Lestrade and the Giant Rat of Sumatra by M. J. Trow

Author:M. J. Trow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BLKDOG Publishing
Published: 2022-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter

Thirteen

M

en died bringing Cleopatra’s Needle to London. The thing was cursed, they said. What idiot decided to put it up on the Thames embankment? Lestrade cursed it now, although he had walked past the thing times without number. The great basalt sphinxes guarded it, as perhaps older ones had in Alexandria all those years ago, and they stared under the stars tonight at the hieroglyphics cut into the stone.

There were still cabs rattling along the river at that hour, but the pavement was surprisingly empty and a half moon shone down on the coiled bronze fishes that entwined the gas lamps there. The superintendent looked up-river to where the mother of parliaments slumbered, its Gothic outline black against the purple of the night. He looked down-river, beyond Waterloo Bridge, where the Thames rolled past the mightiest docks in the world. He could see spars like a seaborne forest in the distance, masts and smokestacks and bobbing lights. Some poor bastards of the River Police would be out there somewhere, looking for contraband and fishing suicides out of the drink.

Then he saw him. A man of medium height and medium build. What had he said to Bang and Olufsen? Didn’t chummy always look like that? And wasn’t that why he was so bloody hard to catch? He was coming from the north-east, following the river from the direction of the City and he had a homberg pulled low over his face and a muffler around his head, for all that this was August and the greatest heatwave since Records Began. Lestrade eased himself against the Needle’s base, snug against the cool stone, with the paws of the Sphinx nudging his left elbow. And he waited.

What happened next was a blur of speed. Lestrade grabbed the stranger’s muffler, hauling it back hard so that it acted as a ligature around his throat. He jerked backwards as the homberg flew off and the struggling stranger made a gurgling sound. In a second, Lestrade’s blade was glinting in the half-moon and gaslight and a wide-eyed man was staring death in the face.

‘No need for all that, Mr Lestrade, I assure you.’

Lestrade frowned and let go, spinning the man round to face him. ‘Mr Whelan,’ he said. ‘What the Hell are you doing here?’

Whelan coughed to get his throat muscles working again and hauled off the muffler, looking vaguely around for his hat. ‘I promised I wouldn’t tell a soul about this,’ he said. ‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t turn up. A journalist journs, Superintendent. I couldn’t let it lie.’

‘You might just have ended Chief Inspector Dew’s life,’ Lestrade snapped. ‘Now, bugger off!’

‘You might need a witness,’ Whelan was persistent; Lestrade had to give him that. The editor tried to change the subject, to divert the man until the real contact arrived. ‘Did you know,’ he said, jerking his head in the direction of the Needle, ‘there’s a copy of the Graphic in there? Along with nine other newspapers.’

‘Fascinating.’ Lestrade had slid his knife and knuckles away and was looking up and down the Embankment again.

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