stomach and lodged in his spine. Judging by how fast he died, it probably hit the spinal cord.’
‘Who fired it?’ Stromboli was very good at this.
‘Angelina Muffett, bare-back rider. I’ve seen some murderers in my time, Mr Stromboli. I pride myself in knowing one when I see one. There’s something about them. An indefeatable something. She’s innocent.’
‘Not if you listen to the Reverend Hale,’ the clown chuckled.
Lestrade remembered the girl’s magnificent thighs again. ‘Of the murder, I mean,’ he smiled. ‘Then there’s the man who loaded the gun.’
‘Ah, that would be Dakota-Bred Carver. The Medicine Man. Best shot I’ve seen. We had nothing quite like him at Rentz. Could he be your man?’
‘He could be,’ Lestrade shrugged. ‘He certainly has the technical expertise.
‘There is one thing.’ A thought had just occurred to Stromboli.
‘What?’
‘Well, am I right in thinking that Joey Atkins was filling in that night in the ring? That he wasn’t the usual guard on the York coach?’
‘That’s right. Why?’
‘Well, what if . . . oh, no, that’s not likely.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ Lestrade told him. ‘What?’
‘What if Atkins wasn’t the target at all? What is the real guard was. What’s his name?’
‘Tullett.’
‘Yes. What if it was he who was the intended victim? You’ve talked to him of course?’
‘Er . . .’ Lestrade hedged. ‘I was just about to when Huge Hughie died. I’ve been rather busy since then.’
‘Right,’ Stromboli was in his stride now, ‘the second murder. Huge Hughie, the dwarf.’
‘Cause of death?’ Lestrade asked the imaginary green noticeboard.
‘Er . . . poisoning?’
‘Yes, but not by ether as you might expect.’
‘No?’
‘No. The dwarf’s stomach and the bottle applied to his nose and mouth contained a reasonable amount of oxalic acid.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A chemical found in cleaning fluid. Laundresses use it. It’s also used to clean brass, remove rust and so on. As such, it’s available to anybody. You can buy it over the counter in any hardware shop or grocer’s. You don’t need to sign for it.’
‘Who administered it?’
‘Lord George Sanger.’
‘Who filled the bottle?’
‘Lord George Sanger.’
Stromboli blew rings to the sky before he spoke again. ‘I’m new to all this, of course,’ he said, ‘but wouldn’t you say that sort of points to Lord George Sanger?’
‘Too obvious,’ Lestrade shook his head. ‘He wouldn’t be fool enough to administer poison to a victim in full view of a crowd of people.’
‘Why not?’ Stromboli asked.
‘Hm? Oh,’ it had dawned on Lestrade. ‘I see what you’re getting at. Yes. Yes. What better way of carrying it out? People would say what I just said – “Too obvious” – and they’d eliminate him from their enquiries. You should have been a detective, Mr Stromboli.’
Stromboli refrained from returning the compliment for fear of hurting the man’s feelings. ‘Isn’t this a bit odd, though?’
‘What?’
‘Well, I don’t know much about murder, Mr Lestrade. Give me a custard pie and a mop and I’m in my element. Murder is not my business, but I did read somewhere that of a man kills more than once, he will use the same method.’
‘That’s usually so,’ Lestrade told him, ‘Unless . . .’
‘Unless?’
‘Unless our man is an exceptional murderer. One of those you come across once in a lifetime. A man so clever, so far above the commonplace, that he can turn his hand to anything. Any weapon, any method. Such men are very dangerous – and they’re hell to catch.’
Stromboli nodded.
‘You see,’ Lestrade said, ‘I haven’t been totally honest with you.’
‘Oh?’ the clown raised a painted eyebrow.
‘Joey Atkins wasn’t the first of our friend’s victims.’
‘No?’
‘No. He was the fourth. And Huge Hughie was the fifth.’
‘Who were the others?’
‘The first I don’t know. An anonymous man at Ilkley.’
‘The circus wintered there,’ Stromboli said. ‘That’s where I joined them. Why is the man anonymous?’
‘Because the murderer wanted him to be. He demolished his face so that he’d be unrecognizable.’
‘I see. And the second?’
‘Lieutenant Lyle of the Royal Artillery. An officer on leave at Harrogate.’
‘That’s where we moved to from Ilkley.’
‘Quite,’ Lestrade nodded. ‘It was that link with Sanger’s circus which led me here in the first place. I wasn’t sure I was right – until Joey Atkins died.’
‘You said Atkins was the fourth victim. Who was the third?’
‘My own Inspector, Hastings Heneage. He visited the circus. You spoke to him.’
‘Not me,’ Stromboli said. ‘The first two men were . . . what? Battered to death?’
‘The first one, yes. The second, no. But the actual cause of death was sword-cuts.’
&nb
sp; ‘Sword-cuts?’
