Inspector Colbeck's Casebook Read online

  A holiday was a rare event in the life of a detective inspector. Colbeck was so committed to his job that he sometimes deliberately chose not to take time off owed to him. Under pressure from Madeleine, however, he did agree to have a free weekend and he put himself completely at her disposal.

  ‘Where would you like to go?’ he asked.

  ‘That depends on how far you’re prepared to take me, Robert.’

  ‘I’d take you to the ends of the earth – provided that I can be back at work on Monday morning, that is. Give me a destination and the matter’s settled.’

  ‘Very well,’ she said, decisively. ‘I want to go to Northumberland.’

  He was astonished. ‘Northumberland?’

  ‘I even took the trouble to look at the train timetables.’

  ‘But why on earth do you want to go there, Madeleine?’

  ‘I’d like to make sketches of Puffing Billy.’

  ‘Ah, I see – it’s a working holiday.’

  ‘Father has been badgering me to paint locomotives from earlier days to show how far they’ve evolved. For some reason, I have a yearning to see Puffing Billy. It would take us back over forty years.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, ‘but it’s a working engine at Wylam Colliery and there are other versions of the original design now in operation there. We can’t just barge into a coalfield and expect them to let you sit there and draw.’

  ‘That’s why I took the liberty of writing to the mine manager, Robert. I didn’t want to go all that distance in order to be turned back. Mr Hooper’s letter arrived this morning. He’s more than ready to let me do some drawings of Puffing Billy.’

  ‘In that case, Wylam it shall be,’ he said, impressed by his wife’s initiative. ‘It will be so restful to travel incognito, so to speak, and to go on a train journey as just another passenger. That will be a luxury.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ she said, apologetically. ‘The manager recognised the name of Colbeck. That was why he was so keen to give me free access.’

  He was flattered. ‘Has my fame spread that far?’

  ‘Not exactly, Robert.’

  ‘But you just said that the manager recognised my name.’

  ‘I said that he recognised the name of Colbeck, but not because you happen to be the Railway Detective. He’s probably never heard of you. It wasn’t your name that he knew – it was mine.’

  ‘Oh!’ Colbeck was taken aback.

  ‘Apparently, he has a friend in Newcastle who bought one of my very first paintings – the Lord of the Isles. The manager liked it so much that he remembered the name of Madeleine Colbeck. So you’ll get your wish, after all,’ she said, beaming. ‘You can travel anonymously because nobody in Northumberland will have a clue as to who you are.’

  Colbeck was unsure whether to be annoyed or gratified. For once in his life, he would have to take second place to Madeleine. His momentary irritation vanished. Loving his wife too much to begrudge her any fame, he burst out laughing and enfolded her in his arms.

  Most people would have been daunted by the prospect of a journey north of almost three hundred miles but they were relishing it. Setting off from London on a Friday, they would have three whole days alone together, returning late on Sunday evening. They climbed aboard the train with anticipatory delight. Colbeck loved rail travel because there was always something of interest to see out of the window. He was sufficient of a romantic to bemoan the encroachment of industry on the countryside and sufficient of a realist to accept the need for progress. Critics argued that the advent of railways ruined some of the most beautiful landscape in England but Colbeck believed that the advantages outweighed the disadvantages. Those who toiled in factories, forges, mines and mills had hitherto been imprisoned throughout the whole year in their grim, unforgiving, smoke-filled environments. Thanks to the railway system, they could now catch a train to take them into the country or off to the seaside. Their horizons had been widened in every way.

  There were several stops on the way, enabling Colbeck and Madeleine to get out and stretch their legs on the platform. Each new section of the journey provided fresh delights. As they sped through Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Lincoln and Yorkshire, they were reminded that – for all its aggressive industrialisation – England was still very much a place of rural splendour.

  ‘We are going to the capital of the coal industry,’ said Colbeck.

  ‘Do you have any objection to that?’

