Lestrade and the devils.., p.10
Lestrade and the Devil's Own, page 10
The wall went blank.
‘Is that it?’ shouted Lestrade.
‘Of course.’ The cameraman unshuttered his equipment and began to rewind the spool. ‘At zat moment I stopped filming and rushed to do what I could.’
‘Which was?’ Lestrade asked.
‘Nothing,’ Lartique admitted.
Lestrade threw his hands in the air. It was rather a Gallic gesture for a man who had never been further East than Lowestoft. ‘Did you see Miss Davison taken away?’
‘Oui.’
‘By a doctor, name of Cole.’
Lartique shrugged. ‘I do not know ’is name. I only know ’e drove a Mephisto.’
‘A what?’
‘A Mephisto Fiat. One of ze finest racing cars in ze world, Monsieur Le Strade. I know. I ’ave driven one. She ’andles like a woman, soft, receptive, melting ...’
A silence had descended on the basement and Lartique cleared his throat, slightly disconcerted by the look on the faces of Tait and Lyall.
‘Of course,’ he went on, ‘in ze ’ands of Lancia ’imself, ze car is unbeatable.’
‘And Miss Davison was driven off in this car?’ Lestrade checked.
‘Oui.’
‘Mephisto,’ Tait suddenly said. ‘What does that mean, Mr Lartique?’
‘Mean?’ the Frenchman’s voice echoed inside the tube of his cinematograph machine as he blew out the dust. ‘It means ze devil, Constable. Mephistopheles is ze devil ’imself.’
THE OFFICES OF MESSRS Constable were in Orange Street, a few doors down from that little shop where Mr Churchill, the gun expert, sold twelve bores to the gentry, when he wasn’t helping Scotland Yard with their inquiries.
An enchanting little filly sat at the counter on the morning Lestrade arrived. ‘Mr Somerset Maugham?’
‘No,’ Lestrade told her. ‘My name is Lestrade. I’m here to see Mr Allardyce.’
The enchanting filly rummaged through her desk diary. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she trilled. ‘I don’t appear to have you down. Was it Crocheting for Profit and Pleasure or The Role of Wallpaper in Napoleon’s Career you submitted?’
‘Neither, I’m afraid,’ Lestrade said. ‘I’m from Scotland Yard.’
‘Ah.’ The filly picked up the business end of a speaking tube. ‘That’ll be I Caught Crippen. You’re using the pen name “Chief Inspector Dew”. Crafty.’
Lestrade was about to protest that he’d never take Walter Dew’s name in vain when the filly waved her hand and shouted into the tube, ‘Mr Allardyce? Mr Dew is here for you, sir ... Mr Dew ... Chief Inspector ... Scotland Yard.’ She smiled at Lestrade, then half turned her back and spoke sotto voce into the mouthpiece. ‘You know, that ghastly tosh about catching Crippen ...’
But Lestrade had placed a hand over the tube. ‘Which floor?’ he asked.
The filly looked horrified. Obviously, she’d been less than discreet. ‘Um ... third ...’ she said. ‘But you can’t ...’
But Lestrade had. He bounded up the stairs two at a time while in the filly’s view, then slowed down to a more sedate one at a time on the turn of the stairs. Allardyce’s office was straight ahead.
‘On his way up?’ he heard the editor say as the door crashed back. Allardyce stared at him, the mouthpiece still in his hand. He seemed to subside. ‘Jessica, my pet,’ he hissed into the tube. ‘This is Superintendent Lestrade, not Chief Inspector Dew. Remind me to fire you at the next possible opportunity ... What?’ Lestrade saw a guilty smirk appear on Allardyce’s face. ‘Oh, all right, then. But don’t forget the clotted cream.’ And he put the tube down. ‘Mr Lestrade.’ He stood up and extended a hand. ‘Good to see you again. Coffee?’
‘Thank you, no.’ Lestrade accepted the proffered chair.
‘You don’t mind if I do?’ Allardyce busied himself with a steaming machine behind him that gurgled and gasped like a retired general. ‘It’s been a bitch of a morning, frankly. See that?’
He waved in the direction of a pile of papers on his desk. Lestrade saw it.
‘Anthony Hope’s latest. Return to Zenda, it’s called. Well, it’s not a patch on the first. Even Rupert of Hentzau was all right, but this one ... Hopeless, I’m afraid. But you didn’t come to listen to the whinges of an editor, I feel sure.’
