The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade (15 page)

‘Sholto.’ Constance was suddenly serious. ‘I hate to bring this up, but are you any nearer to finding my husband’s murderer?’

Lestrade looked hard into the dark eyes of this woman who had captivated him. ‘I didn’t know John Watson was your uncle.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You didn’t know his nephew was murdered recently?’

‘Edward Coke-Hythe. Of course, he was my cousin.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I didn’t think it necessary … You mean the two are connected?’

‘I don’t know, Constance. But I do know that most people have no connection with murder at all. You have a connection with two. You are a dangerous woman to know.’

‘Am I accused, then?’

‘Ma’am, I never arrest ladies at police balls.’ Lestrade kissed her hand. He led her on to the steps of the hotel amid leaving guests. Suddenly, a deputation of Hussars stood before them. Onslow stepped forward.

‘Inspector Lestrade, I am instructed by His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence to offer you choice of time and place to settle this affair of honour.’

‘Affair of … oh, yes, of course.’

‘Sholto.’

‘No, Constance. This won’t take long. Dawn, gentlemen. That gives us three hours or so. Time enough to get to the Headless Chicken at Highgate.’

Onslow saluted briskly. ‘Very well, sir. His Highness chooses sabres.’

Lestrade thought of the debacle of his constable days struggling through cutlass drill.

‘Naturally,’ he smiled.

Onslow and his party departed.

‘Sholto.’ Constance took the Harlequin’s hand. ‘He’ll kill you.’

‘Over my dead body, Constance,’ smiled Lestrade.

Duels

True to the spirit of melodrama and Gothic novels, a chill mist swirled around the gravestones of Highgate Cemetery. Two parties emerged through the wet greyness of the dawn, walking in parallel down the overhung greenness of Swain’s Lane. To the left walked His Royal Highness, the Duke of Clarence, in the patrol jacket and forage cap of the 10
^th
Hussars. Behind him, draped with cloaks and rattling with spurs and accoutrements, four of his brother-officers, grim-faced and moustachioed. To the right, arm in arm against the chill of the morning, Inspector Lestrade, wrapped in his Donegal and Mrs Mauleverer in a velvet walking-out dress. Behind them, crisp in morning coat and non-regulation bowler, Harry Bandicoot, and, in his one and only suit, Walter Dew, constables of Scotland Yard. It made a faintly ludicrous and extremely unlikely picture. It was the morning of September 16
^th
, 1891. It was the modern world. But one man was not going to walk away.

The officers of the law took their positions at the gates of the Egyptian Avenue. The Hussars tramped to the top. There was an awkward pause and then two of them came down to the centre.

‘Sholto, do you read Sir Walter Scott?’

‘Alas, no, Constance.’

‘If you did, you would know that knights in the Courtly Age carried a lady’s favour when they fought. Please, wear this for me now.’ She tied her silk scarf around his neck. He held her hand briefly.

‘I think they’re waiting for us, sir,’ said Bandicoot.

Lestrade turned to him. ‘Bandicoot. Dew. Neither of you should be here. You are officers of the law. You should both know better. Bad enough if I’m caught in this nonsense, but you two …’

‘You need a second, sir,’ Bandicoot broke in. ‘Who will hold your coat?’

Lestrade allowed himself a smile for an instant. ‘Very well, but Mrs Mauleverer should not be here. Dew, escort the lady back to the Headless Chicken. Inside the carriage, please.’

‘I’ve come this far, Sholto. I’ll stay with you a while longer. And besides,’ she went on in a stronger voice, ‘you wouldn’t order Constable Dew away at a time like this.’

‘So be it,’ Lestrade grinned. He threw his Donegal to Bandicoot and stripped to his shirtsleeves. The two men walked uphill to where Clarence and Onslow waited. To their surprise, it was Onslow who took off his cloak and jacket, rolling up his sleeves.

‘Etiquette demands that I cannot fight you, Lestrade,’ Clarence delivered haughtily. ‘I am after all the heir to the throne. Besides,’ he produced a handkerchief, ‘I have a cold coming. I trust Lieutenant Onslow will do as my substitute?’

Lestrade bowed.

‘Rather a sacrilegious choice, this place of yours, I must say,’ the Duke remarked.

‘It’ll save the cost of burial,’ quipped Lestrade, ‘for one of us.’