Lestrade nodded. ‘So you see, Mr Stromboli, our friend is more versatile than you thought. He has used a sword twice, an elephant goad, gunshot and poison. And I haven’t the faintest idea what he’ll use next time.’
‘You’re sure there will be a next time?’ the clown asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ nodded Lestrade grimly. ‘I’m sure.’
❖7❖
D
awn had barely slashed crimson-mauve in the eastern sky when Lestrade felt a toe nuzzling his ribs. Once again his cranium collided with the wagon-workings. He peered out from his blankets. Thank God. Whatever had nudged him awake, it was too tall for a colobus monkey, and it wore its top hat at too rakish an angle.
‘Mr Lestrade,’ the silhouette above him crouched to reveal the leathery features of Lord George Sanger. ‘Fancy a little ride?’
‘Er . . .?’ the sergeant was rather non-committal. After all, it was not yet daylight and he wondered what beast Sanger had in mind for him to straddle.
‘Don’t worry,’ Sanger sensed the man’s unease. ‘We’ll take my gig.’
Lestrade hauled on his shirt and trousers, fumbling with his waistcoat buttons as he ran in the showman’s wake. They crossed the dead fires, not yet rekindled for the morning’s breakfast, squelched through the straw-strewn mud where the elephants swayed and rattled their chains. Misty figures in the dawn light joined them. An ox of a man Lestrade had not seen before took the reins of a wagon, his red beard still damp with dew. Beside him, in rather more conventional attire now, Tinkerbelle Watson arranged the folds of her pelisse over her biceps. A rangy man with the spine of a snake hopped up behind them and last, a cowboy in a long duster coat, then fashionable in Wyoming, leapt aboard.
Sanger halted beside them, then patted Dakota-Bred’s arm. ‘Don’t take your guns to town, Jack,’ he smiled. ‘Leave your guns at home, son. Don’t take your guns to town.’
The Dakotan sighed and hauled a sawn-off shotgun out of his coat, then a Henry repeating rifle, two revolvers and a Derringer. ‘Aw, shucks,’ he said.
‘I think you know everybody,’ Sanger introduced Lestrade as ‘from the Graphic’. ‘Oh, have you met Jim? Jim Crockett, lion tamer.’
The huge man with the auburn beard nodded and grunted. Too long with his lions had made him monosyllabic, terse. At least he showed no inclination to roll over and lick Lestrade, so the sergeant was grateful for small mercies. Sanger stepped up on to the running board of his gig and urged on his horse as Lestrade gripped the iron beside him.
‘Where are we going?’ the sergeant asked, as the circus camp faded in the mists behind them.
‘Wakefield jail,’ Sanger told him. He checked back that Crockett’s heavier wagon was keeping up, the spotted horses getting into their stride.
‘Wakefield jail?’
‘As far as they know, you’re covering a story on the extracurricular activities of the circus. In reality, I may want you to use your metaphorical tipstaff and get us inside.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they’ve got my agent and I want him out.’
‘You can’t just break people out of jail,’ Lestrade said, suddenly aware of the situation.
‘Why not?’ he turned in his seat and shouted, ‘Dakota-Bred!’
The cowboy leapt from the lurching wagon and sprinted alongside the gig, hauling himself up on to the boards. ‘Yo!’ he announced himself.
‘Tell Mr Lister about the time you sprung your friend in Apache Wells.’
‘Why, sure. This pardner o’ mine was put in jail fer killin’ a feller.’
‘Murder?’ Lestrade frowned.
‘Nah. Some guy called him an injun-lover. That ain’t murder. That’s self-defence. Anyhow, the guy drew first.’
‘Drew?’ Lestrade had no idea that artists were involved.
‘His gun. He slapped leather, but my pardner was quicker. Drilled him good. Gut shot. Anyhow, the dead feller had some purty powerful friends in town so they took him to the jail and was fixin’ tuh lynch him come mornin’.’
‘Tsk, tsk,’ Lestrade shook his head. That didn’t sound like Wakefield at all.
‘So ah sprung him. Blowed away the front of the jail with dynamite. Boy, did that jailhouse rock!’
‘You’re not ... you’re not intending to ...?’ Lestrade was horrified.
Sanger held out his hand, palm uppermost. ‘Thanks, Dakota-Bred,’ he said.
‘Aw, gee, Boss.’ The cowboy hauled a bundle of dynamite sticks from his duster-coat.
‘Now, toddle back,’ Sanger smiled.
‘Say, Boss, how high is this jailhouse?’
‘Don’t know,’ Sanger shrugged. ‘Never seen it. Why?’
‘Well, me and Bendy got an idea if we can git to the roof.’
‘I’ll do the ideas,’ Sanger insisted. ‘Tell Jim to keep up. Last one in Wakefield gets ’em in.’
They rattled across the nine-arched bridge that spanned the Calder, past the little medieval chantry, cold and Gothic in the morning.
