The Iron Horse Read online

  ‘Hello, Mr Andrews,’ said Robert Colbeck.

  ‘Ah!’ exclaimed the driver, turning to look at them. ‘I had a feeling that I might be seeing you on my train, Inspector.’

  ‘You remember Sergeant Leeming, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Andrews and Leeming exchanged a friendly nod.

  ‘We need to get to Crewe as fast as possible,’ said Colbeck.

  ‘Then you’ve come to the right man.’

  ‘You sound as if you expected us,’ said Victor Leeming.

  ‘I did, Sergeant. When a man’s head is found inside a hatbox at a railway station, the people they’ll always send for are you and Inspector Colbeck.’

  ‘A man’s head, did you say?’

  ‘You already know more than us,’ noted Colbeck.

  ‘That’s the rumour, anyway,’ said Andrews, scratching his fringe beard. ‘Messages keep coming in from Crewe. According to the stationmaster, it was the head of a young man. It was discovered by accident.’

  ‘What else can you tell us?’

  ‘Nothing, Inspector.’

  ‘Then take us to the scene of the crime.’

  ‘But not too fast,’ pleaded Leeming with a grimace. ‘Trains always make me feel sick.’

  ‘Not the way that I drive,’ boasted Andrews, adjusting his cap. He beamed at Colbeck. ‘Well, what a piece of news to tell Maddy! I’m helping the Railway Detective to solve a crime.’

  ‘It won’t be the first time,’ said Colbeck with a smile.

  Caleb Andrews had been the driver of the mail train that had been robbed a few years earlier, and he had received such serious injuries during the incident that it was doubtful if he would survive. In the event, he had made a complete recovery, thanks to his remarkable resilience and to the way that his daughter, Madeleine, had nursed him back to full health. During the course of his investigation, Colbeck and Madeleine had been drawn together in a friendship that had slowly matured into something much deeper.

  ‘I knew that you’d probably be driving this train,’ said Colbeck. ‘Madeleine always tells me what your shift patterns are.’

  Andrews grinned. ‘It feels as if I’m on duty twenty-fours a day.’

  ‘Just like us,’ said Leeming gloomily.

  ‘Climb aboard, Sergeant. We’re due off in a couple of minutes.’

  ‘Is there any way to reduce the dreadful noise and rattle?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Andrews. ‘Travel by coach.’

  ‘At a conservative estimate,’ observed Colbeck, ‘it would take us all of sixteen hours to get to Crewe by coach. The train will get us there in just over four hours.’

  ‘Four hours of complete misery,’ Leeming groaned.

  ‘You’ll learn to love the railway one day, Victor.’

  Leeming rolled his eyes. He was a stocky man in his thirties, slightly older than the inspector but having none of Colbeck’s sharp intelligence or social graces. In contrast to his handsome superior, the sergeant was also spectacularly ugly with a face that seemed to have been uniquely designed for villainy rather than crime prevention.

  ‘Let’s find a carriage, Victor,’ advised Colbeck.

  ‘If we must,’ sighed Leeming.

  ‘When you catch the person who was travelling with that hatbox,’ said Andrews sternly, ‘hand him over to us.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Colbeck.

  The engine driver cackled. ‘That severed head had no valid ticket for the journey,’ he said. ‘We take fare-dodging very seriously.’

  On that macabre note, they set off for Crewe.

  It was a warm May evening but Reginald Hibbert was still shivering. Since the accident with the hatbox, he had been relieved of his duties and kept in the stationmaster’s office. When a local policeman interviewed him, the hapless porter was made to feel obscurely responsible for the fact that a severed head had been travelling by train. Dismissal from his job was the very least that he expected. The worst of it was that his wife would be at home, wondering where he was and why he had not returned at the end of his shift. She would grow increasingly worried about her husband. He feared that Molly might in due course come to the station in search of him and thereby witness his disgrace.

  ‘When can I go home?’ he asked tentatively.

  ‘Not until the detectives arrive from Scotland Yard,’ said Douglas Fagge with a meaningful tap on the nose. ‘They’ll need to speak to you. We can’t have you disappearing.’

  ‘I’d only be gone ten minutes, Mr Fagge.’

