Lestrade and the Sawdust Ring

by M. J. Trow

‘Did you notice Brodie recently? Did he have any . . . I don’t know . . . changes of mood?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He seemed his usual self. He was always a bit on the surly side, was Alistair. Well, I suppose when you slide three feet of steel down your gullet on a daily basis, your disposition isn’t likely to be sunny, is it?’

  He tapped on the wagon door.

  ‘Quien es?’ a rather foreign voice called.

  He knocked again.

  The upper section of the door swung wide, catching Lestrade’s nose in its sweep. He staggered back.

  ‘Si?’ A magnificent head of jet-black hair was framed in the lamplight.

  ‘I was looking for Lucinda,’ Lestrade mumbled, blinking the tears from his eyes.

  The black-headed man turned and muttered something incomprehensible, then opened the lower half of the door as well. He grabbed Lestrade’s hand and pulled him quickly up the steps. ‘They will talk,’ he muttered cryptically.

  ‘Will they?’ Lestrade asked. The lady in the bed was luscious indeed, though how leggy she was was moot in that a vast eiderdown covered her lower portions. ‘Please accept my condolences, Mrs Brodie.’

  ‘You’re the newspaperman,’ she said, reaching for a mirror to check that she was presentable.

  ‘Joseph Lister,’ he held out a hand. She took it with a warmth that shook him and her fingers lingered a trifle longer than was strictly necessary, even given the situation surrounding Lestrade’s visit. ‘I’m doing a story on sword-swallowing in the ’70s,’ he lied. ‘Although I have no wish to impose on your . . . grief, I hoped you might tell me about your late husband’s technique.’

  ‘Clearly, it wasn’t very good,’ she said, patting the bed beside her.

  Lestrade took the chair, but stood up again suddenly, a second crease having been created quite painfully by a sword that lay there.

  ‘Sangria?’ the dark-haired man suggested.

  Lestrade took in the bed, the lady, the man and didn’t see how they’d all fit. ‘It’s rather late,’ he smiled, hoping to avoid the Spanish peccadillo. The dark-haired man shrugged and poured himself one anyway. ‘You must be Henrico El Magnifico?’

  ‘Si.’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Lestrade could judge the myth that was circus now. ‘You’re from Sydenham.’

  ‘Que?’

  ‘Oh, no . . . no, wait.’ He studied the darkly handsome features, ‘Penge,’ he slapped his knee. ‘I see it in your eyes.’

  Henrico looked confused. Lucinda gabbled something to him in Spanish and he understood. Drawing himself up to his full height, he said, ‘I am Henrico Jesus Santiago de Compostella Ortega. I am from Burgos in the province of Castile. I have never heard of this Penge. It sounds like a disease of elderly peoples.’

  Lestrade had never thought of it like that, but he saw the Spaniard’s point. And he knew that this man threw pointed knives for a living. He wasn’t about to upset him. ‘Er . . . Mrs Brodie . . . about your husband’s technique . . .’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she yawned, ‘the Extendable Epiglottis, the Open Oesophagus, the Gaping Gullet – he used them all.’

  ‘Er . . . you wouldn’t care to divulge . . .?’

  ‘How it’s done?’ She took the glass of red wine offered by the Spaniard and teased her nightdress open another lace hole. She had a cleavage that threatened her navel. ‘Look for yourself. You sat on it.’

  Lestrade gingerly removed the sword and sat carefully on the arm of the chair, where he hoped there were no more hidden blades.

  ‘It’s a swept-hilt rapier, apparently,’ Lucinda told him. ‘What would you say, Henrico? Late 1620s, Toledo?’

  ‘Early 1630s,’ the Spaniard gabbled.

  ‘Except it isn’t,’ Lucinda said. She suddenly ripped her bodice open to reveal a magnificent frontage. Lestrade tried not to gasp, but it was not a sight a young detective was treated to all that often in his career. Several times on this case, it was true, and he thought he ought to indulge himself a little while he could. ‘Thrust,’ she commanded.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Lucinda,’ the Spaniard frowned. ‘Por favor!’

  ‘It’s all right, silly,’ she scolded him. ‘Mr Lister is from the newspapers. He’s seen a woman’s all before.’

  ‘All’ was an understatement in this particular instance. ‘No,’ said Henrico. ‘The risk.’

