Brigade: The Further Adventures of Inspector Lestrade (17 page)

‘The fifties?’ The adjutant stroked his chin. He rang a number of items on his desk, first a paperweight, then a bronze statuette and finally a bell. The orderly reappeared.

‘Corporal, get me Ledger E5/21a, could you?’

‘Er …’ the corporal began.

‘Oh, God, it’s green with gold letters, eighteenth from the end, top shelf.’ The corporal left.

‘Why they give me secretarial staff who can’t read, I’ll never know. Cigar?’ and Davenport offered Lestrade a pencil.

‘No, thanks, I find the lead doesn’t agree with me.’

The corporal returned, miraculously, with the relevant book, and the adjutant began flicking through the pages. Perhaps it’s in Braille, thought Lestrade.

‘Yes, this is the one. May eighteen-fifty to January eighteen-sixty. You should find what you want in there.’

And Lestrade did. John Douglas, Lieutenant-Colonel, Lieutenant Alexander Dunn, with a pencilled VC alongside. But what really interested him was F Troop – Lamb, Bentley, Towers, Brown, Hope, they were all there. So were others, many others. He scribbled down the other names on a notepad.

‘Did all these serve in the Crimea?’ That, he reasoned, must be the link.

‘Those with a “C” by their name,’ said Davenport. That cut down the field a little.

‘Do you have any way of knowing whether these are still alive?’ asked Lestrade.

‘God, no,’ replied the adjutant. ‘Some of them would have been getting a pension. You’d have to go to the War Office for that.’

And the War Office meant London, where Lestrade would be recognised, checks made, verification in triplicate, and so on. Here in Canterbury a man on the run could still be reasonably safe. He needed the resources of the Yard, above all, its miles of shoe leather for this. And that was precisely where Charlo came in. A sudden thought occurred to him.

‘Will you be offended if I make an observation?’ he asked.

‘My dear fellow …’ said Davenport, obviously inviting him to feel free.

‘I couldn’t help noticing you were a little … er … short-sighted.’

Davenport bridled slightly. ‘I wouldn’t have said so,’ he said, petulantly.

‘Well, anyway, I was wondering if you had a spare pair of spectacles. I need them for another case I’m working on.’

‘A spectacle case?’ – the adjutant wished he hadn’t said it – ‘Well, yes, I have actually. For close work, you understand. But how could a pair of specs possibly help?’

‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to tell you that, sir.’ It was the sort of phrase Athelney Jones might use, but Lestrade wondered how long he might be at liberty at all.

‘Very well,’ said Davenport. ‘But I will get them back, won’t I? Could you sign here for them?’

Lestrade signed the bus ticket Davenport nudged towards him.

‘And here?’

And he likewise signed the serviette. ‘And finally here.’

The space on the desk between the blotter and ink stand accordingly received Jones’s signature. Davenport handed Lestrade a pair of spectacles the inspector assumed had been made from the bottoms of bottles.

‘Let me see you to the door,’ said Davenport.

‘No thanks, I can manage,’ said Lestrade and tripped head-long over the wolfhound, which merely raised its head.

‘Perhaps you ought to put those on, old chap!’ chuckled Davenport. Lestrade smiled weakly and left, Charlo coughing again in his wake.

Lestrade sent a telegram to Mrs Manchester that day from Canterbury.
Stay with friends. Stop. Police watching house. Stop. Trust me. Stop. Sholto. Stop.
Then he shaved off his beloved moustache, combed his hair in the centre and travelled to London. Money was running out. So was time. It was September 26th, the date, Charlo had told him, of his hearing, but he would not be there. He was alarmed to find his face staring back at him from the front page of the
Police Gazette
. But it wasn’t a very good likeness and with the changes he had wrought and particularly wearing Davenport’s glasses, he ought to be all right. Just keep away from police stations and don’t accept sweets from strangers.

He and Charlo parted company at Waterloo. It was not fair to the sergeant to be in Lestrade’s company in London. After all, he had been expressly ordered to break with the man. His very career was at stake.

‘I can’t order you to do this, Hector,’ said Lestrade. ‘I can’t really even ask it …’

‘Don’t worry, sir. I won’t be far away,’ and the sergeant wrapped his muffler against the September winds and was lost in the crowd.

‘Inspector Jones?’ asked the old lady in the wheelchair.

‘Miss Nightingale.’ Lestrade shook the limp, outstretched hand.

‘I don’t get many visits from Scotland Yard. How can I help you?’

‘The Crimea, ma’am.’

