Lestrade and the devils.., p.18
Lestrade and the Devil's Own, page 18
‘Oh, nothing.’ Morant tapped his chauffeur on the shoulder. ‘Dynamite, Toussaint, please. One stick should be enough. Bally stuff costs an arm and a leg. Do you have a light, Lestrade?’
‘Er ...’ It was with some alarm that Lestrade found himself reaching for the Swan Vestas. Morant held out the lethal weapon to him.
‘Would you be so kind? Oh, I’ve no time for the London Scottish personally, but, well, play the white man – oh, sorry, Toussaint – they are on our team – aren’t they, Toussaint?’
‘Yes, massa,’ the Negro assured him. ‘They sure are.’
‘Umm ...’ Lestrade thought he ought to comment.
But in a sense it was too late. He’d mechanically struck the match and Morant had lit the fuse. Now he sat there with the thing fizzing and hissing in his hand. ‘No,’ he said, calmly watching the manoeuvres below the ridge. ‘This has all the hallmarks of Alaric Bligh.’
‘It does?’ Lestrade found himself squirming, just a little.
‘Yes. You see, I should explain, Lestrade, that Alaric and I go back a long way.’
‘You do?’ Funny, isn’t it, how your collar seems much too tight in the presence of dynamite?
‘Yes. Comrades, I suppose you’d call us.’
‘He ... er ... he’s in the Devil’s Own?’
‘Bligh? Good Lord, no. Too busy making money. Or attempting to. No, no, that’s unfair.’
‘Is it? Look, Mr Morant. Shouldn’t you do something with that?’
‘What? Oh, this.’ Morant chuckled. ‘Yes, of course, when the time is right.’
The fuse had burned half-way down.
‘In the rightness of time stakes,’ Lestrade felt his voice rising, ‘I’d say this is it.’
‘No, never underestimate Bligh. He’d cut your throat for a penny.’
‘That’s ... er ... that’s more or less what he said about you.’
‘Yes.’ Morant smiled. ‘I guessed it would be. So he sent you here, did he?’
‘I really think ...’ Lestrade began to wonder what sort of madhouse he’d stumbled into. The huge black chauffeur didn’t move, just stared ahead watching the unfolding battle. There were bugle calls away to the North, Harry’s North Somerset on the move again. But the only sound Lestrade could hear was the hiss of the dynamite fuse. And soon, even that was drowned out by the rising thunder of his own heart.
‘Another bottle, I think, Toussaint.’ Morant yawned. ‘The Special Reserve.’
‘Yes, massa.’ The Negro smiled, his teeth like piano keys and he solemnly trudged to the back to open the hamper again.
‘Mr Morant ...’ Lestrade was shrieking now, unsure whether to grab the dynamite or leap out of the car or both. Morant suddenly stood up and hurled the stick. It tumbled through the clear cobalt of the sky, trailing smoke and sparks. Lestrade doubled up, no mean feat for a man who had already stared sixty in the face, and his moustache said hello again to his knees, his hands wrapped over his head. There was an almighty explosion and the Delaunay rocked.
‘Man, that’s mighty strong stuff!’ Toussaint stood there with champagne froth trickling over his fingers, the cork lost in the Middlesex heathland. A shower of dust settled over them all, but the day had been saved. The London Scottish broke and ran for cover and the London Irish, alarmed by the noise, fired wildly in all directions. Lestrade had never seen so many Irishmen exposing themselves simultaneously before.
‘A result, I think.’ Morant beamed and raised the glass Toussaint had poured. ‘Back to HQ, please, Toussaint. It wouldn’t do to achieve more than one military miracle in one day. Your very good health, Mr Lestrade.’
And Lestrade downed the champagne in one.
SHOLTO LESTRADE HAD never had a dream like it. It seemed as though he was in the centre of wildly flickering candles and writhing black bodies gyrated past him to the frenzied beat of tom-toms. Eyes rolled, teeth gnashed and a naked girl, her breasts slippery with oil or sweat, lowered herself on to him. He was getting too old for dreams like that.
All the more alarming, then, that when he woke up, it was to stare into the face of one of the oddest-looking men he’d ever seen. The features were flat and broad, the eyes large and compelling. The hair was centre-parted and curled up over the ears like the devil’s horns. But the devil wore his collar back to front.