  ‘Not if it’s what you want, Madeleine – though I expect to spend a lot of time brushing dust off my clothing. I think that there are fifty coalfields in the vicinity of Newcastle.’

  ‘I hope we have time to explore the city itself,’ she said. ‘It isn’t just an industrial centre. There are some wonderful sights, apparently.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, grinning. ‘I’m sitting opposite one of them.’

  It was early evening by the time they finally reached Newcastle. After booking a room at the Railway Hotel, they set off to explore the city. Nestling around the River Tyne, it had a great deal to offer to visitors. Intriguing remains of Roman occupation were cheek by jowl with more recent buildings, many of them built of granite. It was well laid out and able to accommodate over a hundred thousand inhabitants. The bracing walk was an ideal antidote to the hours spent on the train. They were particularly impressed by the Exchange, with its three Corinthian porticoes, and by the Post Office, Market, Hall of Incorporated Trades and Theatre Royal. Here was a vibrant city that bristled with civic pride.

  Dinner at the hotel was surprisingly good and they ate heartily, savouring the pleasure of being on holiday and wishing that they could spend more time together. After a comfortable night, they had an early breakfast then caught a train on the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway. It chuffed along happily for ten miles or so then deposited them at Wylam, a village known to both of them as the birthplace of George Stephenson, one of the greatest pioneers of rail travel. What had once been a little farming community was now a sprawling coalfield with all the attendant grime and clamour. A trap took them to the colliery offices where they met Seth Hooper, a strapping man in his fifties with a craggy face whose dominant feature was a large, square chin. When introductions were made, he was distantly polite to Colbeck, reserving his interest for Madeleine.

  ‘I couldn’t believe that a woman had painted the Lord of the Isles,’ he said.

  ‘My wife has painted several locomotives,’ said Colbeck, proudly.

  ‘And she’s done so with great skill, sir. I know that we have female artists of undoubted ability but how many of them find inspiration in the railway system?’

  ‘Madeleine is unique in every way.’

  ‘Any more of this undeserved praise,’ said Madeleine, ‘and you’ll have me blushing. I don’t see myself solely as an artist. I’m also a recording angel of the rail network. Even in the short time I’ve been at my easel, there have been radical changes and improvements.’

  ‘Puffing Billy will certainly take you back in time,’ said Hooper.

  ‘That was its appeal.’

  ‘It’s a pity that William Hedley is no longer alive. He’d have been thrilled to discover that the locomotive he designed has attracted the interest of a celebrated artist from London.’

  Madeleine laughed. ‘I’m not that celebrated, Mr Hooper,’ she said, modestly. ‘In some ways, I’m still very much a beginner.’

  ‘It’s a privilege to welcome you, Mrs Colbeck, that’s all I know.’ He gestured towards the engine shed. ‘Let me take you to meet Puffing Billy.’

  Wylam Railway had started as a wooden line on which coal wagons were dragged by heavy horses. It had been rebuilt in the second decade of the present century as a five-foot gauge plateway. Over a period of two years, William Hedley, the mechanical inspector at Wylam, had experimented with a locomotive that used some of the elements in engines built by Trevithick and Blenkinsop, adding refinements that improved speed and adhesion. The original Puffing Billy had fou
r wheels but was soon altered to run on eight because the axle loading was too much for the cast-iron plate rails. Later versions of the locomotive reverted to four wheels but it was the old eight-wheeler to which Hooper took his guests. It was a curious contraption, small, misshapen and primitive compared to engines now in use on major railways.

  Colbeck and Madeleine were fascinated to see it waiting for them in the engine shed. Other locomotives chugged by, pulling wagons piled high with coal, but none had the same place in history as Puffing Billy. Madeleine got to work immediately, sketching it from all angles. Colbeck, meanwhile, was taken on a brief tour of the mine so that the artist could work undisturbed. It was a productive day for husband and wife. Colbeck learnt a great deal about the early days of steam locomotion while Madeleine was drawing a prime exhibit. The manager provided them with a midday meal then she worked on into the afternoon.