Clarence drew a cloak from two cavalry sabres lying across his arm. Bandicoot, with his Etonian grasp of such matters, inspected both carefully and nodded. Lestrade took one and turned to take up his position. The sabre was a good foot longer than the cutlass he remembered and he had forgotten how damned heavy the thing was. He took his cue from Onslow, who bent his knees and assumed the
en garde
position, having saluted Lestrade with his sword. On one side, Clarence drew his sabre and on the other Bandicoot held the points of all three blades together.

‘What now?’ Lestrade broke the silence, unable to take the whole thing seriously. ‘Do we all pirouette to the right?’

Clarence scythed his blade upward and Bandicoot sprang back. For a second which seemed to Constance an eternity, nobody moved, then Onslow swept forward, his blade licking in over Lestrade’s guard to find his arm. The white sleeve darkened red and Constance started forward, checking herself before Dew had a chance to restrain her. Onslow straightened up, saluting.

‘Sir,’ he said to Clarence. Lestrade felt dizzy and not a little sick. There was a numbness in his left elbow.

‘Again,’ Clarence sneered.

Bandicoot cut in. ‘By all the rules of duelling, sir, even among the less salubrious schlagers of German universities, first blood is sufficient.’

‘I will decide what is sufficient. Onslow, again.’

Onslow saluted again and came to the ready. Yards away, Dew gripped Constance’s arm. Silently her heart went out to Lestrade, left arm hanging useless, facing a professional swordsman again. Onslow’s attack was slower this time and Lestrade banged it aside.

‘You’re not trying, Onslow. I want him taught a lesson.’

Onslow’s pace increased. His feet slid forward, faster, faster, his blade circling Lestrade’s, inches from the inspector’s body. Lestrade was retreating, trying to keep in step as best he could. He could hear words of encouragement from Bandicoot on his right. Further away the shouts of the Hussars and the angry yells of Clarence. The family vaults in their granite silence swept by him, but all he could see was that flashing, probing blade and Onslow’s sweating face behind it. Desperately he parried and cut, using two hands once when he felt his back against an Egyptian column. Onslow’s sword crunched inches from Lestrade’s face. He ducked under his arm and caught him high in the ribs, purpling the white shirt. He dropped to his knees, fighting for breath. Onslow staggered back against a vault.

‘That’s it,’ Lestrade rasped to Clarence. ‘No more. No more.’

‘Damn you, Lestrade. You’re not cutting up one of my officers and getting away with it. Onslow, can you stand?’

The lieutenant somehow came to attention.

‘Then get on with it.’

Lestrade flinched as the sabre flashed past his face, slicing off the very tip of his nose. He lunged from the ground and grazed Onslow’s thigh.

‘You boys, stop that!’ All eyes turned to the distant voice. At the top of the slope, beyond the knot of officers, silhouetted against the dawn sky stood a lone figure. The outline presented an immediate problem. It wore a Hussar busby and presented a generally military outline, but apparently wore a skirt as well, and was leaning against a bicycle.

‘God, it’s the Colonel,’ whispered one of the officers.

For a fleeting second, Clarence toyed with the notion of its being his formidable Grandmamma in one of her unused Colonel-in-Chief’s uniforms. But the preposterousness of the idea banished it from his mind. With astonishing presence of mind, Bandicoot threw Lestrade’s Donegal over both sabre blades and the combatants, sweating an bloody, tried to look as nonchalant as possible, as though it were the most natural thing in the world for two men to be in Highgate Cemetery this early in the morning, bleeding from sabre wounds.

The intruder leapt on to the saddle of the bicycle and scattered the Hussar officers, who sprang back in amazement. The figure screeched to a halt in the centre of the duelling ground. All parties present stared in astonishment. Before them stood an elderly lady, with grotesque theatrical makeup, in the heavily braided fur-edged pelisse and tall busby, complete with lines and plume, of the 11
^th
Prince Albert’s Own Hussars.

‘Ah, I know you, my boy.’ She pointed an imperious finger at Clarence. ‘You’re Eddy, aren’t you? Oh, I haven’t been allowed at court for years. Your grandmother never forgave James for marrying me. But I keep abreast of court gossip, you know. “Collars and Cuffs”, eh? Yes, I see it. Besides, you’ve got your father’s poppy eyes.’

‘Madam, I don’t know from which asylum you have escaped, but I strongly suggest …’

‘Come, sir,’ one of the Hussars intervened. ‘Shouldn’t we be away?’

Reluctantly Clarence was led towards the main gates and the hill where the carriages awaited. As he left, Onslow shook hands with Lestrade. ‘If you ever tire of the Force, sir, we’d be proud to have you in the Tenth Hussars.’

