Brigade: The Further Adventures of Inspector Lestrade by M. J. Trow Page A

Lestrade of Scotland Yard. I must speak with you on an urgent matter of the gravest importance.’
    The doctor pulled away, shaken. He recovered himself. ‘See him over there.’ He pointed to an old man staring at the ceiling, his fingers endlessly fiddling with his sheets. ‘He thinks he’s Nero. And I of course am Florence Nightingale. This one can chop wood with his right hand. There’s obviously nothing wrong with that. Only his mind and his thumb need attention. Wood chopping tomorrow!’ he barked at an accompanying warder. ‘Let him sleep here tonight,’ and he swept away. Lestrade’s silent protestations as he craned out of bed were met with a swift tap from the burly woman, who had miraculously reappeared at his bedside. ‘No broth for you tonight, me lad. Grabbin’ the doctor like that, indeed! Who do you think you are?’
    ‘Napoleon Buonaparte,’ said Lestrade and sank down in discomfort and despair into his bed.
    Most of the night was spent fighting off the advances of an old cottage loaf who would not take no for an answer. In the end, Lestrade brought his knee up rather sharply into the old man’s groin, which cooled his ardour more than somewhat – and probably made him sing in a rather higher key. Nero in the meantime was composing odes of indescribable nonsense and the night would have been funny had it not been so unutterably sad. An inspector of Scotland Yard, Lestrade kept telling himself, had seen it all before. Remember that, keep your identity and this madhouse won’t get you. An inspector of Scotland Yard. Remember …. Or was it Napoleon Buonaparte?
    The dawn saw Lestrade standing with the others, huddled against the driving rain. God, did it never stop raining in Manchester? Beyond the limits of the city, mused Lestrade, in the airy uplands of Failsworth and Stalybridge (he had studied the whole area on a map) the sun shone out in splendour, but the smoke of the Cottonopolis and the gleam of the cotton masters’ brass conspired to reflect it back and keep it out of inner Manchester. Or perhaps even the yards of the House of Industry. Perhaps even beyond those high, grey walls, the world was turning still.
    A whistle signalled a break in work. The woodcutters stopped. But this was no rest period. Even without his half-hunter, Lestrade kept his sense of time. The bells never missed. It was not rest period for an hour or more. The gates of the yard opened to admit a Visiting Pair of Dignitaries. A good-looking lady, perhaps thirty or so, swept in, in a flourish of velvets and silks. The sweetness of her perfume flooded the air of sweat and sawdust. From nowhere, little workhouse children, the friendless boys and girls, scampered to her. She bent to them, kissing them, distributing sweets and liquorice.
    ‘That’s Mrs Lawrenson,’ came the whispered answer to Lestrade’s query. ‘She comes twice a year to give us baccy and the kids sweets. She brings pins and combs for the womenfolk.’
    ‘That’s charitable of her,’ Lestrade commented.
    ‘You don’t often get that. I was in the workhouse at Kensington a year or two back.’
    Lestrade thought he recognised the south-London drawl.
    ‘Bloody Miss Louisa Twining stoppin’ our porter. Bloody do-gooder. This un’s all right, though. Knows how to treat a man proper, she does.’
    ‘Aye,’ whispered another. ‘I wouldn’t mind changing my place with that Dandy Jack of hers. I bet she’s a real hot ’un between the sheets.’
    ‘Just remember,’ the Londoner broke into verse:
    ‘The paupers is meek and lowly,
    With their “Thankee kindly, mum”‘s;
    So long as they fill their stomachs,
    What matter it whence it comes?’
    ‘Is that Mr Lawrenson?’ Lestrade asked, though he couldn’t see the gentleman with her very clearly.
    ‘Dunno,’ said the Londoner. ‘Fancy done up though, ain’t ’e?’
    ‘Nay,’ the Mancunian spat a gob into the sawdust. ‘I seen ’im when they came last Christmas. Introduced to us,