Fear on the Phantom Special Page 12

  ‘I can see that my nephew would be exhilarated by the venture but what would someone like you hope to get out of it?’

  ‘We all went because of our friendship with Alex.’

  ‘A real friend would have tried to stop the whole thing.’

  ‘Once an idea possessed him,’ said Hedley, ‘that was that.’

  The old man fell silent for a while, cheek muscles taut and eyebrows knitted in meditation. A deep sadness had drained the colour out of his face. He suddenly found his voice again.

  ‘Isn’t there any chance he may still be alive?’

  ‘I sincerely hope so.’

  ‘What does Sergeant Ainsley think?’

  ‘He fears the worst.’

  ‘Never learning the truth is my idea of the worst that can happen. It would be a terrible thing for my sister and her husband if they were left in ignorance about the fate of their only child for the rest of their lives. And the same,’ he said, face clouding, ‘would be true for the rest of us. I mean, it would be so … unnatural.’

  ‘We must look to Inspector Colbeck for answers,’ said Hedley. ‘When I met him at the police station, he’d just come back from Hither Wood.’

  ‘What was he doing there? Alex vanished miles away.’

  ‘Gregor Hayes didn’t. He disappeared in the wood.’

  ‘That was donkey’s years ago.’

  ‘The inspector thinks that that case may have relevance to this one. I fail to see any connection myself, but he obviously does, and he told me that he’s prepared to go into a haunted wood at midnight in order to prove it.’

  Victor Leeming had not liked the idea when it was first put to him. Now that it had become a reality, he liked it even less. They were setting out in darkness into what he feared was a wilderness. Colbeck was driving a borrowed dog cart with lanterns attached to it to yield at least a suggestion of light. Having memorised the route he’d taken with Ainsley, he felt that he could find his way to Hither Wood without too much difficulty. Leeming didn’t share his confidence. When they hit the first of many potholes, he was thrown inches into the air.

  ‘Be careful!’ he yelled.

  ‘Get used to it, Victor. There’ll be worse to come.’

  ‘Then why not wait until daylight?’

  ‘Hither Wood holds no fears then.’

  ‘How long will it take us?’

  ‘Never mind about that,’ said Colbeck. ‘The journey will give us plenty of time to review what we discussed over dinner. Which of the suspects should occupy prime position?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Somebody must look the most likely culprit.’

  ‘I’m wondering if it should be Norm Tiller.’

  ‘I thought you liked him.’

  ‘I do – he’s very friendly. He talks to people as if he really cares about them. Dymock didn’t do that and neither did Vine. They treated me like dirt.’

  ‘Both had good cause to hate Piper. The doctor’s problem was that Piper moved into the house next door and immediately began a bitter boundary dispute with him. Tempers obviously flared up over that.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Leeming, ‘but doctors swear to save lives, not to take them. Much as I’d like Dymock to be the villain so that I could arrest him, I don’t think he’s guilty.’

  ‘What about Vine?’

  ‘As I told you, I think he got that injury from a duel with Piper. When I asked him if he was interested in fencing or shooting, I could see that I’d touched on a sore point.’

  ‘There’s your chance to arrest Dr Dymock.’

  ‘What cause would I have?’

  ‘Well, it’s more than likely that he treated Vine’s wound. He must have guessed how it was sustained. Dymock was therefore party to an illegal duel.’

  ‘We can’t prove that, sir.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said Colbeck, ‘but it might be mentioned to the doctor, if only to give him a nasty shock. I wonder if Miss Treadgold realised that two men were fighting over her.’

  ‘From what you told me about her, I think she’d more or less goad them into it.’

  ‘I doubt it. She wouldn’t want Piper to get hurt.’

  ‘But he won the duel.’

  ‘She couldn’t be certain of that beforehand.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  ‘We’re back with Mr Tiller again.’

  ‘I’m going on what the manager of the King’s Arms told me,’ said Leeming. ‘He’d always known Tiller as a meek and mild poet. When that meeting was interrupted by Piper, however, the poet turned into a roaring lion.’