Constance wrapped the Donegal around Lestrade’s shoulders, dabbing the blood from his mouth and chin. Her eyes were wet and hot. ‘Your colour, my lady.’ Lestrade managed an uncharacteristic flamboyant flourish, removing the scarf.

‘Come on, you need help,’ announced the old Hussar lady. ‘You, young man,’ this to Bandicoot, ‘take my bicycle and go on ahead. I’ve a private retreat nearby at the top of the hill. It’s called Quorn. Tell them to prepare a room …’ she glanced at Constance, ‘for two.’

There were silent protests all round, but between them the ladies helped Lestrade, dizzy from loss of blood, to the gate. Dew walked paces behind, anxiously peering through the lightening day for signs of coppers on their beat. To meet a constable in the pursuit of his duty would have been singularly unfortunate.

Lestrade fell into a fitful sleep. His head throbbed, his arm hurt, his nose was indescribable. But he had survived a duel and fell asleep holding the hand of a woman who had certainly become very important to him. It was not until he awoke that he began to take stock of the situation. The room in which he lay was pleasant enough, typically upper-middle-class, hung with mementoes of an earlier age. From somewhere he heard a clock strike – four. The blinds were drawn but it was daylight outside. Four in the afternoon. God, he was on duty in an hour. Time he roused himself.

‘Sholto.’ Constance swept noiselessly into the room. ‘You shouldn’t be getting up yet, dearest.’ Lestrade realised the wisdom of her remark when he sat upright. His left arm was very stiff and his nose felt as if it reached the far wall.

‘What time is it?’ he asked.

‘Just gone four. Shall I ring for tea? Lady Cardigan’s staff are most obliging.’

‘Cardigan? Oh, I see. That accounts for the uniform.’

‘Yes, my dear. I’ve talked a great deal with her in the last three days. Ever since her husband, the seventh Earl, died, she has worn his uniform when in public. It somehow eases the pain of his going. Oh, he had a full life and she knew only too well that he was not exactly faithful, but they were fond in their own way. She took up bicycling a few years ago. She bicycles everywhere.’ Constance chuckled. ‘Even, it seems, around the colonnade in Highgate Cemetery.’

‘Two days?’ Lestrade stood up and immediately wished he hadn’t. ‘Good God, woman, have I been here for two days?’

‘Calm yourself, Sholto. I am not used to being referred to as “woman”, especially by a man I hardly know.’ She was smiling tauntingly at him.

‘I’m sorry, Constance. Good God, woman, here I am in my combinations at four o’clock in the afternoon and here you are, a recently widowed lady, in the house of a mad old eccentric, who …’

‘That’s less than kind, Sholto. Lady Cardigan is certainly eccentric, but she has placed her London home and its staff completely at our disposal. She has returned to Deene, her country home. She finds London a frightful bore now the season has ended. Anyway, I didn’t know you were such a prude. This is 1891, you know. I have heard the new decade will be known as the “naughty nineties”. Wouldn’t you like to be just a little bit naughty with me?’

‘Madam, you miss my point. I fought the duel on the morning of Saturday the sixteenth. What day is it today?’

‘Tuesday the nineteenth.’

‘Exactly. I have missed one turn of duty and am about to miss a second.’

‘Bandicoot has reported you down with influenza, dearest. There’s a lot of it about. No one will query your absence. Aren’t you allowed to be ill in the Metropolitan Police?’

‘In H Division, now.’ Lestrade sat back heavily on the bed. He was beaten, he realised that. The thought of a cab or train ride to his lodgings and then to a pile of paperwork at the Yard did not appeal. Still less did applying his mind to the
Struwwelpeter
case. And before him, in the semi-darkness of the room sat the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He looked at her smiling face, warm and soft. He reached out his good arm and ran his fingers round the smooth curve of her cheek. She pressed her head into the palm of his hand and kissed the fingers. Lestrade took her head with both hands and kissed her forehead lightly.

‘I’m not going to break, Sholto,’ she said and their lips found each others’ in the darkness. It was not the most romantic love-making on record. Sholto Lestrade had never been a ladies’ man, until now. He was no novice, of course, but was certainly a little rusty and most of his muscles had been put to the test too recently for this to be easy for him. Constance was of course no virgin, but despite her outward forwardness, she was still a woman of her times and the new decade was still too new to sweep away the time-honoured traditions of a lifetime.