Brigade: The Further Adventures of Inspector Lestrade (9 page)

‘Sit down, sir … er … Sholto. Please. Tell us why the disguise.’

‘Undercover,’ said Lestrade, and flashed a glance at the butler eavesdropping splendidly near the door.

‘That will be all, Dudson.’ Bandicoot flicked him away like a fly in summer.

Letitia poured the tea, and handed round the Madeira cake.

‘It’s rather difficult,’ Lestrade began. ‘You’re a member of the public now, Harry. And it’s I who should be calling you sir.

‘We only worked on one case, Sholto, but I would hope we may be friends. I will never forget Hengler’s Circus that night.’

‘No more will I. It was nearly my last.’

‘Well, then.’ Bandicoot’s mood lifted. ‘You must have come here for a purpose. You’re not a man who makes social calls. I remember that much.’

‘May I speak to you alone?’

‘Sholto,’ began Bandicoot, a trifle outraged.

‘No, no, dearest heart, the inspector has his reasons. Besides, I have letters to write. Mr Morris will be in Manchester next month and I have not arranged the details with him. I shall be in the study … should you need me,’ and she looked meaningfully at Lestrade. The men rose as she left the room.

‘Look, Sholto,’ Harry Bandicoot’s new-found independence had increased his self-confidence; ‘you may have been my guv’nor once, but that doesn’t give you the right to pull rank now. Letitia and I are to be married in four months. In fact,’ and he paced the room, ‘in fact, she wrote you an invitation only last week. It’s probably sitting on your desk at the Yard.’

Lestrade walked to the window, then turned back to the ex-constable.

‘What do you know of Letitia?’ he was bound to ask.

‘Know? That I love her, of course. And that she loves me. And that’s all I need to know.’ Indignation was followed by a realisation. ‘Why are you asking all these questions?’

‘I’ve only asked you one.’

‘All right.’ Bandicoot was more reasonable, remembering his police training. ‘Let me ask you one. What has Letitia to do with the case you’re working on?’

Lestrade answered with another question. ‘Who is Mr Morris?’

‘William Morris, of the Kelmscott Press.’

‘The Socialist?’ He sounded like Gregson.

‘Yes, he’s a Socialist. He’s also an artist, a writer, a thinker and a Great Man.’

‘Like Sherlock Holmes was a Great Detective?’

‘No, not like Holmes!’ Bandicoot was thundering in a way Lestrade had not seen before. Then calmer, ‘Sholto, as a vagrant you were welcome here. As a policeman, I’m not so sure. Unless you tell me what this is all about, I must ask you to leave.’

Lestrade looked at Bandicoot. He was half a head taller, considerably broader, and eleven years his junior. Furthermore, he had not lived on hell broth and beef tea for the past five weeks and his hair, unlike Lestrade’s, was not falling out. Anyway, physical attributes apart, this man was Harry Bandicoot, the curly-headed, good-natured young constable who had shot and killed one of the most accomplished murderers of the century to save Lestrade’s life. He couldn’t let it come to blows. Besides, he hadn’t got his knuckle-duster.

‘All right, but you must promise to answer some questions first - for old times’ sake.’ He didn’t want to say for auld lang syne in case Dudson was listening at the door. Bandicoot sat down, rational, reasonable again.

‘How often does Letitia visit Openshaw Workhouse?’

‘A few times a year, I believe. Christmas and the spring, certainly. Other times if she has the opportunity.’

‘Why?’

‘Why?’ Bandicoot appeared genuinely taken aback. ‘She believes in her fellow man, Sholto. You and I may have seen the dregs of humanity on whom any amount of sympathy would be wasted. But Letitia believes man can change his base nature.’

‘What about Richard Brown’s base nature?’

‘Who?’

‘The name means nothing to you?’

‘No.’

‘What about Bill Bentley?’

Nothing.

‘Joe Towers?’

Still nothing. Bandicoot was as blank as ever he was. ‘Richard Brown was visited by your lady love some seven weeks ago,’ Lestrade offered by way of explanation. ‘Is she in the habit of visiting individuals in the workhouse?’

‘Not usually, no, but it has been known. Sholto, what exactly are you accusing her of?’

Lestrade let out a long sigh. ‘Probably nothing,’ he said; ‘possibly murder. Would you ask her to join us?’

