A Christmas Railway Mystery Read online

  To aid his frenetic search, he opened the box of cigars that he’d bought and took one out. When he’d lit it, he puffed hard and felt his lungs warm and his sagging body revive. He was occupying a seat from which an untold number of crimes had been solved and he was holding a rank that he longed to secure permanently. As he leafed his way through the ledger, his sense of panic began to ebb away and a new vigour coursed through him. However many cigars it took, Grosvenor believed that he would retrieve the situation and gain well-deserved kudos. It would be the ideal way to prove his superiority over Robert Colbeck.

  The Queen’s Tap had closed for the night but, since they were residents, Colbeck and Leeming were allowed to stay up to finish their drinks. A pint of beer had made the sergeant feel gloomy and he began to wonder if they’d ever solve the murder.

  ‘I said that we had too many suspects,’ he recalled. ‘Now we have none at all.’

  ‘That’s not quite true, Victor.’

  ‘One by one, all five of them turned out to be innocent.’

  ‘You’re forgetting something that I said a while ago,’ remarked Colbeck. ‘I warned you that the killer might be somebody else altogether. Evidently, he is.’

  ‘But we’ve no clues as to who he might be, sir.’

  ‘Oh, I think we do. I’ve been sitting here and piecing together little bits of information about him. We made the wrong assumption at the very start.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We didn’t look beyond a uniform. Who first identified the body?’

  ‘Edgar Fellowes.’

  ‘How did he happen to be on-site at that time of the day?’

  ‘He must have been on the night shift.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Colbeck. ‘How was he able to identify a man whose head had been cut off? According to Inspector Piercey, Fellowes told them that he’d recognised the tattoos on Rodman’s arms. How could he be so certain? Hundreds and hundreds of men are employed in the Works. The chances are that a number of them will have tattoos of one kind or another. Is it at all likely that Fellowes could pick Rodman out so easily from the others?’

  ‘Well, no, I suppose not.’

  ‘There are lots of other indications that point to Fellowes.’

  ‘Yet he was so helpful to us, sir.’

  ‘That’s one of them, Victor. By keeping a close eye on the investigation, he could make sure that he was never in danger. Had he felt that he was, my guess is that he’d have disappeared from Swindon at once.’

  ‘But he’s a married man with a family.’

  ‘That didn’t stop him visiting Mrs Knight’s house. That gave us an insight into his character. You saw the way he fawned over the vicar at the concert. Few men in his position would be hypocritical enough to do that. They’d be too conscious of their secret vices. Fellowes is not,’ decided Colbeck. ‘The most telling point of all is that he has access to the Works twenty-four hours a day. The sight of his uniform keeps suspicion at bay so he can come and go to suit himself. I believe that he used that freedom of movement to inveigle Rodman into going with him to the Erecting Shop.’

  ‘How could he possibly do that, sir?’

  ‘We’ll have to ask him, won’t we?’

  ‘But we don’t know where he lives,’ complained the other.

  ‘We don’t need to know. If he’s been on the night shift all week, then we know exactly where to find him. For the sake of appearances, he came to the concert with his wife but she’ll be back at home now. Fellowes will have changed into his uniform and is patrolling the site somewhere.’

  Leeming needed time to absorb what he’d just been told.

  ‘I think you’re right, sir,’ he acknowledged. ‘Fellowes kept pointing us in the wrong direction. At the very start, he was the one who told me that Llewellyn was the most likely killer.’

  ‘He diverted your gaze,’ said Colbeck.

  ‘Nothing is more despicable than a crooked policeman.’

  ‘He betrayed his uniform, Victor.’

  ‘And he certainly fooled me in the process,’ said Leeming. ‘I was taken in by that helpful manner of his when, all the time, the only person he was really helping was himself.’ Doubts lingered. ‘Are you certain it was him, sir? We don’t want to arrest the wrong man again, sir.’

  ‘We’re not going to, Victor.’

  ‘I felt dreadful when we pounced on Alford.’

  ‘You won’t have that feeling this time. You’ll have the deep satisfaction of knowing that you’re making a vile criminal pay for what he did. Think of Rodman’s mutilated body. That was the work of Edgar Fellowes,’ warned Colbeck. ‘We’re dealing with a very twisted and violent man.’