  ‘Give point, Mr Lister,’ she ordered. Something, some fire in her eyes, an urgency in her throat, made him obey. He lunged, as he’d been taught to in cutlass drill and he caught her high in the left breast.

  ‘Ah,’ she shuddered. ‘Close to my heart, Mr Lister.’

  Lestrade recovered his footing and stared. The blade had slid up to the hilt on impact, leaving nothing but a small red mark on the girl’s breast.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Did I hurt you?’

  ‘No,’ she smiled. ‘That’s how it’s done, Mr Lister. Trick swords. They look real enough. Now, take that one in the corner.’

  He hadn’t seen it before. A weapon identical to the one in his hand, its blade-tip dark brown. ‘This is . . .?’

  ‘. . . the weapon that killed him,’ she said. ‘And please, Mr Lister, don’t try that trick again, or you’ll kill me.’

  ‘So how . . .?’

  She lay back, neglecting to relace her nightdress. ‘Each sword swallower does it his own way. It’s all to do with the angle of the oesophagus, the muscular contractions of the throat and the neck. Indigestion of course is always a risk. Alistair could manage the odd knife – he liked stilettos the best because they’re slim-bladed. Bowies were beyond him. Too bulky.’

  ‘Spanish clasp knives of the kind they make in Zaragossa, he found equally problematical,’ Henrico added.

  ‘But swords,’ Lucinda went on, sipping her wine, biding her time, ‘they were out of the question. I don’t need to paint you a picture of where the tip of a three foot blade would end up if you sank it to the hilt down your throat, Mr Lister.’

  Indeed she didn’t. Lestrade’s eyes misted at the very thought of it.

  ‘Hence the trick swords. He had three of them – the swept-hilt, the small sword and the three-bar hilt.’

  ‘A three-bar hilt?’

  ‘Yes, the type the cavalry uses.’

  ‘And the artillery,’ Lestrade mused.

  ‘If you say so,’ Lucinda said. ‘He had three duplicates made, each one with trick blades, designed to collapse on themselves. He would fence with the real ones in the ring, bending the blade, clashing the tiger bars with it, drive it point down into the tan of the floor and balance on it with one arm – all to prove to the punters that the weapon was real. Then he’d switch blades at the last minute from a cabinet we had on stage and shove the trick one down his throat. The blade only went in as far as an average dentist or blacksmith would. And, hey presto, the Great Bolus does it again.’

  Lestrade metaphorically kicked himself. His own dear companion of a mile, the switchblade in his pocket, acted on a similar principle. Release the catch and the blade slid harmlessly back into the brass knuckles. Leave the catch alone and it was a weapon every bit as lethal as the swept-hilt rapier.

  ‘Forgive me for saying this, Mrs Brodie,’ Lestrade said, talking to her nipples as much as to the woman herself, ‘but you don’t seem very upset at what’s happened.’

  She put her glass down. ‘I know this is 1879,’ she said, ‘and that full mourning is still just about fashionable in some circles. The Queen, they say, wears black still. But she’s an old trout, Mr Lister, and not circus. She’s also an old hypocrite, I dare say. I didn’t love Alistair Brodie. Ours was a marriage made in the Big Top – which is every bit a marriage of convenience as if we had been titled heir and heiress. I rest my body where it pleases me, Mr Lister. Alistair Brodie pleased me for a while, but he was a boring, inadequate old fart. At the moment,’ she looked seductively under her lids at the Spaniard, ‘Henrico is my all.’ Then she turned the full pout on Lestrade,
licking her lips as she did so, ‘at the moment.’

  The Spaniard stood impassive. Only a flickering muscle in the side of his jaw betrayed his fury. He had fought one duel over this fatal femme already – would Lestrade be his next protagonist? The detective rose to go, lifting the bloody sword as he went. ‘Can I take this with me?’ he asked.

  ‘Anybody’d think you were a copper,’ she smiled, ‘all this interest in death. It’s morbid, Mr Lister. Not natural.’

  ‘Neither is murder, Mrs Brodie,’ he said. ‘Tell me, did anybody have access to these swords, real and trick?’

  ‘In the wagon, no. Alistair was meticulous about them. But in the ring . . .’

  ‘In the ring?’ he paused at the door.

  ‘In the ring, there are acrobats, dancers, animal acts, the ring-master, clowns. The world and his wife could have switched the swords back.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Brodie,’ Lestrade nodded briefly to the Spaniard, ‘and good night.’