Lestrade knew he was breaking all the rules in the book, letting Bandicoot fetch a suspect himself, with all the emotional ties he had with her. But Lestrade was having a private bet with himself that Bandicoot was still too much of a policeman to permit anything untoward. A bolt for the backdoor? A rush to the stable? A concocted story at the very least? But no, a few seconds and Letitia Lawrenson stood before him, her intended bridegroom at her side.

‘Did you know Richard Brown?’ Lestrade was standing facing her, eyes and voice as cold as the workhouse hot bath.

Mrs Lawrenson visibly sank. ‘So you know?’ She waved aside Bandicoot’s outstretched arm. ‘No, Harry. It’s time I … what is it you policemen say? … came clean?’

‘Letitia, don’t …’

‘Letitia Lawrenson,’ Lestrade broke in, ‘you are not obliged to say anything, but I must caution you …’

‘No, Inspector,’ Letitia cut him short, ‘this is not a confession to you. It is a confession to Harry.’

And all three of them sat down to hear it.

‘George, my husband, died six years ago; he was killed in a mountaineering expedition, Inspector – the Matterhorn. When he died I was twenty-two, scarcely a woman at all. Some women might have broken down, withdrawn behind the weeds of widowhood as the Queen did, I have read. I found a cause, Inspector. The people. Good, honest people, like your friends in Openshaw. I buried my love for my husband in them.’ Bandicoot held her hand, tenderly, for a fist so large.

‘But, my dearest, I know all this,’ he said.

‘What you don’t know,’ and she pulled herself away from him to the window, ‘is that I had an admirer. I never told you about him because … because, well, it was all over nearly a year ago.’

‘Well then …’ Bandicoot offered acceptance, but Letitia spun round.

‘He was sixty-three years old, Harry. Old enough to be my father.’

The policemen, past and present, looked at each other.

‘Richard Brown?’ asked Lestrade.

Letitia took her eyes with difficulty away from Harry Bandicoot. ‘No, Inspector. Richard Brown knew this man in the Army. He worked on his estate for a while, but drifted away in later years. I came to know him for a time before he left. His rheumatism had got worse very quickly. When I first saw him in Openshaw I could scarcely believe it was the same man. I visited him when I could. I learned later he died on the day of my last visit.’

So now we are getting somewhere, Lestrade hoped.

‘Did you give him anything?’ he asked.

‘Some tobacco. And some words of comfort.’

‘Tobacco,’ repeated Lestrade, almost hoping now he was wrong.

‘Yes, as I gave you and the rest some on my most recent visit. As a matter of fact, I had neglected to bring any on the day I visited old Richard. The surgeon gave me some.’

‘The surgeon?’ repeated Lestrade. ‘Do you know how Richard Brown died?’ he asked.

‘A convulsion, the surgeon told me,’ Letitia answered. ‘He would say no more.’

‘The surgeon?’ Lestrade was beginning to sound like a wax cylinder.

‘Yes, Dr Foster.’

He couldn’t be from Gloucester, could he? thought Lestrade. But this was hardly the time to be flippant. ‘This Foster. Was he the man who gave you the tobacco?’

‘No. Dr Foster joined the infirmary a day or so after Richard Brown’s death, I believe.’

‘So who gave you the tobacco, Mrs Lawrenson?’ Lestrade was persistent.

‘Well, presumably Dr Foster’s predecessor. I didn’t have much to do with the medical team. I believe his name was Corfield.’

‘Corfield. Corfield.’ Lestrade had heard that name somewhere, but he couldn’t remember where.

‘And you didn’t poison Richard Brown?’ Lestrade was to the point.

Bandicoot and Letitia looked at him speechless. It was she who found her tongue first.

‘Inspector, I told you my confession was for Harry. I was … close … to a man nearly forty years my senior, and that within the last year. I could not believe … cannot believe Harry could still love me once he knew that. But dear God can either of you think me guilty of murdering that dear sweet old man?’

Lestrade collected together his rags. ‘No, Mrs Lawrenson We can’t. I am very sorry to have bothered you. I will take my leave. But first, I must know the name of this man, on whose estate Richard Brown worked.’

‘Inspector, I cannot tell you that.’