‘Aarghh!’ Lestrade realized it was his voice shrieking.
‘It’s all right, it’s all right.’ The priest’s hands were holding him by the shoulders. ‘You’ve had rather a nasty experience.’
‘Have I?’ Lestrade wondered. The face and the room were swimming and blurring in front of him. He was in his underwear, lying on a couch.
‘You’re safe,’ the priest said. ‘Do you know who you are?’
Lestrade blinked. What a bloody silly question. ‘Of course. I’m Superintendent Sholto Lestrade of Scotland Yard.’
‘Thank the Lord.’ The priest sighed. ‘Then we’re not too late.’
‘Too late for what?’ Lestrade tried to sit up, but his head rebelled, and the room reeled.
‘Take this.’ The priest was pressing a steaming cup into Lestrade’s hand.
‘What is it?’
‘Never mind,’ his nurse told him. ‘It will do you good.’
‘Look, Mr ... er ... oh, my God!’ Lestrade had never tasted anything so foul in his life.
‘Summers,’ the priest said. ‘Montague Alphonsus Joseph-Mary Augustus. But you can call me Monty.’
‘Oh, good,’ Lestrade gasped. ‘What is that?’
‘Better you don’t know,’ Summers assured him, putting the cup with its steaming green contents aside. ‘Now, tell me, Superintendent Sholto Lestrade, the last thing you remember.’
‘Look, Mr Summers ...’
‘Monty ...’
‘Monty. Do you mind telling me where I am?’
‘The Retreat,’ Summers said, leaning back in his chair and cradling an upraised knee (his own).
‘The Retreat?’
‘Well, it is a little pretentious, isn’t it? Actually, it’s Thirty-one Whimbrill Avenue, Stanmore, but we Anglo-Catholics do like our little bit of mystique.’
‘How did I get here?’
‘Ah, now that’s quite interesting. I found you wandering.’
‘Wandering?’
‘Stark naked except for your necessaries and your bowler hat.’
‘My knuckles?’ Lestrade said suddenly.
‘They’re fine.’ Summers patted both the patient’s hands.
‘No, not those knuckles. My brass knuckles.’
‘Ah, yes. I found those. And your warrant card. I doubt you’ll get your clothes back, though.’
‘I don’t understand ...’
‘Focus,’ Summers said patiently, clasping Lestrade’s hands between his. ‘Concentrate. Now, what is the last thing you remember?’
Lestrade frowned. His brain felt like scrambled egg, though after Summers’s concoction, his stomach didn’t. ‘I was in a motor car.’
‘Good.’ Summers nodded. ‘Do you know what type?’
‘Er ... it was black.’
‘Right. That’s good. That’s very good. Tell me, was there a black person in this car?’
‘Yes.’ The scramble was reconstituting itself. ‘Yes, there was. A black driver. Called Toussaint.’
‘Toussaint!’ Summers’s eyes were bright. ‘All the Saints. That’s excellent. Was his second name Patrick?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lestrade said. ‘I wasn’t told his second name.’
‘All right. Go on.’
‘Morant was there.’
‘Morant?’
‘Charles Morant. He’s a stockbroker.’
Summers was suddenly writing things down in a little book.
‘We were on Hounslow Heath. He had some dynamite. God, I thought he’d never get rid of it.’
‘Was there ... now, think carefully ... was there a snake?’
‘A snake?’ Lestrade was lost. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘A cockerel? Was there a white cockerel?’
‘Er ... no. Look, Mr ... Monty. What is all this about?’
Summers sighed and closed the little book. He got up and began pacing the room. As he did so, Lestrade started to take it in. It was a study, oak-panelled and lined with row upon row of leather-bound volumes. The strange-looking priest leaned against the leaded window, his squat outline black against the sunlit acacia trees outside.
‘Mr Lestrade, let me explain. I found you wandering in the early hours of this morning in just your underwear and bowler hat.’
‘Yes.’ Lestrade already knew that.
‘Your warrant card, brass knuckleduster and what I suppose are your house keys were strewn at some distance from you. Your eyes were rolling as though you were suffering from grand mal and you were foaming at the mouth.’
‘My God!’ Lestrade sat bolt upright, whatever the cost to his throbbing head. ‘Rabies!’