‘The car,’ Lestrade said. ‘The car involved in the hit-and-run at Hyde Park Corner. I never asked you the make.’
‘The make?’ Allardyce frowned.
‘Unless you don’t know one car from another ...’
‘Oh, but I do. I even do a spot of driving myself. Drove at Brooklands, once ...’
‘Brooklands,’ Lestrade repeated.
‘It’s a racecourse in Surrey,’ Allardyce told him.
‘I know,’ Lestrade said. ‘It’s just that it’s a name that’s cropping up a lot lately.’
‘Well, the car, I’m pretty sure, was a Mephisto. Quite an unusual one to find touring London in a pea-souper.’
‘Why?’ Lestrade asked.
‘Well, it’s a racing jalopy, Mr Lestrade. Designed by the Italians to cope with hill-climbs and hairpin bends. Do you know, it does nought to thirty in four point eight minutes?’
‘Get away!’ Lestrade was impressed. Many was the hour he’d had to coax his Lanchester out of the stable. Only the previous year he’d gone to his doctor with cranker’s elbow.
‘But all this is in the report I gave to the constable,’ Allardyce told him, stretching out with his feet on the desk.
‘Indeed.’ Lestrade nodded. ‘Tell me about the constable.’
‘The constable? Well, let me see. He was ... middle-aged. Standard height – for a policeman, I mean. Letter F on his collar. Took notes very fast, I remember. I was impressed.’
‘Yes,’ Lestrade said. ‘Those letters on his collar bother me.’
‘Oh?’ Allardyce raised an eyebrow. ‘Why?’
‘F Division is in Paddington. Your constable was patrolling in A Division’s manor.’
‘Well, I didn’t ask him what Division he was in. He was asking all the questions. He did tell me his name, though.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Smith. Alexander Smith. Tell me, Mr Lestrade, was there something odd about this policeman? Something I should know?’
‘When I know it, Mr Allardyce,’ the superintendent said, ‘rest assured I shall tell you ...’
But Lestrade wasn’t telling Allardyce anything. There was no Alexander Smith in F Division.
A shrill whistle shattered the morning. ‘Yes, Jessica?’ Allardyce had picked up the tube. ‘When? Who? John Adams? Never heard of him. Oh, all right. Yes. Yes.’ He reached across Hope’s tome. ‘Yes, here it is. When did he leave it? Well, he may have insisted, but you really mustn’t let any Tom, Dick or Harry into my office, you know. Yes.’ His sharp tone had left him. ‘All right, yes. Thursday. Oh, and don’t forget the fly whisk.’ And he put the mouthpiece back.
He held up another pile of paper. ‘Unsolicited,’ he said. ‘Yet again. I do wish these people wouldn’t just leave things like this. What’s wrong with a letter, a synopsis?’
Lestrade commiserated with the man. Even so, he thought an operation was going a bit far. He saw himself out and at the bottom of the stairs, Jessica was purring into the mouthpiece again, discussing all kinds of kitchen utensils and their uses.
THE LIGHT BURNED BLUE late at the Yard that night. The glow of sunset had died away and Sholto Lestrade sat in his creaking office chair while detectives lit lamps around him and pens scratched on paper.
‘They’re tied up,’ Lestrade said to Blevvins for the umpteenth time that night. ‘Don’t ask me how, but they’re connected. Worsthorne Griffin dies of a heart attack after receiving a card with the number 14 on it – the same number as on the king’s horse at the Derby. That horse killed Emily Davison. And the dying woman was carried away by a doctor in a Mephisto racing car, the same make of car that ploughed into Robert Peel at Hyde Park Corner. Are we chasing shadows, Sergeant?’
There was a snore from the corner. ‘Blevvins!’ Lestrade snapped.
‘Uh? Oh, sorry, guv. Dozed off a bit there, I’m afraid. You were saying?’
Lestrade threw his cigar butt into his empty cup. ‘I was saying, go home, Blevvins. And don’t talk to any strange women.’
‘Oh, righto, guv.’ And Blevvins reached for his hat. He nearly collided on his way out of the office with a world-weary Inspector Kane, boater in hand, breath in fist. They mumbled to each other as implacable foes do and Kane plonked himself down on Lestrade’s second-hand Chesterfield.
‘Sorry, guv,’ he said. ‘You don’t mind, do you? It’s been a long day.’
