Lestrade and the Dead Man's Hand by M. J. Trow

Author:M. J. Trow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BLKDOG Publishing
Published: 2021-03-05T16:00:00+00:00

SHE TOOK THE STAIRS for safety, keeping a tight grip on the handrail that spiralled to the right. All the way down, posters told her to use Pear’s Soap and Nestlé’s Milk and Senna’s Laxative. The old advertisements gave her comfort as her heels clicked hollow on the metal treads until she reached the ground.

There was no one on the platform, but the clock told her it was 11.38. If she stood quite still she could see the huge metal hand move upwards, in uneven jerks, towards the Roman eight. Overhead, the covered walkway along which she had just trudged boasted the fact that a Remington typewriter had a longer life than certain other typewriters, and another display asked her, rather rudely she thought, whether she had tried Allsopp’s Pale Ale.

The gas lamps flickered green on the white letters of Charing Cross. The last train. Why had she left it this long? Why hadn’t she taken up his gallant offer of a lift home? A cab would have been far more sensible. Still, the newspapers were just scaremongering, weren’t they? It was obviously a ploy by Sabbatarians or somebody to keep women off the Underground. Well, it wouldn’t work. This was 1895. Women could vote in municipal elections. Some of them followed their menfolk all over the Empire, climbed mountains, made their own cream teas. She wasn’t going to be frightened by a lunatic who pounced on women travelling alone. But just in case, as the last locomotive slowed on the curve before the platform and she saw its yellow lights like eyes glowing in the dark, she remembered her mother’s advice and jammed the blunt end of her hatpin between her lips. Let anybody come near her now and they’d be in for a surprise.

She tried to find a crowded compartment, a carriage with women, children. Perhaps a clergyman? Or even a policeman? But they were empty. The whole train was empty. Still, the carriages had a communication cord. The driver could stop on a sixpence, she’d heard. She’d be all right. She chose the end carriage. She opened the door and hauled up her skirts and climbed inside. Yes, the end carriage was the safest – the one with the guard.

They found her at four the next morning. As dawn crept over the Moorish façade of Blackfriars and the cleaner shuffled down the platform with his bucket and broom, she half fell out of the end carriage – the safe one with the guard. Her hair was unpinned and her bonnet had gone. Her blouse had been ripped open and her breasts were bare. Still clamped between the blue, bloated lips was a steel hatpin of fearsome dimensions. Her skirt was hitched up to her waist and her unmentionables had been ripped aside. Her hands were clawed, the nails embedded in the leather of the seats. But it was her eyes the cleaner would never forget. Before they retired him weeks later with the shakes and an inability to sleep, he had seen those eyes watching him every waking hour of his life.

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