RC01 - The Railway Detective Read online

  After luncheon at his club, Lord Holcroft decided to take a walk in Hyde Park for the benefit of his constitution. Accompanied by a friend, he set out at a brisk pace and gave his views on the political affairs of the day. His friend concurred with all that he said. Lord Holcroft was an imposing figure in his dark frock coat, light trousers and silk hat. Now almost sixty, he had the energy of a much younger man and a zest for debate that was indefatigable. He was expressing his reservations about the impending Great Exhibition when someone stepped out from behind a tree to accost him.

  ‘Lord Holcroft?’ he inquired.

  ‘Who might you be, sir?’ said the other, glaring at the newcomer.

  ‘I’d like a quiet word with you about a certain person.’

  ‘Stand aside, fellow. I never talk to strangers.’

  ‘Even when he has news about Miss Grayle?’ whispered the other so that Holcroft’s companion did not hear the name. ‘Two minutes of your valuable time is all that I ask.’

  Lord Holcroft studied the man. Tall, well-dressed and wearing a full beard, the stranger was in his thirties. He had a look in his eye that was politely menacing. Excusing himself from his friend, Holcroft stepped aside to speak to the newcomer. He tried to browbeat him.

  ‘How dare you interrupt my walk like this!’ he growled. ‘Who are you and what’s your business?’

  ‘I came to save you from embarrassment,’ said the man, calmly. ‘A letter has fallen into our hands that casts an unflattering light on your character. It is written by you to a Miss Anna Grayle, who lives close to Birmingham, and it expresses sentiments that are quite improper for a married man such as yourself.’

  ‘The letter is a forgery,’ snapped Holcroft.

  ‘We will let your wife be the judge of that, if you wish. Lady Holcroft knows your hand well enough to be able to tell us if you wrote the billet-doux.’

  Holcroft reddened. ‘My wife must never see that letter.’

  ‘Even though it is a forgery?’ teased the other.

  ‘Miss Grayle’s good name must be protected.’

  ‘That will not happen if we release the letter to a scandal sheet. Her good name – and your own – would be in jeopardy. I should perhaps tell you, Lord Holcroft,’ he lied, ‘that we have already been offered a sizeable sum for the missive. We did not, of course, divulge your identity but we explained that you were a person of some importance.’

  Lord Holcroft was squirming. His temples began to pound.

  ‘How can I be sure that you have the letter?’ he demanded.

  ‘Because I brought a copy with me,’ replied the other, taking a sheet of paper from his pocket to give to him. ‘You have a colourful turn of phrase, Lord Holcroft. If what you say in the letter is correct, I also have to admire your stamina.’

  After reading the copy, Holcroft swore under his breath and scrunched the paper in his hand. He was cornered. Were his wife to see the letter, his marriage would come to an abrupt end. If his disgrace reached a wider audience, he would never recover from the scandal. There was no point in trying to reason with the stranger. Lord Holcroft was forced into a sour capitulation.

  ‘How much do you want?’ he asked.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Having worked as a tailor in Bond Street for over thirty years, Ebenezer Trew was inclined to judge everyone by his own high sartorial standards. When he first set eyes on Robert Colbeck, therefore, he took note of the cut and colour of his apparel and saw that he was a man of discernment. Colbeck’s height and well-proportioned frame were a gift to any tailor and his attire served to enhance his air of distinction. Trew was somewhat nonplussed, therefore, to learn that the visitor to his shop that afternoon was a Detective Inspector, and dismayed that he had lost what he hoped would be a potential customer.

  Further disappointment followed. Colbeck opened a bag to produce a jacket that the tailor recognised at once. When he saw the bloodstains on the material, Ebenezer Trew winced. He was a short, neat, fastidious man with the hunched shoulders of someone who spent most of his time bent over a work table.

  ‘You know the jacket, I see,’ observed Colbeck.

  ‘I could pick out my handiwork anywhere, Inspector.’

  ‘Do you remember the customer for whom you made the suit?’