  ‘I’d like to meet Mr Tiller myself.’

  ‘He’s better company than either Dymock or Vine.’

  ‘Yet you’re picking him out as a potential killer.’

  ‘He was wounded to the quick. Remember that.’

  Leeming broke off as one wheel explored an even deeper pothole and the whole cart lifted at a sharp angle before righting itself with a thud. How much more of it he had to endure, Leeming didn’t know but he was already praying for early deliverance from the ordeal. They’d left the town now and were enveloped by an inky darkness. The lanterns did nothing to penetrate it. Drizzle began to fall and a sudden wind whipped it up into their faces. Leeming kept thinking of the warm bed he’d been compelled to forsake. He was suffering.

  Norman Tiller sat alone at a table in the King’s Arms. Most of the other customers had gone but not before they made sure they’d a word with him. Tiller was seen as much as a resident philosopher as a poet, and had something of interest to say on any subject under the sun. A barmaid was clearing empty tankards off the tables and the landlord was locking the shutters. Penrose drifted across to the hunched figure at the table. Tiller seemed to be in a private world.

  ‘Wake up, Norm,’ he said, gently shaking him. ‘It’s time to go.’

  ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ said Tiller. ‘I was working on my latest poem. I have to get it absolutely right in my mind before I put pen to paper.’

  ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘The Phantom Special.’ He laughed at the look of alarm on the other man’s face. ‘I’m only teasing you. Its real title is Peace on the Lake.’

  ‘Good – that won’t upset anybody.’

  ‘It’s a poet’s duty to cause upset from time to time,’ said Tiller. ‘We tell the truth about our existence here on earth and it’s sometimes a rather ugly truth.’

  ‘Save it until tomorrow, Norm. It’s too late now.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m going.’

  Tiller hauled himself to his feet and bent over slightly so that he could look deep into the landlord’s eyes.

  ‘What did he ask you?’

  ‘Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Sergeant Leeming.’

  ‘Ah, him …’

  ‘I know he came here. I told him about that meeting of the poets we had. The sergeant is too good a detective not to have wanted the story confirmed. He came here, didn’t he?’

  ‘That’s right. I told him the truth.’

  Tiller heaved a sigh. ‘I was afraid that you would.’

  ‘I also told him that, in all the time you’d come in here, you’d never once caused us the slightest trouble.’

  ‘How did the sergeant react?’

  ‘He was surprised. To be honest, we all were, Norm. We’d never seen you like that before.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that, Hugh. It was wrong of me.’

  Penrose eased him towards the door. ‘Go home,’ he advised. ‘Write your poem on the way. As for the sergeant, I told him you’d always be welcome here – whatever you did.’

  ‘Even if I’d done to Piper what the bastard deserved?’

  ‘Yes – even then.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Tiller stumbled off into the night.

  Their first stop was at the point along the line where the fire had been lit to bring the Phantom Special to a halt. Even with a lantern in his hand, Leeming could see very little.
Colbeck told him that he’d sprinted roughly the same distance beside the track as Piper.

  ‘Well, don’t ask me to do that,’ said Leeming, anxiously. ‘I’m not running blindly into the unknown.’

  ‘It’s what we do on a regular basis.’

  ‘Yes, but we always have more light than this.’

  When Colbeck explained why he’d run so far and so fast, Leeming could see the purpose behind it. All of a sudden, he shivered involuntarily.

  ‘Oh!’ he cried.

  ‘Are you all right, Victor?’

  ‘No, sir, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’s not like you. As a rule, you’re quite fearless.’

  ‘Well, I’m not this time. It scared me.’

  ‘What did?’

  ‘I thought you’d have felt it as well.’

  ‘I didn’t feel a thing.’

  ‘Well, I certainly did,’ said Leeming. ‘My whole body went ice cold and I shivered as if I was stark naked. I’ve never had that feeling before.’ He looked around. ‘We’re being watched, Inspector.’

