Free The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade by M J Trow Page A

would not tell his wife – the further shock would kill her. When she had overcome her immediate need for Miss Spink, he would dispense with the woman’s services – Miss Spink’s, that was, not his wife’s. Dorothea had after all been ‘in his service’, so to speak, for too long. Miss Spink had not been vigilant. She had known Harriet’s secret and had said nothing. It was tantamount to murder. Even Lestrade fleetingly contemplated issuing a warrant as accessory, but he guessed that the governess’ conscience was sentence enough.
    The night at the Vicarage was cold and gloomy. A morbid stillness lay over the whole house. At one point, Lestrade fumbled with a lucifer to light a cigar, but he had to admit that the sudden flare of flame in the house of death seemed unfitting, blasphemous almost. He blew it out and huddled beneath the blankets, chewing the tobacco instead. The cold water in the morning and the iced coffee and cold ham did nothing to cheer or warm him. He ate alone. Even the maid came nowhere near him. He could not find his grief-stricken host to say his farewells. He trod finally on one of the cats and left.
    Dr Marsden was in mid-surgery when Lestrade found him.
    ‘Breathe in.’ The instruction was issued to an elderly gentleman stretched out corpse-like on a bed in his consulting room.
    ‘I can’t be of much help, Inspector.’ The doctor blinked at his visitor through a screen of cigar smoke. Ash dropped sporadically on to the patient’s stomach, causing him to wince somewhat. ‘Shock or first-degree burns or both were the cause of death. Oh, it’s all right,’ he coughed through the fumes, noting Lestrade’s concerned glance at the patient. ‘He’s deaf as a post. We’re quite alone.’
    ‘I was trying to draw your attention to his colour, Doctor. I believe he may have died.’
    ‘Good God.’ Marsden brought his hand down sharply on the chest of the recumbent form. ‘Breathe out, man!’
    Lestrade was relieved to hear the patient gasp and cough.
    ‘Could I ask you a delicate question, Doctor? We are, after all, men of the world. In our professions we both see humanity in all its most naked forms.’ He was rather proud of that line.
    ‘Do.’ Marsden forced the old man over so that his nose buried itself in his trousers. The look on the doctor’s face evinced surprise that the patient could do this.
    ‘Where would you say the worst burns were? Where was the point of impact of the flame?’
    ‘Bum,’ snapped the doctor.
    ‘Doctor?’ said the policeman in surprise.
    ‘No, no, I’ve lost my cigar.’ Both men peered into the hair of the old man and their eyes met above his head. ‘Ah.’ Marsden recovered it from the collar of his patient’s shirt.
    ‘It was the rectum that received the full force, I’d say. The burns on the upper torso, upper limbs and head were less severe. It must have been the inflammable material of her dress that proved her undoing.’
    ‘The rectum, then,’ repeated Lestrade, making for the door.
    ‘Bum!’ roared Marsden.
    ‘Thank you, Doctor. I am aware.’
    ‘No, no. I’ve lost my cigar again.’
    Lestrade was sitting in his office when the letter arrived. He had his feet in a bowl of hot water and a towel over his head. For three days he had lost all sense of taste and smell. For three nights he had not slept. Sir Melville McNaghten had told him to go home, but he was too busy. The ever-solicitous Miss McNaghten had sent him hot toddies and cordials. Lestrade had responded with alternate shivers and fevers. In his bed at night he felt himself consumed by the flames which in seconds had engulfed Harriet Wemyss. In the day, he felt as dead and cold as the man in the Chine.
    It was unquestionably another letter in the series he realised, as he laid the towel aside. A click of his fingers brought Constable Dew with the goose-grease. He looked at the grey slime in the cup and sent Dew away. A mourning letter – the third such he had received.