‘Ah, yes,’ she smiled. ‘Always the Crimea. Sometimes, Inspector, I can see it still. Even after all these years, the hospital at Scutari. The dirt. The smell. You know, we found a dead horse blocking the drains! And the men, boys, many of them. I still see their faces, too. That’s the worst of it.’

‘In particular, I wanted to know if you remembered any names. Joe Towers?’

Nothing.

And nothing for the others who had died.

‘What about Henry Hope?’ Lestrade ventured, since it was he who had mentioned Miss Nightingale in the first place.

‘Oh, yes, now I do remember him. A simple, passionate Welshman. He had
petit mal
, I believe. He was with us for two months or so, that would have been the spring of ‘fifty-five.’

‘When he was under your care, particularly when he was delirious, did he say anything … odd?’

‘When men are delirious, Inspector, they often say odd things. I … can’t recall anything particular about Hope.’

‘What about the regimental surgeons, ma’am, of the Eleventh Hussars, I mean?’

‘Regimental surgeons were our greatest obstacle in the Crimea, Inspector Jones. I don’t hold with the new feminism of today, but by Jove we needed it in the fifties. What could I, a mere woman, they used to say, know about medicine? How could I help when they could not? It was war and war was bloody. There was no changing that. The Eleventh, no, I don’t suppose they were any better or worse than the others. Most regimental surgeons stayed with their regiments. One or two of them crossed to Scutari.’

‘The regiment’s records do not appear to show all their names,’ said Lestrade.

‘Ah, Inspector. Something else I learned about men, army men that is, is that then, medical men, chaplains, veterinary officers, all were regarded as inferior. I do remember one surgeon of the Eleventh come to mention it, Henry Wilkin. He was a good doctor, but he longed to be a fighting officer. Regiments didn’t even give their surgeon a horse, or a military burial. I have always found that sad. That a man who made passing as easy as he could for a soldier should be denied full membership, as it were, when his turn came.’

‘Do you remember other surgeons, ma’am? Perhaps one whose name begins with the letters C-r-o?’

‘C-r-o? Why, yes, I believe you must be referring to John Crosse. And he’s not far from us here. For several years now he has been the medical officer at the Royal Military Asylum, Chelsea.’

The Rabbi Izzlebit took rooms in Sussex Gardens. He shuffled as he walked, head bent down, as though to peer over the thick-lensed glasses that he wore. He was visiting London from York, or so he told the landlord and anyone else who cared to ask. His black coat was shabby in the extreme and his greasy black ringlets hung sparsely over his hunched shoulders. On the first full day of his stay, he took an omnibus and train to Croydon, to Sanderstead Road, where he knocked vigorously on the door of Number 20.

The burly ex-policeman was not pleased to see him. ‘Look, I don’t want to be unpleasant,’ he said, ‘but I don’t give money away to charities, least of all yours.’

‘But charity begins at home, Beastie, my dear,’ lisped the rabbi.

‘Who are you?’ Beastie demanded.

‘Sholto Lestrade, you idiot. Let me in, for the love of Allah. Or am I mixing my religions?’

Safe inside the portals of Number 20, Lestrade took off the broad-brimmed hat and ringlet wig and peeled off the false beard and moustache. Over a steaming and welcome plate of tripe and onions, Lestrade told Beeson all – or nearly all – that had occurred since Joe Towers had lain on the very table off which they now ate.

‘I heard you was on the run, sir. I couldn’t believe it. What’s going on?’

‘I wish I knew,’ said Lestrade. ‘Gregson’s always been a fanatic, but I can’t understand Frost backing him this way. I’d got him down for a shrewder man.’

‘What happens now?’ Beeson asked.

‘We work our way through the list. All the members of F Troop. I want to know everything about them. Right down to their inside legs.’

‘I don’t know, sir. It’s been forty years.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were with this outfit in the first place?’ Lestrade asked him.

‘I told you I’d known Joe Towers in the army. I didn’t think it was relevant beyond that. Anyway, sir, how did you think I got the name Beastie?’

‘Your surname, I always supposed.’

‘Nah,’ the ex-sergeant of police drawled. ‘I transferred to the Twelfth Lancers after the Crimea. Did a spell in India. “Bhisti” is the Hindoo name for a water-carrier. God knows why it stuck to me, but it did.’

‘All right. This is what we’ve got. The officers …’

‘I didn’t know them all, sir. You just didn’t talk to officers in them days. I don’t suppose you do now.’

