The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade (9 page)

‘Who’s that, Doctor?’ asked Mrs Hudson, pausing at the door.

‘Get out, woman!’ shouted Holmes. ‘To what do we owe the honour, Lestrade?’

‘There’s no such phrase, Holmes,’ muttered Watson.

‘You’ve clearly been in India too long, Watson,’ snapped Holmes. ‘You’re beginning to confuse the Queen’s English with pure Hindoostani.’

‘Which brings me to my visit,’ interrupted Lestrade, to calm the tension of the atmosphere more than anything else. ‘The death of Doctor Watson’s nephew, Edward Coke-Hythe.’

‘Ah.’ Holmes sat down, stuffing the voluminous skirts between his knees and reaching, without taking his eyes off Lestrade, for his meerschaum. ‘I have a theory about that.’

Lestrade gritted his teeth. This wasn’t why he had come, but Holmes had been useful in the past and for all his irritability and elitism and short temper, Lestrade had a grudging soft spot for him. Holmes lit the pipe and the flame lit his lean, haunted features momentarily before they disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

‘Revenge.’ Holmes savoured the word. ‘It’s elementary, my dear Watson,’ he said to the good doctor’s quizzical look.

‘I thought you never said that, Mr Holmes,’ said Lestrade.

Holmes scowled. ‘We all have our off-days, Lestrade. This black fellow – what’s his name? Philadelphia?’

‘Washington.’

‘Bless you, Lestrade,’ Watson chipped in.

‘Yes. Well, Watson’s nephew publicly humiliated Washington – or tried to. Washington resented it and retaliated brilliantly. He killed him and his two cronies in a perfect poetic murder. He not only turned them black – thereby forcing his deformity on them – but he killed them with blackness. His blackness.’

‘Isn’t that a bit obvious, Holmes?’ Watson was speaking Lestrade’s thoughts.

‘No, no, Watson. You medical men, you’re so black and white.’

‘Oh, droll, Holmes, very droll,’ chortled Watson.

Holmes ignored him.

‘It’s a double bluff, Lestrade. Precisely because it
would
be so obvious, Washington knew he would be safe. It’s elementary, in fiction and in life. Take my word for it, Inspector. Washington’s your man.’

Lestrade looked at Watson. ‘In the absence of another motive, gentlemen, I may as well start there.’

Holmes opened Watson’s bag and pulled out a syringe. ‘Join me, Lestrade?’

‘No thanks, I don’t,’ the inspector answered.

Holmes disappeared into an adjoining room from which, shortly afterwards, emanated the most appalling noise of a bow on the strings of a violin.

‘I’ll see you out, Lestrade,’ said Watson. ‘Sorry I couldn’t be of much help.’

‘Not at all,’ Lestrade said. ‘Holmes has proved one thing to me.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Atlanta Washington is an innocent man.’

‘Oh, quite. He’s not well, you know.’

‘Washington?’

‘No. Holmes. One day, that habit of his will kill him.’

‘One day it will be against the law as well,’ mused Lestrade as Mrs Hudson gave him his hat. It would be a sad thing, Doctor, if the Great Detective were to die in prison, an incurable addict.’

Lestrade reached the street. Above him, a sash window flew up.

‘Lestrade,’ hissed a voice. Holmes peered out, violin gripped in his fist. ‘I must apologise for Watson. He hasn’t been well. He caught something in India. Never been the same since. You saw the symptoms. Giggling, sniping at me. He’s supposed to be a professional man, for God’s sake. Anyway, there it is. Sad, eh?’

‘Very,’ said Lestrade, tipped his hat and walked away.

He couldn’t leave Coke-Hythe’s family entirely to Bandicoot. Having given the young constable time to interview them, he took a cab to Portman Square, and in his most enigmatic, Scotland Yard manner, pursued his enquiries. Bandicoot had been surprisingly thorough. No doubt the Old School Tie had helped, but Lestrade went doggedly over the same ground, priding himself on his superior reading of facial expressions, casual gestures, but at the same time feeling that the metaphorical Blackheath Crammer Tie around his neck was decidedly inferior. Yes, Ned had been something of a lad. Never in trouble, Lestrade understood. No, he didn’t care for black people, but surely this was understandable. After all, his cousin Randolph had succumbed to a native assegai during the Zulu War when Ned was at a very impressionable age. And this slave chappie was flaunting himself somewhat. But really, Ned had grown a little apart from his family of recent years. He seemed to spend most of his time in Cambridge. And so pausing only to throw together a few necessaries in a Gladstone bag, Lestrade caught the evening train.