  ‘How do we know that you’d come back?’

  ‘Because I’d give you my word.’

  ‘And I know you’d keep it,’ said Percy Reade, the stationmaster, adopting a gentler tone. ‘I trust you implicitly, Reg, but I still think it better that you stay here until they arrive.’

  Hibbert quivered. ‘Am I in trouble, Mr Reade?’

  ‘Yes!’ affirmed Fagge, folding his arms.

  ‘No,’ countered the stationmaster. ‘Accidents will happen.’

  ‘Especially when Hibbert is around.’

  ‘You’re too harsh on him, Douglas.’

  ‘And you’re too lenient.’

  Percy Reade was a mild-mannered little man in his forties with a huge walrus moustache concealing much of his face. Conscientious and highly efficient, he treated the staff with a paternal care in the belief that it was the way to get the best out of them. Fagge, on the other hand, favoured a more tyrannical approach. Left to him, flogging would have been meted out to anyone who failed to do his job properly and Fagge would happily have wielded the cat o’ nine tails himself. Hibbert was relieved that the stationmaster was there. His kindly presence was an antidote to the venom of the head porter.

  The distant sound of an approaching train made all three men turn their heads to the window. Reade consulted his watch and gave a nod of satisfaction at the train’s punctuality. Fagge’s hope was that it would bring the detectives from Scotland Yard and allow him to play a decisive part in a murder investigation. As the train thundered into the station and slowly ground to a halt amid a symphony of hissing and juddering, all that Hibbert could think about was his anxious wife, the threat of unemployment and his rumbling stomach. It was several hours since he had last eaten.

  After stopping at major stations on the way, the train had finally arrived at Crewe. Robert Colbeck and Victor Leeming were aboard and the stationmaster went out to greet them. When he brought the visitors back to his office, Reade introduced them to Hibbert and to Fagge. At a glance, Colbeck could see that the porter was trembling and that his superior was revelling in the man’s discomfort.

  ‘This is the miscreant,’ declared Fagge, pointing at Hibbert. ‘He dropped a trunk onto that hatbox.’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Colbeck.

  ‘He admits it.’

  ‘But did you actually see the incident, Mr Fagge?’

  ‘No – I was on another platform.’

  ‘Then we have no further use for you. Goodbye.’

  ‘But I have to be here,’ blustered Fagge. ‘I’m the head porter.’

  ‘We’re only interested in the porter with the head,’ said Leeming, unable to stop himself from blurting out his joke. He was immediately contrite. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector. I meant no disrespect to the dead.’

  ‘I’m sure that you didn’t, Victor,’ said Colbeck easily, turning to the stationmaster. ‘Mr Reade, I assume that you reported the grim discovery to the local police.’

  ‘Yes, Inspector,’ said Reade. ‘Constable Hubbleday was summoned at once. He took statements from several witnesses.’

  ‘Then I’ll want to hear what else he did.’ Colbeck swung round to confront Fagge. ‘How far away is the police station?’

  ‘Not far,’ said the head porter.

  ‘In that case, perhaps you’ll be good enough to show Sergeant Leeming the way and introduce him when you get there.’ He ushered both men to the door. ‘You know what to ask, Victor.’

  ‘Ye
s, Inspector.’

  ‘Leave your bag here.’

  Putting his valise down beside Colbeck’s, the sergeant led the reluctant Fagge out and the door was closed behind them. Colbeck could sense the air of relief in the office. Hibbert was clearly afraid of his hectoring boss and Reade unwilling to challenge him. Now that Fagge had gone, both of them had relaxed.

  ‘Right,’ said Colbeck, removing his top hat and placing it on the desk, ‘let’s get down to business, shall we, gentlemen? Before you tell me how the severed head was found, perhaps you’d be good enough to show it to me.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Reade. Crossing to a cupboard, he took out a bunch of keys and inserted one of them into the lock. ‘I had to hide it away in here. When it was standing on the floor, people kept peering in at it through the window. It was so ghoulish.’ Unlocking the door, he opened it and lifted the hatbox out. ‘Here we are, Inspector.’