  ‘Nobody can see us in the dark.’

  ‘Yes, they can, and it frightens me.’

  Night was always the worst time for Melissa Haslam. Ever since she’d received the news, she’d hardly slept a wink. Her parents had tried to persuade her to remain hopeful, but it was only a half-hearted appeal. They knew what their daughter had now come to accept. There would be no wedding to the man she loved so desperately. It was all over.

  Because their relationship had been relatively short, there were few love tokens to act as mementoes. There was the gorgeous ring that Alexander Piper had bought her to signal his commitment and there were a few letters expressing his devotion to her. As she sat on the bed, she read them yet again by the flickering light of the lamp but, instead of acting as consolation, they only deepened her remorse.

  Melissa blamed herself. If she’d gone on the excursion with him, the tragedy would never have happened. She’d have stopped him from running off like that. In refusing to go with him, she was leaving Piper vulnerable. Her place was beside him and she was too frightened to be there. Melissa had been wrong. In putting her fears before his safety, she’d been acting selfishly. She almost deserved the misery now afflicting her.

  What caused her the most searing pain was that she still didn’t know what had happened to him. Human beings couldn’t just disappear instantly. And yet that was what seemed to have happened to Piper. Several people, she’d been told, saw him run into the flames. Had they swallowed him up and spat him out as so much smoke? Or had some trap been laid for him? That possibility was, in a sense, more worrying because it showed that the man she adored had ruthless enemies. Sublimely ignorant of the life he’d led before he met her, Melissa couldn’t believe that the kind, caring, loving man she knew would do anything to upset other people. It was simply not in his character.

  One faint hope remained. During their brief meeting, Robert Colbeck had given her a feeling of confidence in his abilities. He might not be able to bring Alexander Piper back to her, but the inspector might at least find out the elusive truth about his disappearance. Melissa could then start to mourn properly.

  By the time they neared their destination, Leeming had shaken off his earlier fears. The book he’d been given by Norman Tiller had been to blame. It had given him the impression that a demon was hiding behind every bush and that a ghost haunted every stand of trees. No such things existed, he told himself, and he vowed to return the book to its owner. Leeming was weighing the three suspects in the balance when Colbeck added another name to the list.

  ‘Perhaps there’s a fourth, after all,’ he said.

  ‘I thought you said that Miss Treadgold was innocent of any involvement.’

  ‘She is, Victor.’

  ‘Then who are you talking about?’

  ‘Geoffrey Hedley.’

  Leeming was astounded. ‘But he’s Piper’s best friend.’

  ‘Is he?’ asked Colbeck. ‘Consider this. When I saw that the oil had been emptied from those lamps in one of the carriages, I assumed that Piper had been responsible. It could equally well have been Hedley. He helped to set the excursion up and knew that he’d be in the last compartment with his friend. Since those carriages were parked in a siding in the darkness, it would have been easy for him to slip into the second of the two and empty the oil out of the lamps.’

  ‘But what was his motive?’

  ‘I think he had more than one, Victor. My impression is that he was tired of being at Piper’s beck and call, satisfying his friend’s every whim and getting him out of trouble whenever he got himself arrested. That role turned sour for him.’

  ‘I’m surprised that he played it so long.’

  ‘Then there was the way Piper treated Miss Treadgold. It was deplorable. You noticed how fond of her Hedley seemed when you talked with him about her.’

  ‘Yet he picked her out as a suspect.’

  ‘He explained that to me, Victor. He gave us her name before others did the same, but he never believed that she was in any way guilty. It’s not impossible,’ Colbeck went on, ‘that he was disgusted by his friend’s brusque dismissal of a woman who’d been so close to him and was determined to wreak revenge on her behalf.’

  ‘Then there was Miss Haslam.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Hedley must have pitied her,’ suggested Leeming. ‘He knew all of Piper’s dark secrets and could imagine the sort of husband he’d be. Perhaps he wanted to save Miss Haslam from what would have been an unhappy marriage.’