  ‘Very well. His name was Mr Slender.’ He reached out to take the jacket and looked more closely at the stains on the shoulders. ‘This will be almost impossible to remove,’ he warned. ‘Mr Slender was so proud of his suit. How did it come to be marked like this?’

  ‘Daniel Slender was attacked on the embankment, Mr Trew.’

  ‘Dear me! Was the assault a serious one?’

  ‘Extremely serious,’ said Colbeck, ‘I fear that your customer was bludgeoned to death.’ Trew turned pale. ‘If you had not providentially sewn his name into the lining, we might not have identified him.’

  ‘Mr Slender insisted on that. He told me that he had always wanted his name in a suit made by a Bond Street tailor.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘The clothing he wore when he first came in here was of poor quality. Not to put too fine a point on it,’ he said, ‘it was very provincial – quite the wrong colour for him and made with such inferior material. Frankly, Inspector, I’d not have been seen dead in a suit like that.’ He chewed his lip as he heard what he had just said. ‘Oh, I do apologise,’ he added, quickly. ‘That was a rather tasteless remark.’

  Colbeck studiously ignored it. ‘What else can you tell me about Daniel Slender?’ he asked.

  ‘That he had obviously never been to a place like this before.’

  ‘Was he shy and awkward?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Trew, ‘he was full of confidence. I’ve never met anyone who enjoyed the experience of buying a suit from us so much. He gave me the impression that he had come into an appreciable amount of money that allowed him to indulge himself in a way that he had never been able to do before.’

  ‘That fits in with what I know of the man,’ said Colbeck. ‘Until he came here, Daniel Slender worked as a locksmith in Wolverhampton.’

  Trew wrinkled his nose again. ‘Those dreadful Midlands vowels travelled with him to London,’ he said with mild disgust. ‘I could make him look like a gentleman but he would never sound like one.’

  ‘I trust that you concealed your prejudice from him, Mr Trew,’ said Colbeck, irritated by the man’s snobbery. ‘None of us can choose the place where we are born or the accent that we inherit.’

  ‘Quite so, quite so.’

  ‘You, I suspect, hail from the West Country.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ admitted the tailor, hurt that his attempts to remove the telltale burr from his voice had not been quite as successful as he thought. ‘But I have lived in London since the age of ten.’

  ‘How many times did you meet Mr Slender?’

  ‘Three, Inspector. He came in to place the order and returned for a fitting. The third time was to collect the suit.’

  ‘And to pay for it.’

  ‘He did that with something of a flourish.’

  ‘Did he ever tell you why he had moved to London?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Trew, handing the jacket back to Colbeck. ‘It was an ambition that he had nursed for years but domestic concerns kept him in the Midlands. At long last, he told me, he had a means of escape.’

  ‘What else did he say?’

  ‘That he was going to enjoy his retirement.’

  ‘Not for very long, alas,’ said Colbeck, sadly. He looked around at the various items of clothing on display. ‘Being measured for a suit is usually an occasion for light conversation with one’s tailor. Did you find Daniel Slender a talkative man?’

  ‘To the point of garrulity, Inspector.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Ebenezer Trew needed no more encouragement. Feeling that he had aroused Colbeck’s disapproval, he tried to atone by recalling snatches of the various conversations he had had with his customer. Most of it was irrelevant but enough was of interest to
the detective for him to let Trew ramble on. When the tailor’s reminiscences came to an end, Colbeck seized on one remark made by Slender.

  ‘He told you that he intended to move in society?’

  ‘That is what I took him to mean, Inspector,’ said Trew. ‘I think that his exact words were that he would be ‘rubbing shoulders with a different class of person.’ It was one reason why he wanted a new suit.’ He gave an ingratiating smile. ‘Have I been of any assistance?’

  ‘A little, Mr Trew.’

  ‘Good. I aim to please.’

  ‘Did your customer furnish you with an address?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Trew, seriously. ‘I insisted on that. Had we not known where he lived, we would not have undertaken the work. We are very punctilious about such matters.’ He opened a ledger and leafed through the pages. ‘Here we are,’ he said, stopping at a page and pointing a finger. ‘Mr Slender had lodgings at 74, Delamere Street.’ He offered the ledger to Colbeck. ‘You may see for yourself, Inspector.’

