Murder At Deviation Junction (24 page)

    'It's
the bloody sleeper,' I said. 'The bugger's off to Scotland.'

    I
ought to have guessed. What other ticket would have set someone back two quid?
The man was approaching Platform One, coat swinging as he strode behind the tea
wagon, feet splayed wide.

    I looked
at Bowman.

    'The
missus is not expecting you to go off on a jaunt, I suppose?'

    He
made no reply, but adjusted his specs in a nervous fashion.

    We
followed the man to Platform One; there was no ticket checker at the barrier
but we were delayed by the people ahead - a party of a dozen or so, struggling
with trunks and portmanteaus. When we stepped on to the platform, our quarry
was gone from sight.

    'Well,
he's got to be on the train,' I said. 'You get us two seats and I'll walk
along.'

    Bowman
was standing forlorn next to the little tank engine that had drawn in the rake
of carriages, and was now continuing to simmer, pumping out the steam-heat for
the carriages.

    'Maybe
he'll get off at Trent,' he said.

    Trent
was the first stop of the sleeper, not more than a hundred miles from London.

    The
first carriage was the dining car: there were only railway chefs in there,
making their preparations. We climbed up into the next carriage - an ordinary
Third Class marked, like most, for Edinburgh - and Bowman took a seat in an
empty compartment. Telling him I'd return once I'd located our man, I carried
on down the corridor.

    I did
not see the man in that carriage, so I walked on, pushing through the press of
people boarding the train, gazing in at the compartments and trying to look
like an interested tripper rather than a policeman. All were either Firsts or
Thirds, for the
Midland
had dropped Second. Most of the passengers would
sleep sitting down; there was only one carriage with bunks. It was First Class,
and I came to it next. My footfalls were muffled, the red carpet being thick,
hotel-like. A man stood in the open door of one of the sleeper berths, smoking
in shirtsleeves. Inside, on the red blanket of the bed, his things were all a
jumble - but it was an expensive jumble. He eyed me narrowly as I went past, as
if to say, 'You're never First, clear off out of it.'

    I
approached the final two carriages with a fast-beating heart. Here, the labels
pasted on the windows read 'Inverness'—a fresh engine would carry them to that
far northern point from Edinburgh. I began walking slowly along the corridors
of these, which were not bustling like those of the others.

    He
was there—in the last compartment of the last carriage. Nobody stranger would
be joining him in there, I thought. He took up the best part of two seats, with
stout legs spread wide, and yellow socks bristling. As before, he seemed to
gaze at vacancy, with head tilted upwards. For all his size, he seemed to live
on air. There was no food or drink with him, and he carried no bag. It was
seven hundred miles to Inverness. Would he sit like that all the way?

    I had
just stepped beyond his compartment when a bang and a violent jolt sent me
stumbling against the window. Righting myself, I stepped down once again, and
saw that the train's engine had coupled on at the 'down' end, and an assisting
engine was backing on to that. We would be double-headed to Edinburgh. The
first of the two blew off steam as the second one hit, and the great white
column was like a flag of distress. Snow flew about beyond the engines, beyond
the platform glass, as if it too was in distress; but the line ahead was
evidently clear.

    I
looked again at the engines. Two 4-4-0 compounds they were, fitted with both
high- and low-pressure cylinders for fuel economy and better torque. They were
handsome too: the 'Crimson Ramblers' to the Midland men. I saw the fireman of
the first working the injector with what seemed like a look of fury, but when
he saw me watching, he gave a grin. He wouldn't go all the way to

    Edinburgh.
There'd be an engine change at Leeds or thereabouts.

    I
walked back along the platform, glancing quickly into the last compartment. The
man sat there as before, looking ahead. He didn't
have
to go as far as
Inverness; he might have favoured that carriage simply because it was the
emptiest. He was a very independent unit.

    'Don't
tell me,' said Bowman, when I re-entered our compartment. 'Inverness.'

    'Bang
on,' I said, sitting down.

    'It's
the law of sod,' said Bowman. 'And I'm sure he'd go further north if he could -
just out of pure spite.'

    'He
might well be doing,' I said. 'Inverness is the connection for the Highlands,
don't forget.'

    'He's
Scots, I suppose,' sighed Bowman. 'Something about those bloody socks of his
should have told me that.'

    'I
can't see any Scottish connection in the whole business,' I said. 'I mean, Paul
Peters wasn't Scottish, was he?'

    'Londoner,'
said Bowman, shaking his head. 'Born in some tedious spot like - I don't know -
Pinner.'

    Bowman
had moved into the corridor, and was leaning out of the window, looking along
the platform.

    'Where's
the dammed tea wagon?' he was saying.

    'I'll
fetch you a tea,' I said. 'I'm just off to the telegraph office.'

    'You've
called my bluff,' he said, turning around and almost smiling. 'I'm after a
bottle of red, to be perfectly honest.'

    There
were fifteen minutes before departure. I jumped down next to a gang of porters
who were all pasting labels on trunks and jabbering about the weather. The tea
wagon was rolling up, so Bowman would have his wine.

    I
strode over to the telegraph office, where I took up a form and joined the
queue. While queuing I wrote 'HAVE PROCEEDED TO SCOTLAND', but when my turn
came for the clerk I realised that was ridiculous, so I changed it to 'GONE TO
SCOTLAND'. I was going to add something, but the clerk was agitating for the
form, and there were half a dozen people behind me so I handed it over as it
was, together with the fee of one and six.