‘Old ghosts,’ said Bandicoot. ‘Better let them lie.’ And he took Letitia’s hand firmly in his.

‘I hope you will both be very happy,’ said Lestrade and made for the door. As he turned, they were locked in each other’s arms, oblivious to his going.

In the hall the pompous Mr Dudson approached him. ‘Er … Inspector … I could not help overhearing. The man you seek is Major General Edward Harnett. I … er … hope have been … helpful to you.’ The Scotsman was actually rubbing his hands together in anticipation. ‘Is there a reward?

‘Oh, yes,’ smiled Lestrade. ‘There’s always a reward for people who listen at keyholes,’ and he jabbed two grimy fingers into the butler’s eyeballs. Dudson fell back, screaming in pain and Lestrade was on the steps before Bandicoot caught up with him.

‘Sholto. Don’t go. You see, I knew Letitia wasn’t your man. Please, stay to dinner. A bath? A soft bed? Letitia insists.’

‘Tempting indeed, Harry. But I’d better not. How will I face the hell broth tomorrow after a fine meal tonight: Besides,’ he began scratching, ‘there are too many of us.’

‘Will we see you at the wedding?’

‘You might, Banders old thing, you might. Oh, and by the way,’ he pointed to the doubled-up sobbing form of Dudson, ‘I recommend you get yourself some new staff,’ and he turned into the rain.

Daisy, Daisy

It was appreciably easier getting in than getting out; Lestrade’s overhasty grasping of the workhouse doctor’s lapels had earned him something of a reputation. God knows to how many people the good doctor had repeated Lestrade’s bizarre claim to be an inspector from Scotland Yard. Perhaps for that reason, perhaps for others, Lestrade found himself watched more closely than before. He had returned to Openshaw that evening without employ - not unusual in the Manchester of the nineties. Times were hard and despite the ‘Hands Wanted’ signs, workhouse Hands were not required. At least Lestrade had eliminated Mrs Lawrenson from his enquiries, but before he could follow up Dudson’s tip, he had to see the good doctor again.

Days followed days slower than Lestrade had known. And in the course of them he noticed a shadow; a slim young fellow who watched him more closely than the warders. In a rest period late on the Wednesday, he engaged Lestrade in conversation, though the inspector’s mind was elsewhere. He was what Madge of Truth referred to as a contemptible cur. Educated at Charterhouse, he had fallen on hard times and his family, of nouveau riche stock from Altrincham, had deserted him. A few indiscreet card games, a torrid affair with the daughter of a Stalybridge banker and he found himself in here, in a coat crawling with company and his once immaculate hands ragged with oakum. He could leave tomorrow. They all could. Couldn’t they? Lestrade looked at him. He wasn’t at all sure he could.

‘A bounder. That’s what her father called me,’ said the young man, looking up from his knees drawn tight under his chin. ‘Just before he had me horse-whipped. Want to see?’

Lestrade declined the offer. He had decided the Bounder was harmless enough. He wasn’t a threat, a plant by the authorities. The very improbability of his story ruled that out. He was just lonely, feeling sorry for himself. Lestrade nodded, shook his head, said ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ a few times, more or less, he hoped, in the right places. He was waiting for night, for the sound barrage of hawking and spitting. The lights flickered out at ten as they always did. He did not have long.

Time was of the essence. Noiselessly he slipped out of his trough and between the rows of snoring men. A faint light shone from the bull’s-eye, swinging in the wind of the labour yards. Beneath the oakum, when he wasn’t being watched, Lestrade had been hammering into shape the iron wedge he had wrenched from the rotten wood of his bed. It had taken him a week, but it was ready. He slipped it between the door and the jamb. Damn. Too tight. He bent it against the door and it clicked into position. No danger in the cacophony of coughs behind him of the door being heard. He swung it open and was about to close it when he felt fingers grip his arm. He swung round, ready to slam the door on whoever it was and in the dim light recognised the Bounder.

‘Take me with you,’ he rasped.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re going over the wall.’

There was really nowhere else Lestrade could have been going. The latrine was at the far end of the room. Midnight raids on the pantry belonged to the days of Charterhouse and if this was sleepwalking, Lestrade was a very determined example of it.

‘And you can go through the door tomorrow. Go back to bed, man.’

