Lestrade and the Sawdust Ring

by M. J. Trow

  ‘How soon did you find the Prince’s trail?’

  Carey sat down again. ‘I caught a whiff in Leicester. He’d sold his tunic to a pawnbroker, though God knows, he can hardly be short of cash.’

  ‘But he kept his sword?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Carey nodded grimly. ‘He used that on that poor bastard under the Cow Rock. You guessed his little game there?’

  ‘Too easy,’ Lestrade lied. ‘He hoped his obvious clues would put us off the scent.’

  ‘Precisely. Lyle must have come as a shock.’

  ‘Because he recognized him?’

  ‘He’d already joined the circus by then, incognito to all but those who knew him best. Willie Lyle was one of those. He had to be silenced or he’d have led them to him.’

  ‘And my Inspector?’

  ‘A blunderer,’ Carey sighed, ‘hopeless. Showing his tipstaff to anyone who cared to look. But of course, His Highness couldn’t take a chance. Heneage had to die.’

  ‘One thing I don’t understand,’ Lestrade said, ‘if he killed Lyle to cover his tracks and Heneage because he was a copper, why hasn’t he tried me?’

  Carey looked at him. Too hurtful to suggest that Lestrade represented no threat at all. He shrugged. ‘You’ve survived a Triple and a full frontal attack by a Bengal tiger. Not to mention various clashes with Dorinda and the late Lucinda Brodie. Perhaps he thinks he doesn’t have to bother. Man, you’ve aged years in the last few weeks.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Lestrade smiled. ‘Are you going?’

  Carey was on his feet again. ‘I must,’ he said. ‘I have an idea.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  The officer shook his head. ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Mr Carey,’ Lestrade sat upright. ‘My Inspector walked out of a door not too long ago. I asked him not to do it, but he never came back.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be back,’ Carey promised. ‘I just have someone to see for one last time.’

  ‘Who?’ Lestrade shouted. ‘Who is it? For God’s sake, Carey, this isn’t a game. This man kills people like you and I swat flies.’

  ‘No,’ Carey shook his head sadly. ‘I let him go once. I won’t do it again.’ And he was gone.

  But Captain Jaheel Carey of the 97th Foot did not come back. Not that afternoon. Not that night. The man on stilts strode through the Chesterfield mud and invited the excited, chattering crowds to ‘Walk Up! Walk Up!’ and to see the greatest show on earth. Lestrade forced himself up, out of the wagon, hobbling painfully to the door and then across to the Big Top. He passed the tigers turning in their cages, snarling and spitting as he limped by. The lions were altogether friendlier and Crockett soon had them in the ring, putting them through their paces to the roars of the crowd.

  The Walker brothers, never happier, thumped each other with balloons filled with water and Stromboli slipped and slid his way around the tan, dodging in and out of the elephants’ great feet as the Sultan urged them on. ‘Back, Elvira. Up, Esmerelda. You have one of your tantrums tonight, Edna, and it’s no bloody hay for a week.’

  Lestrade watched it all from the ringside, steadying himself on the ropes that secured the Top. The Lipizzaners trotted past him with Angelina bouncing on their spangled backs, somersaulting over their nodding, feathered heads as the crowd cheered. Then the huge tableau wagon, drawn by six greys, lumbered into the arena and on top, resplendent in Grecian helmet and trident and Union Jack shield, sat Lady Pauline as Britannia, old Cicero the lion stretched yawning at her feet and between his paws, a new-born lamb that watched the big cat’s teeth very carefully indeed. Sanger cracked his whip and roared the names of his stars, his people, his family. This was a circus of death, a bloody season. Yet the show went on and nobody knew.

  Trumpets blasted the sawdust ring. Lestrade’s moment had come. All day he had refused to tell Sanger why he had asked for the ending of this finale to be changed. Now, it was time to see if his plan would work. The 17th Lancers thundered into the ring, lances at the upright, pennons fluttering. They were led by a tall, rangy officer of artillery, his sword carried at the slope on his shoulder, prancing on Angelina’s Blackie. It was smooth. It was slick. It stirred the blood. No one knew the agony it caused Dakota-Bred, riding a saddle that felt like a school slate under his buttocks and keeping his reins short to emulate as far as possible the seat of the British Army.

  There was a gasp and then a booing as the enemy arrived. Led by a glistening Maccomo, dangling in lion skins and goat hair, an entire Impi’s worth of Zulus (well, twenty blokes blacked up) ran across the tan chanting and pointing with their spears.