‘No, no. Nothing so permanent, thank God. The effects were caused by a certain chemical compound. What you have just drunk – what I have been giving you to drink ever since I found you, every hour, on the hour – will have neutralized all that. But you were lucky. I have known total paralysis to ensue, even death.’
‘Then it seems I owe you my life,’ Lestrade said.
‘Well, I don’t want to over-dramatize,’ said Summers, ‘but, in essence, yes. What is perhaps more important is that I’ve saved your soul.’
‘You have?’ Lestrade wondered whether all this ballyhoo wasn’t the Anglo-Catholic equivalent of the Sally Army’s bowl of soup, tambourine and ‘Halleluya, brother!’
‘Does the name Celestina mean anything to you?’
Lestrade thought for a moment. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Baron Samedi, Baron Cemeterre, Baron Crois?’
‘No.’
‘What about Damballah Ouedo?’
Lestrade shook his head.
‘Aida Ouedo?’
‘Look, Mr Summers, I’m afraid I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Haiti, Mr Lestrade,’ Summers told him. ‘I’m talking about the island of Haiti and the hateful, nay, abominable practices that go on there. It makes transubstantiation look pretty tame, I can tell you.’
‘I’m all ears,’ Lestrade said.
Summers didn’t doubt it. ‘Voodoo, Mr Lestrade. Black magic. It’s here in the heartland of Middlesex. In sleepy middle England. You, I believe, had a brush with it last night. Let me shake your hand.’
‘What? Er ... oh, all right.’ And he felt Summers’s thumb slide between his thumb and index finger.
‘Does that feel familiar?’
‘Well, it’s similar to the Grand Lodge handshake,’ Lestrade told him. ‘Several of my colleagues ... but you don’t want to know about that.’
‘I’m not talking about Masonry, Mr Lestrade.’ Summers withdrew his hand. ‘That is the handshake of the Houngan, the Voodoo priest. It is a phallic gesture.’
Lestrade didn’t doubt it for a moment.
‘Tell me, did you dream of dancing? Of candles in the wind?’
Lestrade nodded. Suddenly, Summers grabbed his arm. ‘You didn’t dream of riding a horse backwards, did you?’ he almost shrieked.
‘Mr Summers,’ Lestrade confessed. ‘I can barely ride a horse forwards.’
‘Thank God.’ Summers clasped his hands. ‘Thank God. You see, Mr Lestrade, today is Friday.’
‘Thank God, indeed,’ said Lestrade.
‘No, no. You don’t understand. That means that yesterday was Thursday.’
Lestrade was impressed by the rapier logic of this man’s mind.
‘Urzuline’s night is Thursday.’
‘Is it?’
‘Of course. She is a sexually insatiable goddess, Mr Lestrade, and she may already have had her wicked way with you.’
‘Really?’ The black girl with the shiny body gyrated through Lestrade’s befuddled brain.
‘Five years ago, Celestina, the daughter of the President of Haiti, married a goat.’
‘As you do,’ Lestrade said.
‘That gave official credence to the diabolical practices of the Voodoo cults – and many and mighty are they. You know what a zombie is?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Lestrade told him. ‘I have one in my office at the Yard. His name is Ned Blevvins.’
‘Please, Mr Lestrade,’ the priest said solemnly. ‘No levity. If I am right in my conjecture, then the devil himself is loose among us. There have been rumours for months. Only now am I beginning to close in on their hellish abominations. They dance themselves into a frenzy, these black chappies, worshipping Damballah Ouedo, the snake god. Oh, they cover their tracks by daylight by feigning Catholic adherence to St Patrick.’ And he crossed himself. ‘He who rid Ireland of the snakes, or so it is said. But by night, they copulate with their women surrounded by a thousand candles. Your dream will not have included a white cockerel, because the ritual slaughter of that poor animal only takes place on Wednesday, Damballah’s day.’
‘A bit like Sheffield,’ Lestrade observed.
‘You may have seen – and I’m just glad you can’t remember it – the testicles being hacked off a pig or a dog. The dancers would have writhed around, naked, foaming at the mouth, with their eyes rolling, utterly under the demonic possession of the loas, the spirits of Voodoo. Then the priestess, the Mambo, would have screamed out “What is truth?” and would have exposed herself to the men. When she collapsed on the floor, a few privileged men would have been allowed to kiss her private parts.’