‘Six hundred years old, this bridge, y’know,’ Sanger said, pausing in mid-crack with his whip to light a cigar. That fact gave Lestrade no comfort at all. Past Doctor Crowther’s almshouses they sped as the city crawled into life. A solemn bell tolled the hour of six from the great spire of All Saints, its gilded weathervane two hundred and forty-seven feet above the Kirkgate.
Sanger hauled on the reins and the gig stopped. ‘That’s bad,’ he muttered.
‘What?’ asked Lestrade.
‘Have you seen a single bill for the circus? I haven’t. Looks like Ollie didn’t have a chance.’
‘You didn’t tell me why your agent is inside,’ Lestrade said.
‘Trumped up charge by the mad old vicar of Purston Jaglin,’ Sanger said. ‘It’s happened before. All part of the show’s rich tapestry.’
‘How do you know?’ Lestrade asked.
The showman tapped the side of his nose. ‘I told you. I have riders everywhere.’
Crockett’s wagon creaked to a halt alongside them.
‘Right, Jim,’ Sanger leaned across while Dakota-Bred tethered the horses. ‘Plan A.’
The circus folk alighted and stood around in various degrees of nonchalance, trying to blend in with the Wakefield stone. Admittedly, a red-headed giant in a scarlet-braided tunic, a woman as tall and broad as he, a man in a Stetson and spurs and another man who casually scratched his left ear with his right hand behind his head, didn’t do a very convincing job. All in all, they made Lestrade look quite ordinary. Sanger had vanished and the sergeant kept his place on the gig’s seat until he could work out what was happening.
A moment later, a furious showman emerged from the corner of King Street, his hat in his hand, his bald head gleaming in the first rays of the sun.
‘Plan B, Boss?’ Crockett grunted.
‘What happened to Plan A? Lestrade asked Sanger.
The showman briefly flashed the lining of his titfer. It was crammed full of pound notes. ‘Plan A is always the simplest, most direct,’ Sanger said. ‘Plain, old-fashioned bribery. It never failed in the good old days. But people today . . .’ he spat copiously. ‘When turnkeys aren’t on the take, you know there’s something wrong with society.’
‘So, what’s Plan B?’
‘Well,’ Sanger chewed his cigar, ‘I hesitate to use it. Tink?’
The big girl blushed, nodded and she and Crockett took up positions on the little green below the courthouse, grey and grim and foreboding.
‘Plan B is blank-moulding,’ said Sanger in answer to Lestrade’s look of utter bewilderment, ‘perhaps with a bit of nobbing if all goes well.’
Lestrade had hoped that nobbing had gone out with the Contagious Diseases Act, but it wasn’t his place to say so. ‘Blank-moulding?’ he asked.
‘Putting on a show in the street, from cold. Always hard work, but at six in the morning, diabolical. The tog-tables take too long and anyway we’d probably be arrested.’ He cross
ed to the giants among his people. ‘I counted eight blokes in there,’ he said to Crockett. ‘When you see eight faces at the window, you give me the sign.’
The lion tamer nodded, then roared deafeningly. ‘Walk up! Walk up! See the greatest sensation of the age. Tinkerbelle, the strongest woman in the world.’
He unsnaked his whip and it cracked like a gunshot over the girl’s head. As Lestrade watched open-mouthed, Tinkerbelle oozed out of her pelisse and began to flex her thorax. One by one the buttons pinged off her bodice until she rippled on the grass in her blouse. An astonished group of locals began to gather, nudging each other, muttering in approval, drooling. From nowhere, Crockett produced a side drum and he began to beat this with his fists, roaring a welcome to the crowd. They rose as a man when Tinkerbelle dropped her skirts and stood in a steel-framed corset, her huge thighs flexing and straining, her back rippling with the effort. Slowly, the steel of her stays began to buckle. Crockett casually glanced around him and began to count. ‘One face,’ he roared. ‘Two faces, three faces.’
The blank-moulding seemed to be working.
‘What for is he a-doing that, our Egbert?’ a young shoeblack whispered.
‘It’s circus, in’t it?’ Egbert told him, with his two or three years’ extra wisdom. ‘That’s ’ow they do it in t’circus, you know. Circus folk do it standin’ up.’
‘Six faces, seven faces,’ Crockett roared. Tinkerbelle’s eyes were closed tight, the laces snapping at her back. But it wasn’t her eyes or her laces the crowd on the green were looking at. Neither for that matter were the crowd at the courthouse windows.
‘Keep an eye open, Lestrade,’ Sanger whispered, ‘if you possibly can. We’ll be back.’
‘Eight faces,’ thundered Crockett as Tinkerbelle rolled to the floor, writhing and flexing. The crowd surged forward, eager for a better view. Soon the only sound was Crockett’s insistent drum-beat and the puffing and grunting of Tinkerbelle. Lestrade hadn’t noticed Sanger, Dakota-Bred and Hendey slip around to the front of the building.
Suddenly, a roar went up as the corset burst.