  He wandered the night. The prospect of a damp kipsey-sack did not appeal. His sword-blade caught the light of the flitting moon as he trudged the campfires. The elephants swayed at their chains and looked at him from tiny, twinkling eyes. He reached out a tentative hand and patted the rough, hairy skin, wrinkled under his fingers.

  ‘You never forget, do you?’ he whispered. ‘You must be alone in this circus. Nobody else remembers a damned thing.’

  ‘Careful, Lestrade!’ He spun at the whisper of his name. Damn! He had to get better at this. Aliases were only preserved as long as they were adhered to.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he whispered, hand on the sword-hilt.

  ‘You’ll be talking to the animals next.’

  He recognized the white lips and crazy hair of Stromboli padding out of the darkness on his enormous shoes. ‘And he wrote in his letter, saying, “Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle and retire ye from him and that he may be smitten, and die”.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Two Samuel, Chapter 11 – Uriah the Hittite.’

  Now, it had to be confessed that Lestrade had never really followed the scriptures at Mr Poulson’s Academy for the Sons of Nearly Respectable Gentlefolk. He didn’t know an Ephesian from his elbow.

  ‘You’ll have to explain that one,’ he said.

  The august slipped Edna a sugar lump under the clouds, patting the great beast and stroking her trunk.

  ‘I couldn’t help noticing you came from Lucinda’s wagon. You’re not familiar with the story of Uriah?’

  ‘That wouldn’t be Uriah Heap, would it? Only I always thought Thackeray rather overrated personally.’

  ‘No,’ Stromboli smiled. ‘Uriah the Hittite.’

  ‘Hittite?’

  ‘An ancient Middle-Eastern tribe,’ the clown was patience itself. ‘The story goes that the great King David saw Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife, at her ablutions. He liked what he saw, and slept with her. But there was a problem.’

  ‘Hebrew’s Droop?’

  ‘Marriage. Bathsheba was married to Uriah, a captain in David’s army.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So David arranged that Uriah should lead his vanguard in the central part of the battle, where the risks were greatest. He calculated right. Uriah was killed.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘So the Good Book tells us.’

  ‘And Bathsheba?’

  ‘Married David and “bare him a son”.’

  ‘Happy ending, then?’

  ‘Unless you’re Uriah,’ Stromboli said. ‘Or the Lord.’

  ‘The Lord?’

  ‘“But the thing that David hath done displeased the Lord”.’

  ‘Ah,’ Lestrade smiled. ‘Divine retribution.’

  The clown nodded. ‘In the form of one Nathan, who said “Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword . . . Now, therefore the sword”,’ and he tapped Lestrade’s hilt, ‘“shall never depart from thine house”.’

  ‘Fancy,’ said Lestrade. ‘I don’t quite . . .’

  ‘The Spaniard,’ Stromboli explained as though to an idiot. ‘He is King David.’

  ‘Ah, I see. Lucinda is Bathsheba . . .’

  ‘Alistair Brodie is Uriah. That ring, Lestrade,’ the clown gazed to the dark outline of the Big Top, ‘that’s the battlefield. The hottest of battles. That’s where Uriah died.’

  ‘So Henrico switched the blades?’

  The clown shrugged. ‘Stands to reason.’

  ‘Too easy,’ Lestrade wrestled with it for a while. ‘Too obvious.’

  ‘Of course,’ Stromboli chuckled. ‘Whoever the murderer is, Lestrade, you’re looking for a showman. Someone who kills in public and takes delight in it. Not for him the murk of a darkened room or the silence of an alleyway. He kills in the sawdust ring with the full glare of the crowd on him. That’s what makes him so dangerous.’

  Lestrade looked at his man. ‘So you suspect the Spaniard?’

  It was the clown’s turn to look at him. ‘I’m a clown,’ he said, rather sadly, ‘an august. I don’t suspect anybody. Except . . .’

  ‘Except the Spaniard. Yes, I know.’

  ‘No. Not him only. We were talking of the Scriptures a moment ago. Do you know Revelations?’

  ‘Er . . . in a busy life . . .’ Lestrade blustered, by way of explanation.

  ‘The Revelation of St John the Divine,’ said the clown. ‘“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat upon him was Death and Hell followed him”.’

  ‘Er . . . one of the Liberty horses?’ Lestrade guessed. The Lipizzaners were all the right colour.