Most of the students had in fact gone down for the summer vac. The air was clear and cool as the inspector wandered through the town, down Silver Street and Sidney Street in search of lodgings. He found a modest hotel near the college of his destination, Magdalene, and collapsed gratefully into bed.

He was up with the lark to hear cheery laughter in the punts below and the water wobble of timber in rowlocks. ‘Care for a dip?’ a red-faced man in a boater and blazer called up to him as Lestrade stuck his head out of the window in an attempt to focus.

‘It’s a little early for me,’ he managed, as cheerily as he could. As he washed and shaved, he heard the champagne corks pop and the sound of female laughter trickle over his window ledge. The town came to life with the ringing of bicycle bells and the clatter and jingle of dray horses.

Lestrade downed his hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and coffee and emerged into the morning sunlight. He felt out of place in his black serge and bowler amidst the stripes and straw and on a whim he entered Fosdick’s, the University outfitters and bought himself a blazer and a pair of flannels. He resisted the spats as being a little risqué for a man in his position and was not entitled, of course, to a college badge.

The Master of Magdalene greeted him on the steps of his college. He was a vast man, with flowing dundrearies which had gone out of fashion twenty years before and a mortar board which hid, Lestrade suspected, a totally bald head. He was helpful after his fashion and between showing Lestrade the river walk, the chapel and the three Van Dykes so generously benefacted to the college, explained that he had never really know Edward Coke-Hythe or his friends and he had liked them even less. He might perhaps try the Albino Club in Jesus Lane.

‘I am sorry, sir,’ said the man on the door of that august institution. ‘You are wearing a black tie. I cannot possibly allow entry to a man in a black tie.’

Lestrade flashed his identification. The doorman hesitated, then stepped aside. He showed Lestrade into a perfectly white interior – the walls, ceiling, even the furniture gleaming with ivory. Against the far wall was a piano, without ebony keys. One or two young men lounged about in white suits. Lestrade explained who he was and asked if any of them had known Edward Coke-Hythe. After a few in-suckings of breath, murmurings of ‘Jolly bad form’ and ‘Chuck him out’, the inspector was finally introduced to Hartington-White, the club’s president. Fellow of Peterhouse and all stations west.

‘Look here, Inspector, I mean arriving in a black tie is one thing, but asking personal questions about a member …’

Lestrade’s mind turned for a moment on the exact meaning of the word ‘member’, but this was merely a club for eccentrics. He need look no further into an innocent and unconscious
double-entrendre
, unless, of course, Hartington-White knew that Coke-Hythe’s member was now lying black as the ace of spades along with the rest of him on a slab in Cannon Row Morgue.

‘Edward Coke-Hythe is dead, Mr White. A police officer in the course of his enquiries is entitled to ask any questions, personal or otherwise. The fact that the deceased was a member of your club does not interest me one jot … Alternatively, it could be very illuminating.’

‘Meaning? And that’s Hartington-White, by the way.’

Lestrade noticed the other man nodding in the direction of a few other club members.

‘What is the aim of your club, Mr Hartington-White?’

‘Aim? Why, recreation, of course. Any member of the University is eligible.’

‘And no one is black-balled?’

‘That’s not a term we care to use.’

‘Don’t you like the colour black, Mr Hartington-White?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The decor, the black tie, even the piano keys. Isn’t the purpose of this club to remove what you consider to be the black peril from white society?’

‘Really, Inspector. Isn’t this a little preposterous?’ But Hartington-White was uneasy, his grin very fixed.

‘Wasn’t Edward Coke-Hythe running an errand for you? Isn’t that what he was in London, in fact, since he kept his rooms in the north of the town here? Wasn’t he furthering the cause of white supremacy by attempting to humiliate the ex-slave Atlanta Washington?’

‘That’s insane, Inspector.’ Hartington-White was on his feet, shouting. ‘Now, I really must ask you to leave. Y … you do not have a white tie?’

‘Neither do I have my answers,’ Lestrade shouted in return. Then, quieter, ‘Nor blood on my conscience.’