  ‘There is no need for that, Mr Trew,’ said Colbeck, who knew the street well. ‘It seems that you were not as punctilious as you imagined. The last time that I was in Delamere Street, it comprised no more than two dozen houses. In other words, Daniel Slender was residing at an address that does not exist.’

  Trew was shocked. ‘He lied to me?’ he said with disbelief. ‘But he seemed to be so honest and straightforward.’

  ‘Never judge by appearances,’ advised Colbeck, putting the jacket back into his bag. ‘They can be very misleading.’

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Trew.’

  ‘One moment, Inspector,’ said the tailor. ‘I am still trying to come to terms with the notion that one of my customers was murdered. Do you have any idea why Mr Slender was killed?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘May one know what it is?’

  ‘Not at this stage,’ said Colbeck, unwilling to discuss the details of the crime with a man he found increasingly annoying. ‘Of something, however, I can assure you.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘He was not killed for his new suit, Mr Trew,’ said the detective, crisply. ‘Or, for that matter, because he had an unfortunate accent.’

  Leaving him thoroughly chastened, Colbeck went out of the shop.

  On his second visit, Victor Leeming found the Royal Mint a much less welcoming place. Hoping that the detective had brought good news, Charles Omber was disturbed to hear that no significant progress had been made in the investigation and that suspicions were still harboured about his colleagues. He had defended them staunchly and said that he would take a Bible oath that there had been no breach of security at the Mint. An argument had developed. Omber was determined to win it. Leeming finally withdrew in some disarray.

  When he got to Euston Station, he found that Colbeck was already in the waiting room. It was thronged with passengers. The Inspector had suggested they meet there for two reasons. It would not only keep them out of range of the simmering fury of Superintendent Tallis, it would, more importantly, take them back to the place from which the mail train had set out on its doomed journey.

  Colbeck saw the jaded expression on the Sergeant’s ugly face.

  ‘I take it that you found nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Only that Mr Omber has a very nasty temper when his word is challenged. He refuses to accept that the Mint could be at fault.’

  ‘Do you believe him, Victor?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Leeming. ‘I have this doubt at the back of my mind.’

  ‘Was Mr Omber deceiving you, then?’

  ‘Not at all. His sincerity is not in question. In fact, he spoke so passionately on behalf of his colleagues that I felt a bit embarrassed for even suggesting that one of them may have leaked information about the movement of gold coin.’

  ‘Yet your instinct tells you otherwise.’

  ‘Yes, Inspector.’

  ‘Then rely on it, Victor. It rarely lets you down.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Leeming. ‘How did you get on in Bond Street?’

  ‘I met a tailor whom I would never dare to employ.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Which of the ten reasons would you care to hear first?’

  Colbeck told him about his meeting with Ebenezer Trew and why he had disliked the man so much. He explained what the tailor had said about his erstwhile customer. On one point, Leeming wanted elucidation.

  ‘Daniel Slender had retired?’ he said.

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘Could he afford to do so, Inspector?’

  ‘He sold the house in Willenhall, remember, and he would have had a certain amount of savings. Then, of course, there is the money that he would have received from the train robbers.’

  ‘More or less than William Ings?’

  ‘More, I should imagine,’ said Colbeck.

  ‘Mr Ings got the best part of two hundred pounds.’

  ‘Yet all he did was to tell them that money was being carried by train to Birmingham on a specific day. Mr Slender’s contribution was far more critical,’ he noted. ‘Without those keys and that combination number, they could never have opened the safe so easily. That would have left them with two options – trying to blow it open with a charge of gunpowder or taking the whole safe with them.’

  ‘That would have entailed the use of a crane,’ said Leeming.

  ‘And taken far too long. Speed was the essence of the operation and Daniel Slender’s help was decisive. I think that he was paid handsomely in advance with a promise of more to come.’