  Hibbert flinched at the sight but Colbeck was fascinated. The leather hatbox was large, beautifully made and very expensive. Tied to the handle was a ticket that told him Euston was the point of departure. The name on the ticket, written in a spidery hand, was Mr D Key. Capital letters had been used for the destination – Crewe.

  Since the strap had been broken, Colbeck simply had to pull back the lid to expose the occupant of the hatbox. It was the head of a young man and dark bruising on the forehead suggested that he had been beaten before being killed. Extracting a large handkerchief from his pocket, Colbeck used it to encircle the back of the head so that he could lift it gently out.

  Reginald Hibbert emitted a gasp of alarm as it came into view once again. The open eyes seemed to be staring accusingly at him. He stepped back guiltily and collided with a chair, almost knocking it to the floor. Percy Reade admired the detective’s coolness. Simply carrying the hatbox had induced feelings of nausea in the stationmaster and he could not possibly have handled its contents with his bare hands. Colbeck seemed to have no qualms. He was examining the head from all angles as if it were a bronze bust of a Roman emperor rather than part of a human being.

  ‘You’ve obviously done this before,’ remarked Reade.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Colbeck, coming to the end of his scrutiny. ‘As a matter of fact, this is my first severed head. I am, however, all too accustomed to looking at dead bodies, many of them, alas, hideously mutilated.’

  ‘What happens next, Inspector?’

  ‘We’ll do all we can to unite this fellow with his torso.’

  ‘How on earth can you do that when you have no clues?’

  ‘We have two important ones right here,’ said Colbeck, lowering the head carefully back into its box. ‘We know from the ticket that this began its journey at Euston station and we may be able to find the porter who loaded it onto the train. Failing that, we’ll begin our enquiries in Jermyn Street.’

  ‘Why there?’

  ‘Clearly, you didn’t study the inside of the hatbox. The name of a milliner is sewn into the silk padding on the underside of the lid.’ He pointed to the gold thread. ‘I should imagine he will be very upset to learn to what use the box has been put.’ He closed the lid. ‘Now, Mr Hibbert,’ he said, straightening up, ‘we come to you.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to do it, Inspector,’ said the porter defensively.

  ‘Dropping a trunk onto a hatbox is not a criminal offence.’

  ‘Mr Fagge said that I ought to be arrested.’

  ‘Well, Mr Fagge is not here any longer so why don’t you tell me, in your own words, exactly what happened?’

  Hibbert was reassured by Colbeck’s friendly tone and courteous manner. Clearing his throat, the porter licked his lips.

  ‘It all began this morning, when I sprained my wrist…’

  It was a slow, long-winded account filled with much extraneous detail but the others heard him out in silence. While he was speaking, his essential character was laid bare and Colbeck saw that the porter was a decent, honest, hard-working young man in terror of losing a job that was a labour of love to him. The inspector was surprised to hear that he had been kept at the station beyond the time when his shift ended and guessed that the wife about whom Hibbert had spoken so fondly would be very distressed at her husband’s lateness. When the narrative at last came to an end, Colbeck’s first concern was for Molly Hibbert.

  ‘Did you not think to send your wife a message?’ he asked.

  ‘Mr Fagge refused to let me, Inspector.’

  ‘That was very high-handed of him. He had no right to deny you and should have been overruled by the stationmaster.’

  ‘I tried to put myself in Mrs Hibbert’s position,’ said Reade, attempting to justify his actions. ‘I felt that she would be very upset if she had a note from Reg to say that he was being held here, pending the arrival of detectives from Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Why not simply tell her that her husband was working overtime?’ said Colbeck reasonably. ‘That would at least have given her peace of mind.’

  ‘That never occurred to me, Inspector. To tell you the truth, this incident with the hatbox left me rather jangled. It’s not the sort of thing that happens every day – thank God!’

  ‘It must have caused a great stir.’

  ‘It did,’ confirmed Hibbert. ‘There were dozens of people on the platform. They all gathered round for a goggle at the head.’

  ‘That was unfortunate,’ said Colbeck. ‘In the confusion, the person who would have reclaimed that hatbox slipped away. I don’t suppose you recall any other luggage for a Mr Key?’

