The Circus Train Conspiracy Read online

  ‘We know all about what you saw there.’

  ‘They travel enormous distances by rail.’

  ‘I’m happy to let them go on doing it.’

  ‘We should learn from them, Mauro.’

  ‘That’s what we did,’ said his brother. ‘When you came back, brimming with all those ideas, we were happy to try some of them. Be patient, Gianni. When we move on from Newcastle, I promise you that we’ll do so by train. Meanwhile, enjoy the wonderful sense of freedom from travelling under an open sky. Breathe in this cool, clear air.’

  Gianni lapsed into silence. Across his knees was a shotgun and at his feet was the telescope dropped by the man who’d been seen on the hill. From time to time, he used it to scan the landscape. He was frustrated. Before they left the camp, Gianni and his men scoured the area around them in an ever-widening circle. They’d failed to find anything remotely suspicious. The man on the hill was long gone. Instead of being able to continue the search, Gianni was now committed to a long, slow trudge across Northumberland. For someone who loved speed and adventure, it was an irritation.

  ‘Why can’t we go faster?’ he asked.

  ‘Think of the animals. They can’t be rushed.’

  ‘We’ll take ages at this rate.’

  ‘It’s what we always used to do as children, Gianni, and we loved it.’

  ‘That was then. We’re adults now.’

  ‘Then we should have learnt the value of pacing ourselves.’

  He tried to put a brotherly arm around him but Gianni shrugged it away.

  They were following a track that meandered gently along over bone-dry earth that was badly rutted in places. Caravans and wagons were treated to occasional lurches but the circus horses, walking in a group, had no difficulties with the surface. A copse lay ahead of the cavalcade. Moscardi led the way confidently into the trees. Overhanging branches blocked out the light temporarily but they soon emerged into sunshine once more.

  They’d gone no more than forty yards when disaster struck again. As the horses entered the copse, the bushes on one side of them suddenly burst into fire. Flames crackled and a plume of smoke went up. In a matter of seconds, there was a real blaze. It all happened so quickly and unexpectedly that people cried out in alarm and the lions went berserk in their cages. Trunk in the air, the elephant trumpeted aloud and Jacko, the monkey, squealed in terror. Because they were closest to the fire and could feel its heat, the horses became frenzied. Neighing, kicking, pulling and bucking, they snapped the reins that held them together and fled out of the trees in a mad panic. There was simply no way of stopping them. Mauro Moscardi was distraught. Some of the finest Arab horses ever seen in England were now galloping away from him.

  When he got to the main police station in Newcastle, the first person Colbeck saw was Cyrus Lill. Looking very much at ease, he was talking familiarly to the duty sergeant. As soon as he realised who’d just walked in, his tone altered in a flash. Lill became almost subservient, introducing him to the duty sergeant then gazing at him with something of the awe he’d displayed at their first meeting. Colbeck was embarrassed.

  ‘You’ve heard the news, then,’ said Lill.

  ‘I was contacted by your superintendent.’

  ‘I’ve just been told about it myself and I couldn’t be more pleased. It could very well be the breakthrough we need.’

  ‘Don’t be too optimistic,’ warned Colbeck. ‘All we have is someone who thinks he knows who the victim might be. Before I celebrate, I want to know that a positive identification has been made.’

  ‘Superintendent Finlan will be able to give us the details.’

  ‘Then I look forward to meeting him.’

  ‘I’ll show you the way, Inspector …’

  Lill took him through a door and down a corridor. Like most other police stations Colbeck had been in, the place was nondescript and purely functional with a pervasive air of bleakness. After tapping on a door, Lill opened it and conducted him into the superintendent’s office. As introductions were made, Archibald Finlan rose to his feet but offered no handshake. Colbeck was relieved to find that the man had nothing of Lill’s deference. If anything, the superintendent exuded the quiet hostility that Colbeck routinely found when called in to take over cases from a provincial constabulary.

  ‘Thank you for sending me a telegraph, Superintendent,’ said Colbeck.

  ‘I’m glad that it reached you, Inspector. You are, by report, constantly on the move. I hoped you were still at that camp.’