  ‘Much more, probably.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Colbeck. ‘When you do not intend to part with another penny, you can afford to offer any amount by way of temptation. It may well be that Mr Slender was lured to the embankment last night in the hope of receiving the rest of his pay.’

  ‘Instead of which, his head was smashed in.’

  ‘They do not take prisoners, Victor.’

  ‘Mr Slender must have wished that he had stayed in Willenhall.’

  ‘The attack on him was so ferocious that he had no time to wish for anything. It was a gruesome but quick death. Come with me for a moment,’ he said, putting a hand on Leeming’s shoulder, ‘I want to show you something.’

  They walked out of the waiting room and picked their way through the milling crowd. Colbeck stopped when he reached the first platform. A train had just arrived and passengers were streaming off it. Friends were waiting to greet them. On the other platform, a train was about to depart and dozens of people had come to wave off their friends or family members. Porters were everywhere, moving luggage on their trolleys, and several other railway employees were in evidence. The noise of a locomotive letting off steam rose above the tumult.

  Colbeck nudged his colleague. ‘What do you see, Victor?’

  ‘Bedlam, sir.’

  ‘No, you see a thriving industry. You are looking at visible proof of the way that the railways have transformed our lives. Euston Station is as busy as this every day of the week – and so is Paddington. Everybody has somewhere to get to,’ said Colbeck, indicating the scene, ‘and they choose to travel by rail in order to get there. Why is that?’

  ‘Because they think it is quicker.’

  ‘Demonstrably so.’

  ‘If they travel second or third class, it is certainly cheaper as well.’

  ‘You’ve missed out the real attraction of the railway.’

  ‘Have I?’ said Leeming.

  ‘It is safe. At times, I grant you, it can also be noisy, smelly and a trifle uncomfortable but it is, as a rule, safe. It gets passengers to their appointed destinations in one piece. Railway companies met with great fear and opposition at first,’ Colbeck reminded him, ‘but the public has now come to trust them. This is the Railway Age.’

  ‘I still prefer to travel by horse.’

  ‘Then you are behind the times, Victor.’

  ‘I am not ashamed of that,
Inspector.’

  ‘Nor should you be,’ said Colbeck. ‘But the point I am trying to make is this. The train robbery is a dangerous precedent. It imperils the safety record of the railway companies. If we do not catch and convict those responsible, then they will surely be emboldened to strike again.’

  ‘And others might be inspired by their example.’

  ‘Exactly. We must solve these crimes soon, Victor.’

  ‘How can we when we have so little to go on?’ asked Leeming with a gesture of despair. ‘We still know nothing whatsoever about the man who organised the train robbery.’

  ‘But we do,’ said Colbeck. ‘We know three crucial things.’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘First, he is a gentleman.’

  ‘Gentleman!’ exclaimed Leeming. ‘How can you describe someone who is behind such callous murders as a gentleman?’

  ‘Think what else he did, Victor. He may have seen fit to have William Ings killed but he made sure that the widow inherited her husband’s money. That was the act of a gentleman.’

  ‘Not in my opinion.’

  ‘Have you forgotten what the tailor told me about Daniel Slender?’ asked Colbeck. ‘Here was a man from a modest background in the Midlands, suddenly finding himself in London with money in his pockets. And what pleased him most was that he was about to rub shoulders with what he called a better class of person. In short, with gentlemen.’

  ‘What’s the second thing we know about this fellow?’

  ‘He was in the army.’

  Leeming was surprised. ‘You sound very certain of that, sir.’

  ‘I’d put money on it,’ said Colbeck, ‘and, as you know, I am not a betting man. The train robbery was no random attack. It was a military operation that was planned and, I daresay, rehearsed very carefully. Only someone who is used to commanding a body of men like that could have brought it off. So,’ he went on, ‘what do we have so far?’

  ‘An officer and a gentleman.’

  ‘Add the most telling thing about him, Victor.’

  ‘He’s a cold-blooded killer.’

  ‘Cast your mind back to the robbery itself.’