‘I can’t stand another night in … there.’ The Bounder was quaking.

‘They’ll be after you by morning.’

‘What for - breaking and exiting?’

Lestrade did not appreciate the light relief.

‘All right, but keep low, keep quiet and do everything I tell you.’

They ran across the yard, the inspector and his shadow, scattering rats to left and right. Lestrade flattened himself against the wall, ramming the Bounder into a corner. A whistling warder lurched across the steps on the way to the outer gate. He paused, looked briefly around and then fumbled with his trouser buttons. The Bounder raised his nose helplessly in anticipation of a sneeze and Lestrade clapped his good hand over his face. The sensation in the Bounder’s nose went away as the warder adjusted his clothing and growled, ‘Who’s there?’

Lestrade pressed his conveniently flat-tipped nose further into the stone.

‘Oh, it’s you, Doctor. Just off home?’

‘That’s right. I’ve got my keys. You needn’t bother,’ pre-empting the warder’s attempt in the darkness to find the relevant key.

‘Good night to you, then, sir,’ and he went on his way.

Couldn’t be better, mused Lestrade and springing back from the wall rolled under the doctor’s feet, bringing him down in the straw with a crunch. Before he could cry out, Lestrade had straddled him, a hand over his mouth and a forearm at his throat.

‘One sound and you’re a dead man,’ he hissed in his ear.

The Bounder sat in the shadows, amazed.

Something in the glint of Lestrade’s eyes told the doctor he meant business. And something in the doctor’s eyes told Lestrade he could relax his grip. He hauled the man upright.

‘To resume our conversation of a couple of weeks ago. I am Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. Were I not attired in the sartorial elegance of Openshaw District Workhouse, I would be able to prove it. As it stands, you must take my word for it, Doctor Foster, and I am not a patient man.’

If this man is insane, thought Foster, he’s extraordinarily single-minded. But then, wasn’t that a symptom of one kind of clinical madness? He wished he’d been to that lecture.

‘You signed the death papers on Richard Brown?’

‘I did.’ The lunatic was well informed.

‘Cause of death?’

Silence.

‘Doctor, you are familiar with all sorts of deaths in establishments like these. What was the cause of his?’

Foster relaxed with a shrug. ‘Actually, I’m not very experienced in establishments like these, as you put it. My practice was not … well, let’s just say things were not working out. I became a Poor Law doctor. Openshaw is my first workhouse.’

‘How long have you been here?’ The soggy, rat-soiled floor of a workhouse labour yard was not the ideal place for a prolonged interview. Lestrade was trying to hurry things up.

‘A few weeks. Look,’ the doctor’s tone changed. ‘Are you who you say you are?’

‘On my word as an English gentleman,’ was the least fatuous thing Lestrade could think of.

‘All right. I’ll trust you. I’ll have to. It was I who contacted the Manchester Police. I managed to obtain an interview with Chief Superintendent Olds. I couldn’t make much of it. After all, I didn’t know – don’t know – if the authorities are involved.’

‘Authorities?’

‘Richard Brown died of strychnine poisoning, Inspector. Risus sardonicus. Heard of it?’

‘Strychnine, yes.’ Lestrade rested back on his heels. ‘What’s the other? A monkey?’

‘The smile of death, Inspector. The poison causes the muscles of the face to contract, baring the teeth in a maniacal grin. It’s not something I’ll forget. Ever.’

‘What’s your point about the authorities?’ Lestrade persisted.

‘You’ve been in here, Lestrade. How many inmates do you know who have access to strychnine?’

‘It wasn’t Mrs Lawrenson, who visited him on the day he died. Although unwittingly she may have given him tainted tobacco.’

‘Tobacco,’ Foster shouted, until Lestrade’s hand silenced him. ‘Of course,’ he went on in a whisper, ‘that’s it.’

‘No, it’s not. We want the man who gave the tobacco to the lady.’

‘So our murderer is a tobacconist?’

‘Not necessarily, Doctor.’

‘Have you asked her?’

‘Of course. She obtained the tobacco from your predecessor.’

‘Prior?’

‘Prior to what?’

‘No, no. Dr Prior. That was the name of my predecessor.’ Lestrade didn’t follow. ‘Not Corfield?’ he said.