  ‘I never look at the names, Inspector – only the destination. If it says “Crewe” on the ticket, I unload it here.’

  ‘In that case, he may have reclaimed any other items with which he was travelling and beat a hasty retreat. A severed head is hardly something that anyone would willingly admit to owning.’

  ‘It gives me the creeps just to look at that hatbox.’

  ‘Then you don’t have to suffer any more,’ decided Colbeck, taking pity on him. ‘Your statement was very thorough and I’m sure it will be corroborated by the many that Constable Hubbleday took. We’ll be staying the night in Crewe so, if I need to speak to you again, I know where to find you.’

  ‘Off you go,’ said Reade. ‘Molly will be missing you.’

  Hibbert was overjoyed. ‘Thank you, Inspector,’ he said, grinning inanely. ‘Thank you, Mr Reade. Does that mean I’m in the clear?’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, that’s always been the case.’

  ‘Mr Fagge said there’d be repercussions.’

  ‘Then he was wildly misinformed,’ said Colbeck.

  He opened the door to let Hibbert out, only to find a buxom young woman bearing down on them. Molly Hibbert had the look of a wife who has just been told that her husband is in grave danger. She flung herself at him and held him tight.

  ‘What’s going on, Reg?’ she demanded.

  ‘Nothing, my love,’ he replied. ‘I was just coming home.’

  ‘I met Mr Fagge on the way here. He said you were being questioned by a detective from London and that you ought to face charges for what you did.’

  ‘On the contrary, Mrs Hibbert,’ said Colbeck politely. ‘The only thing your husband will get from me is praise. My name is Inspector Robert Colbeck, by the way, and I’m here because a severed head was found in a hatbox that arrived at this station. Your husband not only showed bravery in coming to work with an injured wrist that must have given him constant pain. He inadvertently rendered us a great service. But for him,’ he went on, patting Hibbert on the shoulder, ‘a heinous crime would have gone unnoticed and therefore unpunished.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Reade, feeling obliged to make a comment. ‘In a sense, Reg is something of a hero.’

  ‘Am I?’ Hibbert was baffled by the news.

  ‘He’s always a hero to me,’ said Molly, clutching his arm.

  ‘Take him home, Mrs Hibbert,’ suggested Colbeck. ‘And if you happen to pass Mr Fagge on the wa
y, please warn him that I shall need to speak to him about the unnecessary cruelty he displayed towards your husband. If anyone is due a reprimand, it’s Mr Fagge.’

  Hibbert had never laughed so triumphantly in all his life.

  Victor Leeming was deeply unhappy. It was bad enough to be exiled for a night from the marital bed but he had additional causes for complaint. The first had come in the burly shape of Constable Royston Hubbleday, a good-hearted but ponderous individual who had insisted on reading out every statement he had taken relating to the discovery at the railway station, however repetitive, hysterical or contradictory they happened to be. Leeming’s second grievance was that he had to share an airless room with Robert Colbeck at a public house. Situated near the station, it was called The Rocket and its inn sign sported a painting of Stephenson’s famous locomotive. To a man who loathed railways as much as the sergeant, it was an ordeal to stay the night in a place that celebrated them.

  His major source of unease, however, was only feet away. For reasons the sergeant did not understand, Colbeck had placed the hatbox between the two beds so that each of them would be sleeping cheek by jowl with incontrovertible evidence of foul play. Leeming was by no means squeamish but the proximity of the severed head unnerved him. Yet it seemed to have no effect on the inspector. When they retired to their beds for the night, Leeming voiced his thoughts.

  ‘Why would anyone do it?’ he wondered.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Carry a human head in a hatbox.’

  ‘I can think of a number of reasons,’ said Colbeck.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘It could be a trophy, something which signalled a victory.’

  ‘Who would want to keep such a grisly item as that?’

  ‘There’s no accounting for taste, Victor.’

  ‘What else could it be?’

  ‘A gift.’

  Leeming started. ‘A weird sort of gift, if you ask me.’

  ‘I agree but we may be dealing with a weird mind. Don’t forget that case we had last year. A young woman was dismembered and pieces of her body were returned one by one to the bereaved family.’