The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade (11 page)

Bandicoot thought hard. ‘I think you must be confusing him with Scipio Africanus, sir. He was one.’

‘Who are the other Agrippas?’

‘Herods I and II – as in the New Testament. Puppet kings of Judaea allowed to rule in name only by Roman order.’

Lestrade rubbed his eyes and lolled back in his chair. He was getting nowhere.

‘Why do you ask, sir?’

Lestrade looked at him. No harm, he thought, in showing the letter to Bandicoot. Perhaps his literate brain, naive and fumbling policeman though he was, might shed some light on the poetry.

‘Oh,
that
Agrippa!’ Bandicoot chuckled.

Lestrade sat bolt upright. ‘What do you mean, “
that
Agrippa”?’

‘Well, I didn’t realise it was a joke, Inspector.’

‘It’s no joke, Bandicoot, I can assure you. Are you telling me you know this poem?’

‘Yes, of course. Don’t you?’

Lestrade looked like a man whose prayers had been answered. ‘Dew!’ he roared. ‘Fetch us a pot of tea. And toast. Bandicoot, have a cigar. You’ve earned that at least. We could be here for some time.’

The Widow

‘It comes from a series of, well, I suppose you’d call them cautionary tales for children, sir. As a boy, Nanny was always reading them to me. I grew up with them. I thought everybody did.’

‘We didn’t all have your advantages, Bandicoot.’ Lestrade felt himself sounding more like Mr Keir Hardie every time he opened his mouth.

‘It’s called
Struwwelpeter
, written by a doctor-chappie to amuse his little patients, I believe.’

‘Strew what?’ asked Lestrade.

‘
Struwwelpeter
. I suppose … er … German wasn’t really my strong point, but I seem to remember it was written as
Shock-headed Peter
in the English version.’

Lestrade’s jaw dropped. ‘The man in the Chine,’ he murmured.

‘Sir?’

Lestrade unlocked the confidential file in his bureau drawer. He threw the letters down on the table. ‘I have received one of these after each murder. Do they all come from
Shock-headed Peter
?’

Bandicoot perused them. After a while, he said, ‘Yes.
Shock-headed Peter
all right, but they seem shorter. Bits must have been omitted.’

‘Examples?’

‘Oh, Inspector, I haven’t read these for years, but, look, in this first one for example, the last line or so has gone. You’ve got –

‘Then it goes something like this –

Lestrade remembered the awful spectacle of the corpse in the Chine and wholeheartedly agreed with that sentiment.

‘Anything else?’

Bandicoot thought again. He was getting into his stride now. ‘Yes, this second one refers to a verse called “Cruel Frederick”. He whips a Mary, sister, nurse, whatever she is and of course he doesn’t actually die in the poem. I assume all these letters refer to murders.’

‘Correct – to date six of them.’

‘Well, I can see the picture now – the dog Tray ends up sitting at the table with a napkin on, eating Frederick’s pies and puddings.’

Lestrade wandered around the room, swigging from the inelegant cup.

‘With the Harriet story,’ Bandicoot went on, ‘I seem to remember great play about the girl’s pet cats and nothing being left in her pile of ashes but her scarlet shoes. Presumably the murderer couldn’t arrange it quite as neatly as that – to fit the rhymes exactly.’

‘Well, he hasn’t done a bad job so far. The Wemyss family were crawling with cats.’

‘This last one is called “The story of the Inky Boys” – black-baiting. Agrippa is a sort of magician who champions the coon’s cause and dips the baiters in a huge pot of ink.’

‘Or Aspinall’s black enamel,’ chimed in Lestrade.

‘It isn’t clear from the poem whether they die or not of course. But the picture with it, I believe, indicates that they don’t.’

Lestrade stopped pacing. He put his cup down and lowered himself on to his elbows on the desk next to Bandicoot. ‘How many more cautionary tales are there?’ he asked.

‘Lord, I don’t know, sir. A few. I don’t know.’

Lestrade snapped into action. ‘All right, Bandicoot, get to a booksellers, to the British Museum, wherever you have to, but get a copy of that book. It’s a perfect text for the murders so far. Our friend isn’t likely to deviate now. That’s why he didn’t include the lines about Shock Headed Peter after his first murder. It would have tipped me off too early. Chances are he doesn’t think we’ve got him yet, but we have. I’m giving this to McNaghten, it might take the pressure off us all … Oh, and Bandicoot, before you go.’