‘Corfield? No. Wait a minute. I believe the name does appear in the day book.’

‘What’s that?’

‘As surgeon and practitioner to Openshaw, I have to sign daily in the day book, as evidence of my attendance on duty; otherwise they don’t pay me.’

‘And you say Corfield’s name is in it?’

‘Yes. He was probably a locum tenens for Prior.’

‘A what?’ This man was speaking a different language.

‘That means he filled in for Dr Prior if the man was off sick or otherwise unable to attend the infirmary.’

‘Do you remember when Corfield’s name appears last? Think, man. This could be vital.’

‘Er …’ Foster’s face screwed up with the effort. ‘I think it was May the tenth. Good God!’

‘What?’

‘That was the day that Richard Brown died.’

‘This Corfield,’ Lestrade went on, ‘have you ever seen him?’

‘Never. But I don’t understand. Why wasn’t I told you were here, incognito?’

Lestrade knew the meaning of that one now. He wouldn’t show ignorance again. ‘You wouldn’t have been the first murderer to report his suspicions of the crime to the police.’

‘You mean … you mean I was a suspect?’ Foster was outraged.

Lestrade straightened. ‘When exactly did you take up your present post?’

‘May the seventeenth. A week to the day after Brown died.’

Lestrade turned to the Bounder. ‘Laddie, you’ve heard a few things tonight it would be better you forgot.’

‘Inspector …’ and he started to say something, then fell back into the shadows. ‘What things are they?’ He grinned uneasily.

Lestrade patted him condescendingly on the cheek. Foster unlocked the outer gate and the three of them slipped into the night.

‘One last question,’ whispered Lestrade. ‘Do you in fact come from Gloucester?’

‘No, actually I …’ and the doctor’s face hardened into the resolution of ages as he caught Lestrade’s smirk.

With one Bounder, Lestrade was free.

Letitia Lawrenson was of little more use to Lestrade than Foster had been as to the physical description of Doctor Corfield. Greying, she thought, quite distinguished. But other than that, she could not help. And she begged Lestrade to believe, in Bandicoot’s absence, that she did not habitually find older men attractive. That was one reason why she had not particularly noticed Corfield. It was one reason indeed, though not paramount, why she was marrying Harry …

They sat beneath the sheltering arms of a Cedar of Lebanon. The Prince and his lady. Below them, in rolling ground falling away from the great house, stretched Derwentwater in Derwent Dale and away to their left the hills of Stanage Edge and High Neb. The incredible summer of 1893 really began then, in the shimmering heat of July’s end, and for them it began at Ladybower, overlooking the Derwent.

It was into this idyllic scene, the fin de siecle sun throwing long, deep shadows across the lawns, there walked a man in a shabby duster coat, worn among the nouveaux and anciens riches for driving their horseless carriages. His hair was cropped short, in the manner of the working classes, and he didn’t appear to have eaten well for some time. His skin had the jaundiced look of old parchment and he seemed unused to the fresh air. But his step was jaunty enough and he threw the Gladstone bag to the ground as the station wagon lurched to a halt beside him

‘You take a devil of a lot of finding, Inspector.’ The asthmatic wheeze behind the muffler was vaguely familiar.

‘Charlo?’ Lestrade peered into the gloom of the cab.

‘The same, Inspector. As you see, much recovered,’ and he fell into a paroxysm of coughing.

‘How did you find me?’

‘It wasn’t easy, sir. But duty called. May I ask, sir, what we are working on?’

Isn’t ‘we’ a little presumptuous? thought Lestrade, but the man had obviously been suffering. ‘Get rid of this wagon and walk with me,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain as we go.’

The constable snapped the whip and rattled away down the drive. In the dust and gnats of the summer evening, the policemen strolled down the drive.

‘How can you bear that scarf in all this?’ Lestrade gestured to the heat of the day.

‘Oh, I have to be careful, sir. I’ve never been strong, you see. Even as a child —’

‘Yes, let’s leave that stone unturned, shall we, Charlo? I’m going to use you as a brick wall to bounce a few ideas off. Ready?’ And Lestrade told Charlo all he knew.

‘Which leaves me,’ said Lestrade as they crossed the Palladian bridge, ‘two niggling questions. If I can answer them, I’m close to my man.’