‘I’ve got a sergeant named Charlo from the Yard still willing to speak to me. He got access to the War Office. He waited until lunch-hour, nobody much about, then claimed to be anxious to trace a missing relative. It worked a charm, really. God knows what secrets he might be able to uncover just for the asking. Makes you realise why Gregson is so insane. National security, and all that. Anyway, he came up with a few deaths. There’s no way of telling now whether they were natural or odd. Here goes,’ Lestrade read off the list, crossing out the deceased as he went, ‘Captain Edwin Adolphus Cook, died eighteen seventy-two. Lieutenant Alexander Dunn. Yes, well, I know about him. Died eighteen sixty-eight. Lieutenant Edward Harnett. I didn’t know he was in F Troop. Still alive. He’s helped on the case already. Lieutenant Roger Palmer. Remember him?’

‘Yes, Jowett saved his life in the Charge. Fair man, if I remember right, but you must remember I was only in F Troop for a few weeks.’

‘At the time of the Charge?’

‘No, I was in D Troop then. What’s the importance of F Troop?’

‘If I knew that, Beastie, I’d have our man. Palmer is a lieutenant-general now apparently. He’s got more property than you’ve made arrests – Ireland, Wales, Berkshire. I’d need time and the Yard behind me even to track him down. Lieutenant Harrington Trevelyan. Retired. Now residing in Fresno, California.’

‘Where’s that, sir?’

‘West of Pimlico, I think you’ll find, sergeant. Ah, now that’s interesting.’

‘Pimlico?’

‘No. “Poppy” isn’t here. No mention of Vansittart, so either he wasn’t with F Troop or he didn’t ride the Charge.’

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘Which?’

‘Both. He was in my troop and if I remember, he was at Scutari at the time.’

‘Scutari?’ Links were forging themselves in Lestrade’s addled brain.

‘The hospital base, sir. On the Black Sea.’

‘Yes, yes. I know. A little east of Pimlico. Was Miss Nightingale there then?’

‘I believe so, sir, towards the end of Lieutenant Vansittart’s time. He retired soon after, I believe.’

‘Funny she didn’t mention him. Still, I didn’t ask her directly.’

‘Funny he never married.’

Lestrade had heard that statement somewhere before.

‘Ah, now, two surgeons with F Troop. Henry Wilkin. He rode the Charge.’

‘Yes, sir, he did. He left the medical service the year after Balaclava. Always wanted to be a serving soldier.’

‘He died two years ago.’

‘Brave man. Should have got a VC in Hindia.’

‘Do you remember John Crosse?’

‘Not really, sir; except he runs the fund now.’

‘Fund?’

‘Yes, sir, for the survivors of the Light Brigade.’

‘Beastie, what a mine of information you are. How much is this fund? Who puts up the money?’

‘Well, I don’t rightly know, sir, except that Dr Crosse administers it.’

‘Have you ever had cause to claim, Beastie?’

Lestrade had touched the old man’s pride. ‘Love you no, sir. I’d crawl in the gutter first. I’ve never taken charity in my life. Too old to start now.’

Lestrade was racing ahead. ‘Don’t you see, Beastie? Money. Money gives us a motive. The first one I’ve got, anyway. Surgeon Crosse merits a visit. Let’s go on. Sergeant-Major George Loy Smith.’

‘Bastard, he was. Tough old soldier. Joe went in mortal fear of him, I remember.’

‘From what I’ve heard, you all did. He died in Bart’s, what … five years ago.’

‘Serves him right. I’ve never liked beefeaters.’

‘Is that what he became?’

‘Yers.’ Beeson spat his tobacco quid in the grate. ‘I seen him once at the Tower when I were on duty. Told me to push off or he’d knock my helmet off with his halberd. He never forgave or forgot anything; his sort never do.’

And so they worked on through the list of the dead, wringing Beeson’s memory for all it was worth on the living. It was dark when they had finished.

‘What do you think then, sir?’

‘We’ve got somebody who knows poisons. That points to a surgeon. If it’s somebody in F Troop, my money is on Crosse. He also holds sums of money, perhaps considerable sums. How he gains financially from the murders, I don’t know – yet. We’ve got somebody who can travel easily around the country, apparently at will. That points to someone with private means or at least no regular employment. But the fact that this somebody can get close to Mrs Lawrenson, slip her poisoned tobacco. Can also get unnoticed into a lighthouse from a foreign ship. Can wander around a country estate and smear poison on bramble hedges. We might just have a —’

‘A master of disguise,’ Beeson broke in. ‘I remember reading a story in the Strand Magazine about this man —’