‘Sir?’

‘Well done. We’ll make a policeman of you yet.’

While Lestrade was briefing McNaghten about the advances he had made, making as little as possible of Bandicoot’s role in it all and while Bandicoot himself was hunting purposefully through the Westminster book shops, Albert Mauleverer lay dead in the well below Guy’s Cliffe. A labourer found the body by chance and alerted Warwickshire police. They had no clues, no evidence, no motive and no suspect. And it was only by some chance some days later that Lestrade happened to see a tiny piece on the
Police Gazette
. ‘Body found in well. Gunshot wounds.’ By now, he had the book in his possession.
Struwwelpeter by Dr Heinrich Hoffmann, Pretty Stories and Funny Pictures
, published 1845. Immediately he recognised the hallmarks of the ‘Story of the Man that went out Shooting’. He read it again as he sped north on the morning train. In the poem, a hare did it. Having stolen the Man’s spectacles and gun, while he is asleep, the hare shoots him when he has fallen into a well. Once again, the result in the poem is not murder, and there was various nonsense about the Man’s wife drinking coffee nearby and the hare’s child being splashed by it. But Lestrade knew only too well by now that none of this was nonsense. Some maniac was grimly acting out these cautionary tales, as meticulously as possible. But who? And why? There were just not enough answers. One thing and one thing only could be formulated about the murderer- he was damnably clever. And another thing – he was still, despite Lestrade’s possession of the book, one step ahead.

Lestrade booked in first at the Clarendon Hotel at the top of the Parade. He had walked from the station, but felt the time well spent in that he had the opportunity to study the spa town of Leamington for the first time. Very like Cheltenham, he thought to himself, but when you’ve seen one spa, presumably you’ve seen them all. The wide streets, the leafy avenues, the opulent extravagance of shop fronts and offices, all bore testimony to the wealth and stability of the middle classes of the provinces. Lestrade was glad to change into his lightweight suit and he fancied the sun was strong enough for his Cambridge boater, a little battered around the brim though it was.

At the police station, however, they were less than helpful. A portly sergeant eyed Lestrade from head to toe before offering him the use of a station cab. Lestrade took a constable with him and they drove to the morgue. This corpse was less bizarre than the last few, but no less grisly. The right side of the head was that of a man of middle age, greying hair and heavy features. The left side of the head was not there at all – merely a mass of dark congealed blood with pieces of whitish bone visible. Lestrade had seen such wounds before, but unfortunately, the young constable had not and he gracefully floated to the floor as the attendant lifted the blanket. Lestrade went on checking the body and asking the attendant mechanical questions, while the constable was carried out, his helmet resting on his chest.

‘Three days ago, you say?’

‘Yes, sir. He were brought in ’ere dead as mutton. I cleaned him up a bit but apart from that ’e ’aven’t been touched. ’Ere are his glasses.’

The attendant held up a shattered pair of spectacles. Lestrade noted the green Norfolk jacket, the crumpled bloodstained deerstalker and then he examined the shotgun. Standard twelve-bore, handsome piece. One barrel discharged.

‘Is this the gun that killed him?’

‘I don’t know.’ The attendant shrugged. ‘That’s your job.’

Impervious to Lestrade’s scowl, he shuffled off, blowing hard on a pipe of vicious tobacco, his head wreathed in smoke. Lestrade looked at the wound again; point blank range, both barrels, he’d say. He went out into the sunshine and found the pale constable leaning on the station cab. He attempted to stand to attention at the inspector’s approach.

‘All right, lad. Cigar?’

The constable declined with a pathetic, faraway look on his face. Lestrade lit up, savouring the moment.

‘Who found the body?’

The constable rummaged in his pockets for his notebook. ‘Half a dozen eggs, two … Oh, sorry sir. The wife’s shopping.’

Lestrade paused in mid-puff. ‘Wife? How old are you, Constable?’

‘I shall be twenty in the autumn, sir.’

Lestrade began to feel his age. It was the beginning of the end, of course, when policemen began to look younger than you did.