‘It has that, John,’ the superintendent agreed. ‘Knocking off?’
‘Well, I would,’ the inspector said. ‘But something’s come up.’
‘Not your number, I hope.’ Lestrade smiled. ‘I’m chasing numbers myself at the moment.’
‘Does the name Thomas Allardyce mean anything to you?’
‘Allardyce? Yes. He’s a witness to that hit-and-run back in the pea-souper in January. Why?’
‘When did you see him last?’
‘When?’ Lestrade fished for his half hunter. ‘Er ... twelve hours ago, give or take. Why do you ask?’
‘He’s in the London Free,’ Kane told him. ‘Acute poisoning.’
‘What?’ Lestrade sat upright, suddenly aware that John Kane was looking at him intently.
‘Can you be exact, guv?’ the inspector asked him. ‘About the time you left him, I mean?’
‘Er ... no.’ Lestrade tried to think. ‘No, not exactly. It was gone eleven, I think. I was with him ... what ... twenty minutes, I suppose. How did you get involved?’
‘Call from C Division. Sam Weatherley.’
‘“Buck-passer” Weatherley? Is he still trying it on?’
‘Said he wasn’t “up” on poisons. Wondered if HQ could help. He got through to the policeman’s policeman, who got through to me.’
Lestrade shrugged. ‘Yes, that’s the chain of command, all right.’ He nodded. ‘So how is Allardyce?’
‘Well, he’s stable now, but it was touch and go this afternoon. Constable contacted us. A distraught woman on the other end of the line.’
‘Jessica,’ Lestrade said.
‘That’s the one.’ Kane nodded. ‘She seemed very solicitous. Nice to find such loyal employees.’
‘Yes,’ Lestrade said. ‘Although I think you’ll find she’s at her most loyal on Thursdays in the company of clotted cream and a fly whisk.’
‘Good God!’ Kane said.
‘I know.’ Lestrade raised his hands in the air. ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to. Temptation is a wicked thing, isn’t it? I’m just glad we haven’t got any women on the staff here.’
‘Ah, you haven’t heard about Mrs Robley-Brown, then?’ Kane looked almost apologetic.
‘No.’ Lestrade raised an eyebrow. ‘But I’ve a feeling I’m going to.’
‘She’s one of a group of women raised by Miss Nina Boyle who seems convinced that girls crying “rape” are being mishandled by male officers.’
‘I suspect what narks Miss Boyle,’ Lestrade observed, ‘is that they are being handled at all.’
‘Quite,’ Kane agreed. ‘Anyway, Mrs Robley-Brown patrols up and down Shaftesbury Avenue in a uniform of her own design.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, it’s pink. Lots of tulle.’
‘Subtle, at least.’ Lestrade nodded. ‘Why is Shaftesbury Avenue so lucky?’
‘Well, apparently, Mrs Robley-Brown takes luncheon at the Trocadero and tea at Pattinson’s Patisserie. That sort of shapes her manor. And the length of her shift.’
‘God save us!’ Lestrade sighed. ‘So the solicitous secretary called the law?’
‘She did,’ Kane said. ‘As soon as Allardyce collapsed, she was on the blower,’
‘You’ve talked to Allardyce?’
‘He wasn’t very coherent. Rambling a little. In and out, if you know what I mean.’
‘What were his symptoms?’
‘Stomach pains. Slow pulse, the doctor said.’
‘Colour of vomit?’
‘Green as grass,’ Kane told him.
‘Hmm.’ Lestrade nodded. ‘Digitalis would be my guess. The purple foxglove.’
‘Well.’ Kane sighed, rubbing his burning eyes. ‘No shortage of that in Orange Street of a Tuesday morning.’
‘Try the coffee,’ Lestrade suggested.
‘What?’
‘You haven’t been to his office?’
‘Haven’t had time.’
‘Well, do it tomorrow, John, when you’ve had a few hours’ kip. He’s got one of these new Cona coffee machines. Give the glass bit to the boffins on the fourth floor. If it hasn’t been washed out, I think you’ll find the odd tincture of Digitalis purpurea at the bottom.’
‘So, what are we saying?’ Kane asked his boss. ‘That the coffee makers of Brazil are careless in their bean-picking?’
Lestrade thought for a moment. ‘Tom Allardyce was a witness to a murder, John,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t think Brazil has anything to do with it. Unless, of course, our man is mad.’