  On the train journey back to Newcastle, she was brimming with gratitude.

  ‘Thank you so much, Robert.’

  ‘I enjoyed it. There’s kudos in being the husband of a celebrated artist.’

  ‘Stop teasing.’

  ‘I’m serious, Madeleine. You were the centre of attention and I liked that. I was able to bask in your shadow, if that’s not a contradiction in terms.’

  ‘When I started work, I remembered what you once told me about Stubbs.’

  He laughed. ‘Puffing Billy may be an iron horse but I don’t think you can compare him with those sublime horses that Stubbs created.’

  ‘In order to paint horses in such convincing detail,’ she said, ‘he actually had a dead one in his studio with the skin stripped off so that he could see every bone and sinew. It’s what I tried to do today – look carefully at how the engine worked so that I could paint it from the inside, as it were.’

  ‘Your father taught you how a steam engine worked.’

  ‘I owe him so much, Robert – and you, of course. Thank you again for today. It’s been an absolute treat for me.’

  ‘The treat for me was to see you so happily immersed in your work,’ he said. ‘But you don’t need to hug your sketchbook like that. It won’t fly away.’

  Madeleine hadn’t realised she was holding the book protectively in both arms.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, putting it on the seat beside her. ‘These sketches are very precious to me. I’d hate to lose them.’

  ‘Then you must ask a policeman to keep an eye on them for you.’

  They returned to their hotel, washed, changed then went down to dinner. Once again the standard of cuisine was high. As they left the restaurant, they overheard a conversation between an elderly lady and the manager. She was complaining bitterly about the loss of a brooch and he was suggesting that it might have gone astray elsewhere. The woman was adamant that she’d brought it to the hotel when she stayed there days earlier. Its disappearance had only just come to light. The manager was patient and emollient. It was only when he offered her compensation for the loss that she was pacified. Colbeck and Madeleine went up to their room.

  ‘That was very generous of the manager,’ he said. ‘He was replacing a brooch that she may never have had here in the first place.’

  ‘Are you saying that she was a confidence trickster, Robert?’

  ‘Heavens, no – she genuinely believed that she lost the item at the hotel.’

  ‘The manager poured oil on troubled waters very swiftly.’

  When Colbeck let her into the room, the first thing she did was to go to the drawer where she’d left her sketchbook. Madeleine was looking forward to viewing the results of a day at Wylam Colliery. But she was disappointed.

  ‘Where is it?’ she cried, looking at the empty drawer.

  ‘Are you certain that’s where you put it, Madeleine?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied before conducting a frantic search of the room. ‘I swear that it was here, Robert. Someone has stolen Puffing Billy.’

  It was time for Colbeck to emerge from anonymity. He went straight downstairs to confront the manager, Andrew Whitchurch, a tall, angular individual in his forties, wearing an expensive frock coat. Surprised to hear that he had a detective inspector at the hotel, he issued a stream of apologies for the loss of the sketchbook.

  ‘We don’t want your apologies,’ said Colbeck. ‘We simply want it back.’

  ‘I will replace it with a new one, sir.’

  ‘You don’t understand. My wife is an artist and she made sketches at Wylam Colliery today that are vital to the project on which she is working. It’s impossible for us to go back to the colliery tomorrow because we will be catching a train at noon. As for replacing it, where would you find a shop selling artists’ materials on a Sunday?’

  ‘I’ll refund the cost, Inspector Colbeck,’ volunteered the other. ‘In the interests of good customer relations, I’ll give you twice the cost of the sketchbook.’

  ‘Twenty times the price would not satisfy my wife. She wants the original one back. It is, literally, irreplaceable.’

  Whitchurch cleared his throat. ‘I’ll see what I can do, sir.’