  ‘The camp no longer exists. Mr Moscardi decided to head for Newcastle by road. Even as we speak, he’s on his way here.’

  ‘Why not go by train?’ asked Lill.

  ‘His reluctance is understandable, I think.’

  ‘Didn’t they seek a police escort?’

  ‘The circus believes it can look after itself. Besides, I don’t think that you could spare the number required.’

  ‘That’s true,’ confirmed Finlan. ‘Our manpower is limited.’

  Resuming his seat, he sifted through some papers on his desk. Colbeck saw no resemblance whatsoever between him and Tallis. Whereas the latter was stern and military, Finlan was soft-spoken and fairly relaxed. He was a tall, pale, skinny man with a gaunt face out of which dark green eyes bulged. His lips were unusually thin.

  ‘First of all,’ he said, handing some sheets of paper to Colbeck, ‘you might care to see this. It’s the post-mortem report.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ After reading it avidly, he looked back at Finlan. ‘So she was killed by belladonna.’

  ‘If administered in the right dose, it’s fatal. We had a suicide recently where belladonna was involved.’

  ‘But it’s not the only poison used in this case. Apparently, there are traces of other elements in the compound. The killer knew how to contrive a quick death. That suggests he might conceivably have had some medical training.’ He gave the report to Lill. ‘Here you are, Inspector. It’s a much more detailed analysis than Dr Fereby was able to give us.’ His gaze shifted to the superintendent. ‘What about the victim’s identity?’

  ‘Her name is Margaret Pulver,’ said Finlan.

  ‘Can we be certain of that?’

  ‘I believe so. I’m told that the gentleman recognised her instantly when he visited the morgue.’

  ‘Is he a family member or a friend?’

  ‘He described himself as an acquaintance,’ replied the other. ‘His name is Donald Underhill and he’s spending the night at the Grand Hotel.’

  ‘That’s more than I could afford to do,’ said Lill.

  ‘I’ll get over there at once,’ said Colbeck.

  Before he could even move, however, there was a tap on the door and it opened to admit a uniformed constable with something in his hand.

  ‘This telegraph has just arrived, Superintendent,’ he said, handing it over.

  When Finlan read it, his eyes threatened to pop out of their sockets.

  ‘The circus has been attacked again,’ he said.

  The cavalcade had been sliced apart. One section of it was ahead of the copse and the other was well behind it. Those caught in the trees when the fire broke out had made a hasty exit from the area. A posse had been formed to search for the escaped horses and keepers were doing their best to calm the other animals. Most people had been stunned by the crisis but Mulryne’s reaction was immediate. Leaping from the wagon on which he’d been travelling, he’d braved the flames as he went in search of the man who’d started the fire. He was much too late. Having caused mayhem, the culprit had disappeared in the confusion. Though others eventually joined the Irishman to comb the whole area, they could find nobody. It was small consolation to them that the fire didn’t spread. Once the bushes had burnt to ashes, the blaze died out. Some of the trees were singed but none were in danger of being set alight. Evidently, the aim had been to disrupt the circus rather than destroy the copse.

  Mauro Moscardi believed that his deadly rival had struck again and vow
ed to get retribution. For the moment, however, he had to soothe everyone, form them into two separate camps and organise armed guards to patrol them. His brother, Gianni, was leading the chase after the horses, animals that were quintessential members of the circus. Having already lost one of their number, Moscardi prayed that no others were so badly injured that they had to be put down. His wife worried for their future.

  ‘A lot of our people will be afraid to move,’ she said.

  ‘They’ll do what I tell them,’ asserted her husband.

  ‘No, they won’t. Circus folk are superstitious by nature, as you well know. They’ll think that we’ll always be a target if we remain in this county. I’ve talked to some of them. They want to cut our losses and move south.’

  ‘We have to honour our commitments, Anne.’

  ‘Our major commitment is to the people and animals we employ.’

  ‘I’ll guarantee their safety.’

  ‘How can you do that, Mauro? In view of what’s happened, who will believe you? When we’re on the move like this through open country, we’d need an army to escort us.’