Instinctively he heard the whirr as the billiard cue hissed through the air. He ducked and drove his shoulder into his opponent’s groin. Grabbing the corner of the rug as he went down, Lestrade overturned a second attacker and kicked Hartington-White in the pit of his stomach. When he finally got up, Lestrade realised that his speed and his boot had eliminated only one permanently. The man with the billiard cue lay gripping his crotch with a distant look on his face. In front of Lestrade were four members and a footman, two of them armed with billiard cues. It had been some time since Lestrade had had to defend himself from such an attack – not since he was a sergeant at Wapping New Stairs, in fact. The device he had used then, though hardly regulation police issue, was still in his pocket now. He was never without it. He deflected the sideways swipe of Hartington-White’s cue, gripped the man’s arm and jerked him forwards, twisting him round so that his arm locked under his jaw. Lestrade’s left hand produced the Apache dagger, a needle-sharp stiletto with brass rings that went over his knuckles. The tip of the blade rested an inch away from Hartington-White’s left eardrum.

‘A step closer, gentlemen, and your revered President will be bleeding all over the carpet.’

They stopped, hesitated, looked at each other.

‘For God’s sake, do something,’ screamed the President. ‘The maniac will kill me,’

‘The door, gentlemen,’ hissed Lestrade, tilting his adversary’s head further back. ‘I want it shut with you on the other side of it.’

‘Do as he says,’ Hartington-White’s voice was strained almost to inaudibility.

One by one, they dropped their guard and backed towards the door. One by one, they left the room. Hartington-White was a big man and Lestrade knew now, if he had not known before, of his somewhat murderous tendencies. He was taking no chances. He spun round and drove knee and knuckleduster simultaneously into the pit of his stomach. The Club President went down, vomiting as he did so.

Lestrade knelt to one side of him to avoid the mess and flicked his switch blade under his chin. ‘Now, Mr Hartington-White, where were we? Ah, yes, you sent Coke-Hythe to London, yes?’

Hartington-White nodded, gulping for air.

‘To bait Atlanta Washington?’

Another nod.

‘To kill him?’

Hartington-White’s head remained still. Lestrade’s knife edged closer.

‘If necessary,’ the Club President whispered.

Lestrade put his weapon away, found his boater and looked around the littered room. Furniture lay in disarray. The member with the damaged member lay moaning in the corner. The President knelt, furious and shaking and in pain in the middle of the floor.

‘Expect a visit from your local constabulary, Mr Hartington-white. The charge will be incitement to riot and attempted murder. By the time the police, the Church, the do-gooders and the press have done with you, there won’t be much left of the Albino Club.’ He glanced at the door. By now there would be reinforcements outside- a little army of racialists bent on preserving their anonymity behind the gleaming white walls of an eccentric gentlemen’s club. Even an Apache knife wouldn’t serve well against all of them.

‘Don’t bother to get up, I’ll see myself out.’ And the inspector threw himself bodily through a plate-glass window.

When Lestrade came out of hospital three days later, events had moved apace. McNaghten was far from pleased at the ruckus at the Albino Club and one of the members had demanded a full apology. Lestrade refused and countered his principal’s intervention by ordering the arrest of those present the day he had been attacked. All in all, it was unfortunate and had not got Lestrade much further. He assured McNaghten that he was on top of the case but could not promise him an imminent arrest.

There were still stitches in the inspector’s face when he called in expert advice by visiting the studio at St John’s Wood. Studio it may have been, but to Lestrade it resembled a palace, vast and sprawling, each room hung with paintings, expensive tapestries and filled with lavish furniture. As luck would have it, Lestrade arrived in time to feel very out of place at a garden party in the grounds. A shifty-looking, rather neurotic man with furtive eyes and thinning hair pinched his sherry. Lestrade recognised him as Mr Burne-Jones, the Pre-Raphaelite. He and the name were all Lestrade remembered from a crash course in modern art five years ago when he was involved in the Frederick Leighton Fake Swindle. His quarry that day in St John’s Wood he had never heard of, but a footman pointed him out.

‘Mr Adma-Talema?’ said the inspector.

The host of the party turned to the enquirer. He adjusted his pince-nez and responded. ‘Something like that. No, don’t tell me. You are a reporter from the
Daily Graphic
, an art critic and your last piece so provoked an artist that he smashed a canvas over your head?’

‘Something like that?’ replied Lestrade. ‘Actually, I am from Scotland Yard.’

‘Really?’ said Alma-Tadema. ‘I have never met a real detective before. Apart from … oh, but he doesn’t count.’