The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade by M J Trow

my outer office you will find a constable. Ask him to show you how. And then, when you’ve made me a cup, I’ll show you what a filing cabinet looks like and we’ll start some
real
police work.’
    Bandicoot was about to go, when Lestrade caught his arm. His stare down the corridor caused the younger man to freeze as well. An ample young woman in electric blue was bustling towards them. Lestrade flattened himself against the wall, then raced for the window and the fire escape.
    ‘Bandicoot,’ he hissed as he was departing, ‘convince Miss McNaghten with that Etonian charm of yours that I am away on a case for a few days, and I’ll make you the most famous detective in London.’
    It was the beginning of the season and London was already full of weasel-eyed Mamas and blushing daughters; gauche, flat-footed youths and lecherous old men. After the severe winter that had passed, the fashionable areas of Belgravia and Mayfair came alive again in the endless round of balls and soirees. But this season was even more colourful than the last, for a new celebrity had arrived – the ex-slave Atlanta Washington. The press reported his every move. He had been made an honorary member of White’s and Crockford’s, had stayed at Sandringham with the Prince and Princess of Wales and was rumoured to be having an affair with all three of the Duchess of Blessington’s daughters as well as the Duchess herself. He was not without his critics, however, for there were many who shared their white American contemporaries’ views that an ‘uppity nigger’ had no place in polite white folks’ society. Washington revelled in the limelight. He wrote equally offensive replies to the offensive letters in
The Times
, and when spat upon in the street, proceeded to horsewhip the culprits in full view of lookers-on and at least four Metropolitan policemen, apparently cowed by the prospect of a wealthy, educated coon. When they at last moved in, Washington accompanied them willingly enough – in fact, led the way – to Cannon Row Police Station where he was bound over to keep the peace. Three men in particular hounded him – the three men whom Lestrade was called in to see in Battersea Park on a Wednesday morning early in June. The three men had two things in common – they were all dead and they were all covered from head to foot in black paint.
    Their identity did not become apparent until the paint had been removed, and long before their cold corpses had been laid out for final examination by the Scotland Yard surgeon, their families were screaming out for revenge, or if that could not be arranged, justice. McNaghten was being pressurised from above. All three men came from eminently respectable families. Every effort must be made, no stone must be left unturned, etc. etc.. Lestrade had heard it all before, but he needed no exhortations. He had received no letter as yet but he didn’t need to wait. This was precisely the sort of bizarre behaviour he had come to expect. It was another in the series, all right, and the body count had now reached six.
    ‘Asphyxiation was certainly the cause of death, Lestrade,’ the surgeon told him. ‘These men had the pores of their skin filled with paint and it was that which killed them. Lungs alone won’t do it. The skin must breathe too.’
    ‘How long would it take?’
    ‘Hours, days possibly. You can see the marks on their ankles and wrists where they were tied. Ghastly way to go.’
    ‘They weren’t killed in Battersea Park, then?’
    ‘Oh, no. They were placed there, but they died somewhere else.’
    Once again, Lestrade had his means. He lacked any notion of those other essentials of the detective’s art – opportunity and motive. He looked at the names of his victims on his desk. Their families and friends would run into hundreds. It was time to despatch constables, but constables had notoriously flat feet and lacked finesse. He could give Dew and Bandicoot the basics, but the serious