    
I
climbed up into the Third Class Edinburgh car
again, and
Bowman said,
'Sent the wire?'

    'Aye.'

    'What
did you put?'

    'Gone
to Scotland,' I said.

    'Little
peremptory,' he said. 'That was to your wife, I suppose,' he said after a
space. 'Did you not telegraph your governor?'

    I
shook my head - but now that he'd mentioned it, I started fretting about whether
I ought to have. Bowman had at last removed his hat, and he was now unbuttoning
his topcoat. There was a certain delay in his movements, which told me to look
about for a bottle of wine, and I spied it on the compartment floor, just below
the window, with two glasses alongside and nearly half of the stuff already
gone.

    'You
didn't get any grub?' I said.

    'Dinner
baskets available at Derby, apparently,' he said. 'And there's always the
restaurant car.'

    'I
didn't cable the office,' I said, sitting down opposite Bowman. 'The fact is
that I'm in bother with my governors. They haven't given me leave to be here.'

    'Well...'
said Bowman.

    He
seemed embarrassed for me; but then he was always red.

    'My
aim is to go back with the mystery of the Travelling Club solved,' I said. 'I
must bring the killers to light. Nothing else will serve.'

    Bowman
took a long drink of wine, and then sat forward in a curious, hunched way,
looking down at his boots, face flaming.

    'Of
course, it's odds on I will fail,' I added, 'and then I'll be on the stones.'

    'Where
does your office
think
you are?' asked Bowman, looking up.

    'Well,
since things aren't running on so smoothly for me just now, I daresay they
think I've just - you know, bolted.'

    I thought
of the high brick wall at York, the word 'Workhouse' running along it.

    The
doors began to slam shut all along the train. On the platform, a new army of
porters stood back from the carriages alongside a barrow piled with mailbags.
They were waiting for the next train to come in. As far as they were concerned,
we were ghosts, already gone.

    At
six-thirty on the button, the bell rang piercingly; our carriage seemed to lean
towards the buffer stops for a moment, and then we swung forwards and we were
off, gliding out from under the glass and into the snow.

    Bowman
sipped wine as we watched the house-backs roll away in the darkness, and we
kept silence until Leagrave. I stood up as we drummed through that station.

    'I'm
off up front again,' I said. 'It's best we keep on the nose.'

    I
walked along. The narrow corridors were full of bustle: people talking,
smoking, making ready for dinner, all full of Christmas plans. I did not walk
quite as far as the last compartment of the last carriage, but stopped short of
it so that I could just see the right side of the lower half of the man. I saw
his right leg - the orange boots and yellow socks. It was quite still, but his
right hand was moving. The hand was bringing something out of his coat pocket.
He placed the object on the seat to his right, and reached out quickly to pull
down the compartment blinds.

    It
was a revolver that had been in the man's hand.

    The
jollity of the corridors seemed very strange as I returned to our compartment -
where Bowman slept. He had a look of concentration. The wine bottle, one inch
remaining, was placed in the corner of the compartment, steadied by his coat. I
sat down opposite, and watched him. Presently, he began to groan, and I
imagined all the men in Wimbledon doing that every night, trapped in their neat
red houses.

    It
was just as well that he slept. I did not need to tell him about the gun until
Inverness, where matters would have to come to a head. No, that was quite
wrong. I ought to warn him earlier, for we would be joining the man in the
Inverness carriage at Edinburgh, and so moving within shooting range.

    We
did not stop at Derby. It was a beautiful, bright station, but it spun away
from us at a great rate. I finished off the wine as we raced on. I was ravenous
by now, and I thought about the restaurant car. It seemed odd to have an
appetite when I knew that there was a bullet waiting for me at the far end of
the train.

    The
restaurant car was all life, though; full of chatter and the clanking of the
pots in the narrow kitchen. I stood by the door, reading the menu of dinner.
Ten bob, it cost. Mock turtle, halibut and so on. 'Passengers are earnestly
requested not to pay any money without a bill,' I read. Well, chance would be a
fine thing. The waiter skirted past me twice, but said not a word. At busy
times like this, you had to be a First Class ticket holder to get a look-in.

    I
returned to the compartment to find the ticket inspector - and Bowman paying
his fare: single to Inverness. I did not try it on with the warrant card, but
just paid over the coin. I took a return: four pounds and five bloody
shillings. I would get it back, I supposed, if I ran the killer, or killers, to
earth.

    When
the ticket inspector had gone, Bowman took his glasses off and looked at me,
but his eyes were not up to the job without specs.

    He looked
towards the window, saying, 'It seems tempting fate to buy a return.'

    I
made no answer, but thought of the gun. What was Bowman looking at without
benefit of his specs? The scene beyond the window was a blur to begin with. He
put them on again after five minutes, but only in order to go to sleep again.

    We
were at Trent for nine forty-two, and Bowman slept on. It was a gloomy place,
with smuts floating under the gas lamps and a loud crashing out of sight. On
the other hand, three tea wagons stood waiting for us. I pulled down the
window, and a pageboy dragged his trolley up. I had it in mind to buy one of
the five- shilling baskets. I asked what was in them and the kid shrugged,
saying, 'Pot luck.' Then it seemed that his conscience got at him, for he
added, 'Chicken or beef.'