  ‘I’ll send scouts ahead to make sure there’s no danger.’

  ‘We can’t always sense danger,’ she said, anxiously. ‘When we drove through that copse, we had no idea that someone was lurking there to start that fire. He waited until the horses were within reach.’

  ‘That’s how we know Sam Greenwood is behind this,’ he said, bitterly. ‘He understands how important our equestrian acts are. Without them, we could only offer very meagre fare.’

  Before his wife could reply to Moscardi, they were interrupted by Mulryne.

  ‘I’ve examined those bushes,’ he said. ‘Something had been poured over them to make them catch fire so quickly. It was only a question of tossing a burning rag on to the bushes and they’d burst into flame. Inspector Colbeck needs to be told about all this.’

  ‘You can forget about him,’ said Moscardi, fiercely. ‘We don’t matter to the inspector. He’s much more interested in a dead woman than he is in us. I have to be honest, Mulryne. He may be your friend but I think the Railway Detective has betrayed us.’

  Confronted with the choice between the two cases, Colbeck now opted for the tribulations of the circus. The murder had to wait in the queue. Before he left the police station, he sent word to Donald Underhill that he would join him at the Grand Hotel later in the day. He and Lill then caught a train to Corbridge.

  ‘It gives me no satisfaction to say this,’ he confided, ‘but I did warn Mr Darlow that the circus was far more likely to be attacked than his railway. Even he won’t be able to blame this ambush on the NER.’

  ‘It’s a convenient whipping boy, sir. If he opens the curtains one morning and sees a raging blizzard outside, Mr Darlow will claim that the NER is responsible.’

  ‘What’s the likely outcome?’

  ‘Oh, I think that a merger is inevitable one day. I’ve seen articles to that effect in the newspapers. Darlow will fight against it to his last breath but, once Parliament authorises it, he’ll have to admit defeat.’

  ‘But he has friends in Parliament, surely.’

  ‘They’ll do their best to delay things.’

  ‘Politicians are masters of delaying tactics. But let’s put the fate of the NCR aside for a moment,’ suggested Colbeck. ‘Tell me about Jake Goodhart.’

  ‘I had a job finding him at first but I sniffed him out in the end.’

  ‘Did he remember you?’

  ‘Only when I prompted him,’ said Lill. ‘Most people I’ve arrested revile me. Goodhart didn’t. He accepted that I had a job to do and that was that. We had some rare tussles in the past. He fought tooth and nail. I’m glad those days are over.’

  ‘What did he have to say for himself?’

  Lill consulted his notebook and gave a detailed account of the interview. He admitted that he couldn’t see how Goodhart could possibly have been involved in the attack on the train and was ready to absolve him of any suspicion.

  ‘Then he shook my hand,’ he recalled.

  ‘That’s always a good sign in an offender.’

  ‘He yelped as if I’d just driven a spike through his palm.’

  ‘Was his hand bandaged?’

  ‘I couldn’t see because he was wearing gloves. What I do know is that he was carrying an injury. He said it was a nasty cut but it could just as easily have been a gunshot wound.’

  ‘Did that make you change your mind about him?’

  ‘It did, sir. There are three salient points to bear in mind. First, he lost his job. He blames the head porter for that and, by extension, the NCR itself. He loathes it. Second, he knows the countryside around Fourstones very well because he and his wife used to go on long walks there, before they were married. In other words, he’d have been aware of a remote place where a body could be buried without fear of discovery.’

  ‘That’s a telling point.’

  ‘Third, he’s desperately short of money and has a family to feed.’

  ‘Will he find it easy to get another job?’

  ‘No, he won’t. It will take time. What little savings he has will soon disappear. Goodhart’s children will starve. He’ll do absolutely anything to get money.’

  ‘Does that mean he’d readily break the law?’

  ‘I’m certain of it, sir.’

