The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade Read Online Free PDF Page A

so many of them – Peters, that is, not toes. It was not after all so common a name. He was disappointed not to find anything tangible in the follow-ups. Eight of the Peters were dead, three of them were in jail. Two were abroad and likely to remain so and of the remaining eleven, no links could be established with Shanklin, Isle of Wight or the disappearance of a middle-aged man in a labourer’s smock. At least Lestrade now knew that the smock denoted Norfolk, but enquiries by telegram and telephone to the chief constable of that county achieved nothing – partly because the chief constable did not have a telephone. But there were no reports of a missing person answering to the description of what was once the man in the Chine. Several cats of course were listed and one rather nasty salamander, but no farm labourers; indeed, no people at all.
    Lestrade was about to conclude that an unidentified man whose name may or may not have been Peter, who may or may not have had association with the 13 th Hussars, had met his end by foul play by person or persons unknown, when a letter arrived by second delivery. It was a mourning letter, black-edged and the message was typed. Lestrade read it just once to realise its import –
    Just look at him! There he stands,
    With his nasty hair and hands.
    See! His nails are never cut;
    They are grim’d and black as soot;
    And the sloven, I declare,
    Never once has combed his hair.
    The postmark was London and it was addressed to ‘Inspector Lestrade, Scotland Yard.’ The inspector looked again at the doggerel. Home-made? Yes, he surmised so. He wished he knew rather more about poetry but the crammer he had been to had not thought it necessary and most of his colleagues at the Yard – Gregson, Athelney Jones, even McNaghten – found poetry and poets faintly limp and unmanly. The typescript was odd – slightly uneven with a decided kick on the letter ‘n’ so it stood a little way below the line. He had always thought there must be a way of detecting a faulty typewriter, but he was damned if he could see how.
    He remembered again the Ripper letters. Two of them he knew were genuine. Nearly two hundred were from cranks, oddities who crawled from the woodwork whenever murder walked abroad. But these two had carried inside information. And so did this verse; the hair alone had been mentioned in the local papers and the case – for such it had become – did not reach all the dailies. Only the coroner’s report, that of Sergeant Bush of the Hampshire Constabulary and Lestrade’s own carried full information. There was the possibility of a leak, mused Lestrade, as he painfully took the lift to the ground floor. Perhaps someone in the coroner’s office – that spotty lad Spilsbury, for instance – perhaps one of Bush’s constables. But he didn’t think so. In his heart of hearts he knew that this letter had been written, and the verse composed, by the murderer.
    Well, so be it. This was 1891 and this was Scotland Yard – the foremost police headquarters in the world. This was Britain, the workshop of the world. Forensic science was at his disposal. Here, in the gloomy basement festooned with pipes of gas and water, here were the most brilliant men of science that Europe could boast. If they could not find clues in the letter, no one could.
    ‘Fingerprints?’ repeated the boffin as he stared at the outstretched letter in Lestrade’s carefully poised fingertips. ‘What are they?’

Ball of Lightning
    Lord Frederick Hurstmonceux lay on the billiard table in the gaming room. His normally immaculate hunting coat was thrown back in tatters, his shirt lacerated and congealed with blood, as were his hands and face. He had been dead for some six hours when Lestrade arrived, at McNaghten’s personal request. The house, an extravagant Palladian monstrosity nestling in a curve of the downs, was still and silent. After the shaking and rattling of the Daimler Wagonette horseless carriage,