  But the clown shook his head. ‘A grey I’ve seen trailing the show on the road for the past two days,’ he said. ‘A tall man, muffled, indistinct.’ He leaned to the detective, swing round Edna’s rocking trunk. ‘If you’re Nathan,’ he said, ‘sent by the Lord to avenge Uriah’s death, then who’s he on the pale horse?’

  Lestrade followed the clown’s gaze to the stand of elms beyond the camp and the great, grey, steel-making city beyond that.

  ‘Who, indeed?’ he muttered in the darkness.

  ❖8❖

  S

  heffield, the City of Plate, lies in the lee of several hills, interlaced with wooded valleys. The south Pennine slopes provided the raw material for the city’s lifeblood and in those days, the Georgian elegance of Paradise Square, where Wesley had preached, was swamped by the Victorian slums of Philadelphia and Jericho. The Master Cutler was second only to the Lord Mayor in terms of importance and anybody who was anybody was in iron. As opposed to the riff-raff, who were in irons in the local jail.

  The Parade clattered and clashed its way across the river Don, where the Sultan’s elephants took a certain umbrage at the passing rolling stock of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. No harm done and the crowds lined Spital Hill and Wicker Street before the great beasts and cavorting artistes swung north-west up Snig Hill and West Bar to throw an arc of magic around the city. Both the Mayor and Master Cutler were there, chains clashing in civic competition, making presentations and speeches to Lord George Sanger, who noted with relief that Ollie Oliver’s posters were everywhere and the circus had indeed come to town.

  They camped on Crooke’s Moor, a little to the west of Mushroom Lane and the cry went up ‘All hands to the tilt’ as the Big Top rose white and scarlet in the morning. The man on stilts invited the good people of Sheffield to walk up and walk up they did. No one noticed the solitary horseman on the grey. No one had time to check the lonely Miss Stephens and to pat her on the chin. In a packed tent, under the flare of naphtha, the Lipizzaners pranced their tan circuit, little Angelina bouncing from one back to another with an agility which amazed the crowd. As the Buttresses flew on their high wire and the riggers ran this way and that, tautening slack, tying knots, a pin dropped in the audience. Lestrade cursed himself with embarrassment and picked it up, hooking his lapel together again with it.

  Stromboli rolled and skipped his way aroun
d the ring, bumping into Sanger, skidding under the lumbering feet of the elephants, presenting bouquets of fake flowers to ladies in the front row, who shrank back from the limelight, grinning stupidly. No one knew that the sword-swallowing act had gone, that the jugglers were short of a cudgel man, that dwarf-throwing had been quietly removed from the programme. The Ether Trick booth stood silent and empty.

  The show had gone on and it was a tired troupe who shambled into Mrs Minogue’s at 86 Effingham Street late that night, its sign over the door – ‘Duntentin’. The lady in question was a large patroness of circus folk. When she opened her portals to Lestrade, she seemed to have a bust akin to a sofa and a mob-cap over her riot of grey, barbed-wire hair.

  ‘You’d be Mr Lister,’ she said, raising a glass at him. ‘Come in.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Minogue,’ he wiped his feet.

  ‘You can call me Kindly,’ she said. ‘Everybody does.’

  ‘Thank you, Kindly.’

  She held out a hand. ‘That’ll be eightpence for the bed.’

  ‘Ah,’ he fumbled in his waistcoat pocket. ‘Here you are.’

  She caught it expertly, flipped it and bit it, then slipped it into her cleavage. She could have carried a coffer in there for all Lestrade knew. She stopped him in the entrance hall, her hand out again. ‘And tenpence for the breakfast.’

  ‘Right.’ He found the coppers again.

  ‘Ta, duckie,’ she pinched his cheek. ‘A glass of sherry wine?’

  ‘Well,’ Lestrade smiled. ‘It’s a little late for me.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ she said. ‘You don’t mind if I do?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Sign the book, duckie.’

  She bustled behind a counter and pointed to a ledger. Lestrade took the quill and almost signed his own name in his tiredness, but he checked himself in time.

  ‘Joseph,’ she said, spinning the register to her side. ‘That’s a nice handle. Coat’s a little drab for your namesake, but never mind. Married?’

  ‘Er . . . no.’

  ‘I was, you know,’ and she led him with an oil lamp up a rickety staircase. ‘This,’ she lifted her glass to a portrait on the wall, ‘is Mr Minogue, manufacturer of Britannia metal. I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, of course, but he did have a drink problem.’