  ‘I don’t think she came into the reckoning at all. The only woman in whom Hedley had any real interest was Caroline Treadgold. I could hear the affection in his voice when he talked about her.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed that.’

  ‘As long as Piper was alive,’ said Colbeck, ‘Hedley couldn’t get near her. Now that he’s out of the way …’

  Leeming pondered. ‘No,’ he said at length, ‘I still think that Tiller is our chief suspect. What’s that proverb you sometimes quote at me? “Beware the silent man and the still water.” That sums him up perfectly.’

  ‘I’m shifting my interest to Hedley.’

  ‘But he’s been so helpful to us, sir.’

  ‘That’s what aroused my suspicion,’ said Colbeck. ‘He’s been too helpful. That way, he’s been able to shape our thinking and make us look in the direction he wants. Dymock and Vine couldn’t do that, and neither could Mr Tiller. None of them was a close associate of Piper’s.’

  They’d reached the edge of Hither Wood and it loomed over them. When they got out of the dog cart, Colbeck tethered the horse to a bush. With a lantern apiece, they found a path and went carefully along it. Leading the way, Colbeck was able to warn Leeming about any minor hazard. The wood was eerily silent until an owl suddenly screeched from a high branch above their heads. Startled at first, they laughed with relief and heard the flutter of wings as the bird flew away.

  The drizzle had now subsided, and the wind had died. When they came to the heart of the wood, they stepped into the clearing and looked around at the high, intimidating walls of trees. They stood there in silence for several minutes. Colbeck was contemplative but Leeming was unsettled.

  ‘Why did you bring me here?’ he complained.

  ‘I wanted to see what it must have been like for Gregor Hayes. On such a night as this, he came here on his own to brave the ghosts that are supposed to haunt this place.’

  ‘He went on to become one of them.’

  ‘He’s certainly here,’ said Colbeck, ‘but I won’t believe that his ghost is. Somewhere in among those trees, Hayes’s body is buried. On the night he ventured in here to win a bet, he had company. They were waiting for him.’

  ‘Who were?’

  ‘I don’t know, Victor, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the same people disposed of Alexander Piper. I get the feeling that he might be hidden away here as well.’

  ‘B
ut he disappeared miles away.’

  ‘If he was murdered there, he could easily have been transported here immediately afterwards. That’s why his body was never found when they searched the whole area where the Phantom Special had been forced to stop.’

  ‘Please don’t tell me we’ll look for him now.’

  ‘We’d need daylight and spades before we do that,’ said Colbeck, smiling. ‘We’re finished here, Victor.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that!’

  ‘But I’m glad we came. I just wanted to get the feel of the place in the dead of night.’

  ‘Gregor Hayes probably said the same thing.’

  ‘He came here in search of money.’

  ‘What were we searching for?’

  ‘Enlightenment.’

  Glad that they were going, Leeming led the way this time, threading his way through the undergrowth with the lantern held high. He counted his blessings. They had survived. There were no apparitions, no sense of danger and no mocking laughter in the dark. But for the screech of an owl, Hither Wood hadn’t disturbed them in the least. They could now return to their hotel and climb into warm, cosy beds.

  There was only one problem. When they emerged at last from the trees, they discovered that their horse and dog cart were no longer there.

  ‘Where has it gone?’ asked Colbeck.

  ‘The horse must have pulled free.’

  ‘He was tied too securely.’

  ‘Do you mean that somebody stole the cart?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Who else would be stupid enough to be out here in the cold at this time of night?’

  ‘It might have been someone who followed us, Victor.’

  ‘We didn’t hear anything.’

  ‘We weren’t supposed to.’

  Leeming looked around. ‘We can’t stay out here.’

  ‘I wasn’t intending to do that.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘We travel by Shanks’s pony.’

  ‘We can’t walk all the way back!’ he wailed. ‘It must be more than ten miles.’

  ‘Then it’s just the healthy exercise we need,’ said Colbeck, trying to make it sound like a bonus. ‘Let’s get started, Victor.’