  He was standing behind the reception desk. On the wall behind him were rows of hooks on which keys were dangling. They caught Colbeck’s eye.

  ‘How many master keys are there to the rooms?’ he asked.

  ‘There are only two, sir. I hold one and the housekeeper has the other. She went off duty at six o’clock this evening.’

  ‘The theft occurred while we were having dinner. That would seem to eliminate the housekeeper – unless she sneaked back here unseen, of course.’

  ‘Mrs Garritty is above reproach, sir. She’s been with us for years.’

  ‘Then somebody else gained access to our room. The puzzling thing is that the intruder chose to take my wife’s sketchbook. Why? It’s of no use to anyone else. There were far more valuable items in the room yet they are still there.’

  ‘I’ll do my very best to trace the missing book, sir.’

  ‘Why didn’t you offer to trace the brooch belonging to the lady we overheard complaining to you earlier on?’

  ‘That was a different matter, Inspector.’

  ‘Not necessarily – its disappearance may well be the work of the same thief who took the sketchbook. Have many other things have vanished from rooms here?’

  ‘Two or three,’ admitted the manager, uneasily.

  ‘Do you have a hotel detective?’

  ‘We don’t, Inspector.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got one now,’ said Colbeck, looking him in the eye, ‘and I mean to get to the bottom of this. I’ll speak to the housekeeper the moment she arrives tomorrow. In the meantime, I suggest you look closely at every member of your staff to assure yourself that none of them could have been responsible for this spate of thefts. Don’t be misled by feelings of loyalty,’ he warned. ‘There’s a thief under this roof and you are paying his wages.’

  The manager was clearly shaken. Recovering his composure, he manufactured a soothing smile and spoke with quiet determination.

  ‘Mrs Colbeck will get her sketchbook back,’ he said. ‘I give you my word on that, Inspector.’

  Madeleine was not content to leave the detective work to Colbeck. When he went off to speak to the manager, she explored the building. At the end of the corridor was a servants’ staircase with bare stone steps. She descended to the ground floor. Facing her was a door with the word HOUSEKEEPER painted on it in bold capitals. She knocked hard but got no response. When she tried the handle, she found that the door was locked. Madeleine was about to go back up the stairs when a young man in the uniform of a hotel porter came into the passageway. He was very surprised to see her.

  ‘That’s the servants’ staircase,’ he said, deferentially. ‘Guests use the main one. Shall I show you the way, madam?’

  ‘I know the way, thank you.’ He turned to leave. ‘No, wait a moment …’

  He faced her again. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

  ‘How long have
you worked here?’

  ‘It’s almost a year now.’

  ‘It’s a very comfortable hotel.’

  ‘For the guests, it is,’ he said, ruefully. ‘Staff quarters are a little different.’

  ‘Have there ever been reports of theft here?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of any – unless you count the gentleman whose spectacles vanished. He got very angry about that, by all accounts. The manager said that he was so forgetful that he probably didn’t even bring them to the hotel.’

  ‘My husband and I heard a lady complaining about a missing brooch.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

  She looked at the steps. ‘Who’s allowed to use this staircase?’

  ‘The housekeeper and her staff,’ he replied. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I just wondered.’

  ‘Is there anything else, madam?’

  ‘No, no – thank you for your help.’

  After shooting a wistful glance at the staircase, the porter turned on his heel and walked away. Madeleine went slowly back up the steps. When she reached the first floor, she went into the corridor that led to her room. She then heard the tap-tap of feet and turned to see a well-dressed woman going down the steps. It was a momentary encounter because, once she realised she’d been seen, the woman spun round and dashed back upstairs.

  Colbeck and Madeleine compared their respective findings and they talked well into the night. He eventually dozed off, wondering why anyone would steal a sketchbook that they could buy fairly cheaply; and she fell asleep, asking herself who the mystery woman had been. Colbeck and Madeleine slept in each other’s arms. Neither of them heard something being pushed under their door.