‘Mad, guv?’
‘Don’t you know your Charley’s Aunt? That’s where the nuts come from.’
MR MIDDLEMASS OF TWININGS was co-operation itself. By lunchtime the next day, John Kane knew all about the medicinal properties of coffee, vouchsafed by the great Arab physician Avicenna. He knew that Anthony Sherley introduced the drink to London and that beans cost £5 an ounce. And back in 1621, that was no trifling amount. John Evelyn, having little better to do at Oxford than write his diary, Volume One, met a Greek called Nathaniel Conopios who drank the stuff regularly. No, Mr Middlemass assured the inspector, it never contained extract of foxglove and was utterly harmless. In fact, the caffeine that coffee contained was enervating and nourishing and, in Mr Middlemass’s experience, did wonders for the cuticles. Messrs Twinings delivered coffee and tea to Messrs Constable on a regular basis and had never had any complaints. Mr Middlemass was certain that whatever had incommoded Mr Allardyce, it was not Twinings’s coffee.
But it was. John Kane was a good copper. Years at the knees of Frank Froest and Fred Wensley and Sholto Lestrade – the big three as they were known in those days – had not been wasted. Kane leaned, in the time-honoured tradition, on the boffin on the fourth floor and he came up with the findings that Allardyce’s coffee machine, lifted from Allardyce’s office only that morning, did indeed contain traces of digitalis.
‘Who made his coffee?’ Kane’s dark eyes burned intensely into the blank face of the poisoned man’s secretary.
‘I did,’ she said, her moist lip quivering slightly.
‘How?’ Kane asked her.
‘Well, I put the paper in and sprinkled the coffee on to it. Tom ... Mr Allardyce ... likes his coffee black, so I added another spoonful.’
‘And this is how you always made it?’
‘Yes. Ever since Mr Allardyce had the machine installed. It’s an American idea. Apparently, it’s all the rage in Chicago and on Wall Street.’
‘Wall Street?’ Kane repeated.
‘That’s in New York.’ Jessica showed off her encyclopaedic knowledge of the Atlas. ‘Littlejohn and Robin use it all the time.’
‘They do?’
‘Yes. They’re our American outlet, experimenting with a floppy-covered book they call a paperback. It’ll never catch on, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Kane agreed. ‘What time did you make Mr Allardyce’s coffee?’
‘Ten o’clock,’ Jessica remembered. ‘As he arrived.’
‘He arrived at ten every day?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Except Fridays.’ And she blushed suddenly, crimson to her hair roots.
‘You made the coffee as usual.’ Kane ignored it. ‘Nothing different?’
‘No. I told you ...’
‘I know you did. It’s just that this time, Miss Fry, there were traces of digitalis in it. Poison.’
‘Oh, no.’ Her hand rose to her lips. ‘That’s not possible.’
‘Really? You called the police. You must have had reason to suppose ...’
‘I called everybody.’ She sobbed quietly. ‘The police, the ambulance, the fire brigade. I ... panicked, I’m afraid.’ And the tears welled up and burst out into uncontrollable floods. John Kane, it has to be said, was a sucker for a pretty woman in trouble. He whisked out his extra-large mansize hanky, the spotless one he kept just for such moments, and patted Jessica’s shoulder while she blew into it with the volume and finesse of a Clyde tanker.
‘I have a confession to make,’ she sniffed.
‘Oh?’ Kane stopped his patting.
‘Tom and I ... well, we are something of an item,’ she told him.
‘Really?’
‘Of course, only on Thursdays.’
‘Of course.’ He nodded. Such omniscient patience had he learned from the great Lestrade himself.
‘Mrs Allardyce goes Quantity Surveying on Thursdays.’
‘Quantity Surveying?’ Kane’s eyes narrowed.
‘At the Polytechnic. That leaves Tom and me alone in Hammersmith.’
Which sounded like a fate worse than death to Kane, but he didn’t like to say so. ‘Do I assume that Mrs Allardyce is not aware of this situation?’
‘Oh, God, no.’ Jessica shuddered. ‘She thinks Tom is in the local Cribbage Club. Oh, Inspector.’ She leaned towards him. ‘I’d never do anything to hurt dear Tom. He’s the sole reason I came to work for Constable – apart from the fact that they’re marvellous employers, of course. Until today, the future looked so bright; the future was Orange Street.’