  Jake Goodhart always felt uncomfortable in the wealthier districts of the city. The streets were wide, the houses detached and there was a general cleanliness to which he was unaccustomed. Living in a terraced house with one room and a scullery downstairs, and two tiny bedrooms above it, he led a different kind of existence altogether. When he had a glimpse of how the middle classes lived, he was cowed by what were to him unattainable standards of luxury. Turning a corner, he crossed the street diagonally and stopped outside a house. After ringing the bell, he had to wait some time before the door was opened. Goodhart whisked off his hat and gave an ingratiating smile.

  ‘It’s me,’ he said.

  The other man looked up and down the street before issuing a command.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ said Geoffrey Enticott.

  Caleb Andrews arrived at the house in the confident expectation that he’d hear of an arrest. Instead of that, he learnt that Victor Leeming’s visit to the hotel on the previous night had been futile.

  ‘So that dreadful man is still on the loose,’ he moaned.

  ‘I’m afraid so, Father.’

  ‘What did Lydia have to say to that?’

  ‘It came as a slap in the face to her.’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘Lydia’s up in her room,’ said Madeleine. ‘I’ve tried to coax her into taking a walk with me but she refuses to leave the house.’

  They were in the nursery. When her father first arrived, Madeleine was studying her daughter intently as she attempted some portraiture. Holding out her sketch pad, she showed the result to Andrews and he pulled a face.

  ‘That’s nothing like her, Maddy.’

  ‘I know. I’m hopeless at figurative art. All I can draw are steam locomotives.’

  ‘They’re much more important than faces.’

  ‘You’re the only person who thinks so. People will pay thousands of pounds to have their portrait painted. I can’t command that sort of money for my work.’

  ‘You will one day,’ he said, patting her shoulder. ‘I was pleased to hear that Victor had had the sense to travel on the LNWR, by the way. If he went to Bristol, he’ll have done the same again. Remind me why he’s going there?’

  ‘Robert sent him to look at a circus.’

  ‘Dear God!’ exclaimed Andrews. ‘He gets paid for doing that?’

  ‘The man who owns it is a suspect in the investigation in Northumberland. Victor went to interview him.’

  ‘Robert should have done that himself, Maddy. It would’ve given him the chance to see his wife and daughter, not to mention his father-in-law.’

  ‘He kn
ows best.’

  ‘Not if he spurns the LNWR.’ When the door opened behind him, he turned to see Lydia coming into the room. ‘Good day to you!’

  ‘Hello, Mr Andrews.’

  ‘I know that you didn’t want to go for a walk with Maddy but how would you feel about a stroll with a distinguished elderly gentleman?’

  ‘That’s an invitation I’ll happily accept,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’ve just given myself a strict talking-to. Nobody should be allowed to make me go into hiding. I’ve a perfect right to walk the streets of London, if I wish.’

  ‘It’s wonderful to hear you say that, Lydia,’ said Madeleine.

  ‘It’s exactly what you’d say and do.’ She turned to the old man. ‘I’m ready when you are, Mr Andrews.’

  They left Corbridge Station in a hired trap and drove to the scene of the ambush. In the aftermath of the derailment, the circus population had quickly adapted to the situation. They’d refused to be downhearted. That spirit of resistance was not in evidence now. When Colbeck and Lill saw one of the camps set up near the copse, there was a lacklustre air about it. The armed guards might be alert but the rest of the people seemed to be slouching around in a fit of depression. The detectives felt sorry for them. One attack might be dismissed as an unfortunate hazard. The second one, though far less serious in some ways, was thoroughly demoralising.

  Mulryne saw them coming and waved them to a halt. He gave them a brief but vivid description of what had happened. He’d been in the copse at the time of the fire and seen the horses being stampeded.

  ‘I just hope they don’t come to any harm,’ he said. ‘They’re thoroughbreds and they’ve been trained to a standard that takes years to achieve. Thanks to a mass of burning bushes, all of that could vanish.’

  ‘A burning bush is usually an omen,’ remarked Colbeck, wryly. ‘Remember your Bible?’

  ‘I’m a God-fearing Catholic. I never forget it.’

  ‘Nor did the man who started the blaze. He was sending a message.’

  ‘Could you show us exactly where it happened?’ asked Lill.