  ‘So, Cetewayo!’ Dakota-Bred roared. ‘It’s you ’n’ me at last, huh? This ring ain’t big enough for both of us.’

  Sanger had taken up position by Lestrade and covered his face with his hand. ‘It’s no good,’ he said, ‘I’ll have to get Henry Irving for next season.’

  ‘Maccomo seems to have recovered,’ Lestrade said as the lion man paced across the sawdust, thumping down his long-haired legs to make the tan jump and fly. ‘I thought he’d gone very peculiar over the death of Fortescue.’

  ‘He had,’ Sanger nodded. ‘I just had a word in his ear. I asked him what Sandy McPherson would have done in this situation.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He looked up at me and said, “He’d have played the white man”.’

  ‘And so he went back to work?’

  ‘Not immediately’ – the crowd roared as the lances of the 17th went down – ‘I pointed out that I actually wanted him to play the black man – Cetewayo, King of the Zulus. He said he wanted to white up to play the Prince Imperial. Having seen what a coyote’s breakfast Dakota-Bred is making of it, I wish I’d let him now.’

  The Lancers trotted forward, jabbing the Zulus with their lance tips.

  ‘Look out, Bert, for Christ’s sake,’ one of them hissed. ‘This is only make-believe, you know.’

  ‘Come out from behind that shield, John, or you’ll be crushed,’ Maccomo insisted.

  ‘Why didn’t you get me a little one, then?’ the accountant demanded to know. ‘I can’t see a bloody thing behind this. Oh, Jesus!’ and he rolled clear as the squadron swept through the black ranks.

  ‘What are you hoping to achieve, Lestrade?’ Sanger asked for the umpteenth time out of the corner of his mouth. ‘This is my show. I have a right to know.’

  ‘No,’ Lestrade smiled grimly. ‘For the next few minutes, it’s the Prince Imperial’s show. All we can do is watch.’

  In the next pass, the 17th did not fare as well and one by one the acrobats tumbled to the tan and lay still, their lances scattered, their charge broken. Only one white man still stood upright, his sword gleaming, unhorsed but unbowed, facing an army of black fellows.

  ‘Well, I’ll be hornswaggled,’ the ‘Prince Imperial’ declared. ‘Looks like all ma comrades is dead. The only thing ah can do is die like an Englishman . . . er . . . Frenchman . . . er . . . aw, shit! Come on, you black bastards,’ and he whipped out his revolver.

  Maccomo came at him, spear levelled. The zebra-skin shields came up, the assegais thrust forward. But in that great tent, one pair of eyes was not riveted on the scene centre stage. Sergeant Sholto Lestrade was looking everywhere, anywhere but at the ring.

  As the first trick assegai struck Dakota-Bred in the chest, the American-turned-Frenchman-turned-Englishman emptied his revolver at the nearest six natives who dutifully dropped in their tracks. A second spear caught him in the ribs and he went down, the sword gone from his grasp.

  It was then that Lestrade saw it. A movement out of the corner of his eye, a flash of colour by the side entrance, the blur of an orange wig and a spinning bow tie. He dashed from Sanger’s side, his trouser-leg flapping as he hobbled. Mercifully, he didn’t hear the ‘Prince’s’ dying speech or see him carefully drape the flag over himself before he expired. The crowd booed wildly and the triumphant Maccomo became the target of all manner of missiles, all of them infinite
ly more deadly than the lances of the 17th.

  The Big Top’s glitter and flare died away. Lestrade saw the shadow running, diving, weaving, as though following something, then doubling back. Of all the times not to have two good legs! He threw away the useless stick he was hobbling on and squelched across the llama compound. All was deserted. As he guessed, the entire company had gathered in the Big Top to watch Sanger’s new spectacle. Only the animals in their cages were denied the fun.

  He saw the shadow lurking near the Sparks Wagon, then cut and run across to the Freak Booths, silent in the darkness. The strains of martial music wafted from the Top. Dorinda, the Bearded Lady had arrived as Lord Chelmsford to deliver a eulogy on the dead Prince and to avenge his death, much to the delight of the crowd. But Lestrade had his own deaths to avenge. There’d be time for eulogies later. He hobbled between the wagons that formed a circle in the night. He saw the glow of the fish tanks, the deserted caravan of the clowns and Dakota-Bred. Then, under a canvas awning, he saw him. The huge shoes, the deafening check, the baggy trousers.