‘Joseph Glover, sir. A labourer from Bubbenhall.’

‘Where?’

‘Bubbenhall, sir. It’s a village …’ the constable rummaged again and produced a map, which he laboriously unfolded on the rump of the horse, ‘… five miles from here.’

‘Near Guy’s Cliffe?’

‘Oh, no, sir.’ The constable’s concentration followed his finger again over the map. ‘Eight miles from there, sir.’

Lestrade thought aloud. ‘Now, what was a labourer doing eight miles from his village? What time of day was the body found?’

The constable referred to his notebook. ‘Approximately half past seven in the evening, sir. Saturday, July the twenty-fourth.’

‘This Glover – anything known? Try it without the notebook, Constable,’ as the young man’s head bent to the book again.

‘Well, sir,’ the mental effort was obviously crippling the constable. ‘Ploughing champion for the county three years running. One of the best hedgers I’ve seen. And he seems to eat a lot of other people’s pheasants.’

‘Right, Constable. That doesn’t exactly constitute “form” but never mind. Give me the reins. I’m getting out of practice. And you keep your wits about you; I want to get home by tomorrow.’

They found Joseph Glover lashed to a ploughing team, two massive Clydesdales, huge and gentle, plodding through the furrows. Behind their tossing heads and the dust flying as they walked, could be seen a pair of gaitered legs and the odd flash of a switch.

‘Ay up, Jewel, ay up, Dinkie.’

Lestrade crossed the furrows, the constable scrambling behind him.

‘Joseph Glover?’

The little man growled under his breath and pulled the horse up short. He unhooked the reins from his neck. ‘Who wants to know?’ The truculent little labourer came up to Lestrade’s tie-knot.

‘Inspector Lestrade, Scotland Yard.’

‘Scotland? You’re a bit far from home.’

Lestrade bent over so that their noses were touching. ‘Obstructing the police can get you five years, Glover. What would happen to your horses then?’

Glover flung himself back against the huge, glossy flank of one of them.

‘Don’t worry, Dinkie. I won’t let him take you.’

‘I’m from Scotland Yard, Glover, not the knacker’s yard.’

Another gem wasted. Only one of the Clydesdales snorted in appreciation.

Glover hitched himself to the team again and switched them into action. ‘I gotta get on,’ he growled. ‘Ploughin’ contest next week at the Abbey.’

Lestrade looked to the constable for explanation.

‘It’s nearly harvest, sir. You don’t plough at harvest time. You plough in the Spring.’

‘Is he … er … all right?’ Lestrade mouthed the words silently, nodding sideways at Glover, who chewed his grass with still more determination and annoyance, staring fixedly ahead.

‘Oh, yes, sir.’ The constable giggled. ‘Each summer there’s an agricultural fair at Stoneleigh Abbey, Lord Leigh’s estate. It was his land the body was found on.’

‘Why were you at Guy’s Cliffe on Saturday last?’ Lestrade asked Glover.

‘Sparking.’

Lestrade turned to the constable for translation.

‘Courting, sir.’

‘What was the young lady’s name?’

‘Now, look …’ Glover broke off when he caught the look in Lestrade’s eyes.

‘Do you know what a treadmill is, Glover? Do you know what it feels like treading down on those rungs, fifteen minutes on, two minutes off, six hours a day?’

‘Louisa Ellcock. Works for the folks in the big house at Guy’s Cliffe.’

‘The Mauleverers, sir.’

‘Tell me,’ said Lestrade.

‘I was on me way to visit Louisa. Promised, we are. Well, I cuts across the fields from Old Milverton Church and there he was. I seen his gun first, sort of gleaming in the evening sun.’

‘Never mind the poetry, go on.’

‘I went over and saw him. Stuffed down the well, he were. Dead.’

‘Did you hear any shots?’

‘On and off. But I’d walked near ten miles, there was lots of sportsmen about that weekend.’

‘Did you see anyone about? Acting suspiciously?’

‘That’s a bloody daft question …’ and then, softening the tone, ‘… beggin’ your pardon, of course. But I had me mind on other things. I was ’oping to do some suspicious actin’ meself in a minute. Know what I mean?’ The jab from the elbow and the wry grin fell a little sourly on Lestrade. He wanted evidence, not rural erotica.