There was a strange look in Summers’s eyes. Lestrade had no recollection of any of that in his dream, although all his working life, of course, he had been looking for the truth. How ironic that he might have found it under cover of darkness somewhere in deepest Middlesex.
‘This man Morant.’ Summers seemed to have got a little more of a grip on himself. ‘And this man Toussaint are from Haiti?’
‘Morant has estates there,’ Lestrade told him. ‘Toussaint, I assume, was born there.’
Summers nodded. ‘Mr Lestrade. I want you to rest here until you feel strong enough. Then, I want you to use your no doubtless considerable powers of arrest. This black evil among us must be eradicated. Had they made you ride backwards on a horse, then your soul would be utterly lost. You would be a zombie. I’ve only seen one once, at a freak show when I was a boy, but the horror of it stays with me. A tall, black man with mad, staring eyes. His keeper ran red-hot needles through his flesh and he did not wince, did not flicker. The lights were on, but no one was home. I warn you, Mr Lestrade, unless we act – and quickly – the whole of Middlesex will fall prey to this evil, like an all-consuming drug that devours a people. We must crush it – or perish in the attempt.’
‘WELL, WE HAD A BIT of a bash, certainly.’ Charles Morant looked different out of uniform. The field-drab of the Devil’s Own had been replaced by a sharply cut suit of pin-striped black, the obligatory scarlet braces of the City flashing beneath it now and then as the great tycoon leaned back in his office chair. ‘I’m sorry, Lestrade, if I’d known you had an aversion to strong drink, I’d never have invited you.’
‘Strong drink?’ Lestrade queried. ‘I think there must be some misunderstanding, Mr Morant. Mr Summers here ...’
‘Father Summers,’ the priest reminded him.
‘Quite. Father Summers is accusing you of devilish practices. I believe there is still a law against witchcraft in this country.’
‘Witchcraft?’ Morant roared with laughter. ‘Come, come, Lestrade. You accepted my invitation to a post-manoeuvres party at my country house. It may have been the champagne talking, but you said – and Toussaint here will bear me out – “Lead me to the black women”.’
‘Is this true, Lestrade?’ Summers was horrified.
‘No,’ the superintendent assured him. ‘Most cataclysmally not.’
‘Well, all I could offer you was Miss Johnson from the typing pool.’
‘Miss Johnson?’ Lestrade frowned. He had no recollection.
‘Yes. You must realize, gentlemen,’ Morant explained, ‘that coloured folks at home are a little unusual. I suggested a professional lady and lots of burnt cork, but you were adamant – and rather politically incorrect, I’m afraid, when you said, “A real nigger or I’ll arrest every man Jack of you!” Well, luckily, Miss Johnson of the typing pool fitted your exacting category, being descended as she is from Gold Coast slave-stock via Moorfields, Bristol. However, as the evening wore on, you weren’t content with that, were you? “Candles!” you demanded, “and a white cockerel”. I must admit I was rather surprised at a senior officer from Scotland Yard. God forbid that the newspapers should get hold of this.’
‘You drugged my champagne,’ Lestrade insisted.
‘The Special Reserve?’ Morant raised an incredulous eyebrow. ‘Oh, come on, Lestrade. You saw me down that with you, glass for glass. Even Toussaint here had a sippette, didn’t you? Toussaint?’
‘As you say, sir.’ The chauffeur was suddenly impeccably spoken. ‘A sippette. I confess, I don’t know what my father, the Methodist minister, would make of it.’
‘Why are you talking like that?’ Lestrade rounded on him. ‘Yesterday, it was “massa” and “lordy, lordy”,’
‘That’s an appalling racist slur, Lestrade,’ Morant commented. ‘I had expected rather better of the Metropolitan Police. Gentlemen, I am fascinated by your fancy stories – what is it, Father Summers – voodoo in Middlesex? But, unfortunately, I’m afraid that these are the delusions of a sick mind – yours, Lestrade.’
The superintendent took stock of the situation. He hadn’t expected for a moment that Morant would come out and admit it, but the man was so sure, so suave in his denials, it would take a lot more than the frankly deranged Montague Summers to break him down. Here was a formidable opponent, an accomplished liar, up to his neck in money. Lestrade needed the full weight of the law. ‘You wouldn’t object,’ he said, ‘if I had a few of my lads go over your country house with a fine-tooth comb?’