  ‘Stromboli,’ Lestrade said quietly.

  The figure did not move.

  ‘It had to be you, didn’t it?’ the sergeant moved as stealthily as a man with a savaged leg could. ‘The only one in the circus who never removed his makeup. I should have guessed sooner.’

  Still, no movement from the clown.

  ‘You were one of the three that Oliver Steele had not interviewed because augusts keep themselves to themselves, don’t they? And somehow you persuaded him to sit in that damned contraption in the Sparks Wagon. Who sees augusts practise? Who knows who they really are? Nothing in the circus is what it seems. And even an ordinary-looking bastard like you couldn’t take the chance of being recognized. Not another chance, that is. Not after William Lyle. Well, it’s over. It’s finished. Come out of the shadows, Stromboli. A new face in the circus. The greatest clown in the world. Quite an act. Not even George Sanger rumbled you. But now, Your Highness, the act is over. Come out and take your final bow.’

  The clown shuffled forward, tottering on the great shoes, then suddenly pitched on to his face and lay in the mud, his bow tie stopped by the action of the puddle, his hair standing erect from his head. An ugly knife lay buried in the back of Stromboli, the greatest clown in the world. Behind him, another figure stood in the shadows, a revolver gleaming in his hand.

  ‘Let’s all drink to the death of a clown,’ he said.

  ‘Carey!’ Lestrade whispered.

  ‘Not exactly,’ he said, ‘nor Harry Masters, but Napoleon Eugene Louis Buonaparte, the Prince Imperial. Nod your head, you halfwit. You’re in the presence of greatness.’

  Lestrade stood where he was, the clouds scudding under the moon, the puddles pearl at his feet.

  ‘I felt sure you’d guessed it,’ the Prince grinned. ‘When I got Carey’s regiment wrong. He is in the 98th Foot, not the 97th. I also mentioned, somewhat carelessly, my time at Saarland. I was there of course in the late Franco-Prussian War of cursed memory.’

  ‘Yes,’ lied Lestrade, ‘I thought that was odd. But I assumed it was a slip of the tongue . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ the Prince stepped over Stromboli and raised his revolver, ‘there have been several of those recently. Over-noticing busybodies who can’t keep their mouths shut.’

  ‘Huge Hughie,’ Lestrade nodded.

  ‘Saw me coming out of Dakota-Bred’s wagon having exchanged the charge in the horse pistol. The silly little freak shouldn’t have been so observant.’

  ‘Then there was Lucinda Brodie,’ Lestrade was playing for time, desperate to keep this maniac’s finger off the trigger.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ the Prince smiled, ‘luscious and leggy. Drop her skirts for anyone, would Lucinda. Especially a gentleman like me. She saw me switch blades on that idiot husband of here. For that of course I had to put on a clown’s suit. Only she noticed. Not that she seemed to care, at first. But then she took a fancy to you – quite why, I can’t imagine. That was a liaison dangereuse and I couldn’t risk it.’

  ‘Tell me about the others.’ Lestrade suggested.

  ‘What? And give the show time to finish and for the relief column to arrive? You cannot be serious, Lestrade.’

  ‘You didn’t like it, though, did you?’ the sergeant blurted out as the gun’s muzzle came up in the moonlight, ‘seeing your own death in the ring, riddled with Zulu spears. I thought I’d play Mr Disraeli’s game. He – or at any rate someone in the corridors of power – has engineered this nonsense that you are serving with the army in Zululand. How does it feel to see yourself die?’

  ‘You’re about to find out, old chap,’ the Prince cocked the pistol.

  ‘But it rattled you, didn’t it?’ Lestrade shouted. ‘I knew it would.’

  The gun lowered again. ‘We Buonapartes are a proud family,’ the Prince murmured, ‘but I have enough humility to concede that I was nettled. I didn’t care to stay to watch, no. Then that idiot clown came racing after me to ask what was the matter. Something about an odd look on my face. He was next on my list anyway. I’m just sorry his end was so uninteresting. So unpoetic. I was working on an exploding cigar. Still, needs must when the devil drives.’

  Lestrade risked all by closing to him. ‘And what devil drives you, Your Highness?’ he asked. ‘What made you duck from that train and run to Ilkley and fake your own death? What made you run away to the circus? What makes you kill?’

  There was a pause. The seconds crawled like years. ‘The instincts of a tiger,’ the Prince told him. ‘You faced it, Lestrade. You’re facing it now. The grace, the power, the poetry of death. Look into my eyes, Lestrade. You won’t see me blink. You won’t see me miss. I’m a crack shot, remember, even in the dark. And there’s no Harry Masters now to save your life.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lestrade was grateful for any straw. ‘Why did you do that? Why didn’t you let Bahadur have me for lunch?’

  ‘Let’s just say I didn’t care to be baulked of my prey. Why let him have all the fun? I’m merely sorry that your death now will not be as painful and slow as it would have been had I let Bahadur finish his leap. Still, we can’t have everything.’

  ‘Why?’ Lestrade’s hand came up with his heart as the pistol levelled again. ‘You still haven’t told me why.’

  ‘It’s this world,’ Buonaparte said. ‘It’s too small for me. My idiot father had an Empire and he threw it away by gambling for stakes that were too high for him. He handed over the greatest Empire in the world to an old German bastard and the rabble of Paris. My Empire. My birthright. There’s nothing left for me but to avenge that.’

  ‘On the circus?’ Lestrade said, incredulous.

  ‘On the world!’ the Prince snarled. ‘You know, when I was a boy, we used to play war games on Sundays at the Tuileries. There was nothing I enjoyed more. Bashing hell out of my playmates at court. They never complained, of course. When they were bleeding and battered, they said nothing. Just like this lot, my victims here at the circus. They all went down without a word. The man at the Cow Rock didn’t know what hit him. Neither did Willie Lyle, the stupid bastard. “Is it really you, Louis?” he said to me, “from The Shop? From the Alpine Club?” I killed him where he stood. Hacked him down with the cuts of the Schlägerei. He always was a useless swordsman. Then,’ the Prince began to move sideways, out of the moonlight, ‘when I realized how easy it all was, I decided to make it into a game. Just like those games all those years ago at the Tuileries. My English is impeccable, is it not?’

  ‘Impeccable,’ Lestrade conceded.

  ‘I could pass for an Englishman, one whose skills would fit the circus. I was always surrounded by pets as a child and of course a Buonaparte is never afraid. I excelled in dissection in my tutor’s classes, I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of fauna and so the idea of a vet was born. The Buonapartes have silver tongues, too, so George Sanger fell for my story. I out-pattered the patterer. From then on, it was joy, pure joy, to kill and pass the buck. The elep
hant goad used on Heneage, the live ammunition on Joey Atkins, the poison on the dwarf, the knife in Lucinda’s head, the trapeze wire on Mrs Walker. Each time I killed I pointed the finger of suspicion at somebody else. Oh, the look on all their faces. The fear. The hatred. And above all, Lestrade, the look of bafflement on yours. And there again, I have to say I wasn’t brought up to do my own dirty work. There was always someone else on hand for that.’ He drew himself up to his full height. ‘They took away my Empire, took away the raison d’être of the Buonapartes. So I joined the second greatest Empire in the world – yours. Zululand offered excitement, danger.’

  ‘A chance to kill.’

  ‘Exactly. Only then I realized from that old buffoon the Duke of Cambridge that I wouldn’t be allowed any of it. I’d spend all my time on some sunny verandah, writing despatches and letters home to Mama. That wouldn’t do, Lestrade. That wouldn’t do at all. Well,’ he smirked like the spoiled schoolboy he still was, ‘it’s been jolly fun as my comrades at The Shop used to say. But I think I’ve had enough of the circus now. I can’t say where I’ll go next, but the world, of course, is my smoking oyster. Goodbye, Lestrade.’

  The gun was level. Lestrade’s feet, gammy and otherwise, had been sinking slowly into the mud. There was no way to turn. No chance to run. He clenched both fists, shut his eyes and waited for oblivion.

  Instead there was a crash of gunfire and a snort that turned into a scream. He opened his eyes to see a massive dark shadow in mob-cap and evening gloves and a pink frock with its arms around the Prince Imperial, hugging him to her. There was a noise he had never heard before and would probably never hear again. A noise like a dry stick breaking. The noise of the snapping of another man’s neck. The Prince hung in the embrace like a puppet, his feet trailing in the mud, his head hanging at a ludicrous angle. Then he slumped to the ground beside Stromboli.

  Lestrade stood back and the great shadow waddled forward to him.