  Edgar Fellowes had come to like the night shift. He was paid extra money and had nobody to monitor what he was doing. During the day, he was always visible to someone or other. In the darkness of night, he was invisible. Though it was freezing outside, the site was a more tempting place to be than in the arctic coldness of his wife’s bed. To his mind, her indifference towards him had justified his decision to look for pleasure elsewhere, given freely in return for his promise not to report the location of the brothel. Fellowes was enjoying a deeper pleasure now. As he walked into the Erecting Shop, lantern in hand, he was celebrating the fact that he’d got the better of the famous Railway Detective. Having tricked both Colbeck and Leeming, he felt that he was completely safe. The murder would remain unsolved.

  Reaching the spot where he’d killed Frank Rodman, he spat on the floor then grinned in triumph. He had no remorse whatsoever. His victim deserved everything that had happened to him. Fellowes spent minutes reliving the moments when he’d ended the life of his enemy. The sound of footsteps brought him out of his reverie and he turned round to see the fuzzy outline of a tall figure striding towards him. Only when the man got close did he realise that it was Colbeck. It made him step back in alarm.

  ‘I’m glad to have found you at last,’ said the inspector, calmly. ‘I’ve been searching everywhere for you. You’re very elusive.’ He was close enough to see the dismay on the other man’s face.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Fellowes, anxiously.

  ‘Do I really need to answer that question?’

  ‘You shouldn’t even be on-site, Inspector. You’re trespassing.’

  Colbeck smiled. ‘Then perhaps you should try to arrest me.’

  But Fellowes was not really listening. Mind aflame, he was looking for a means of escape. He hadn’t managed to deceive Colbeck, after all. The inspector had finally seen through the battery of defences behind which Fellowes had been hiding.

  ‘It’s all over,’ said Colbeck, quietly. ‘You’ll have to come with me.’

  ‘Stand back,’ ordered Fellowes, raising his lantern to use as a weapon, ‘or I’ll dash your brains out.’

  ‘At least explain why you killed Rodman. I’m interested to hear that.’

  ‘Frank Rodman was loathsome. I had to get rid of him once and for all.’

  ‘Did he have some kind of a hold over you?’

  ‘Yes, he did and he made me suffer a great deal as a result. Rodman knew how to torment a man. He … found out something about me.’

  ‘I think I can guess what it is.’

  ‘The sergeant no doubt told you.’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘Rodman happened to see me coming out of that house one night and he made it tell. That bastard was blackmailing me, Inspector. He was extorting money from me week by week. It’s the reason I volunteered for the night shift. I needed the extra money to pay that bloodsucker.’

  ‘How did you get him to come in here with you?’

  ‘That was easy,’ said Fellowes, contemptuously. ‘I dangled even more money in front of him. I told him how we could steal various items from the Works then sell them at a profit. He couldn’t resist the temptation.’

  ‘And I daresay he was fairly drunk when you actually came in here.’

  ‘He was drunk, deranged and
completely off guard. I’d concealed a cleaver in here on the previous night. All I had to do was to knock him out then hack off his head.’

  ‘Did you have to strip him naked?’

  ‘It was his turn to be humiliated,’ said Fellowes. ‘I’d been the butt of his sneers for weeks on end. He taunted me about my wife and boasted that he was married to the prettiest woman in the village. He was cruel, Inspector.’

  ‘In terms of cruelty, I don’t think he’d hold a candle to you,’ said Colbeck, moving closer. He held out his hand. ‘Give me that lantern, please.’

  ‘Keep away!’ shouted Fellowes.

  ‘The game is up.’

  ‘You’re not even armed.’

  ‘I don’t need to be. I can overpower you with ease. Unlike your victim, I’m neither drunk nor deranged, you see. I’ve come here to place you under arrest and that’s what I intend to do.’

  Backing away, Fellowes hurled the lantern at him then ran off. Because he ducked quickly, all that Colbeck lost was his top hat. He retrieved it at once then picked up the lantern. Fellowes, meanwhile, was sprinting towards the main exit, confident that he’d got away. He knew every inch of the Works whereas Colbeck would have to grope his way around. There was no danger of his being overtaken. Then someone came out of the darkness to dive straight at him and knock him to the ground, jarring his whole body and taking all the breath out of him. Leeming turned him over in a flash and handcuffed him expertly. When he got up, the sergeant grabbed him by the collar and hauled him to his feet. Illuminating the scene with the lantern, Colbeck strolled up to them.

  ‘My apologies,’ he said, breezily. ‘When I said that I was unarmed, I forgot to tell you that I’d brought Sergeant Leeming with me. He’s a weapon in himself.’

  ‘How could you do it?’ asked the sergeant, shaking his prisoner. ‘How could you put a severed head on the altar in St Mark’s Church then chat to the vicar at the concert as if you were a true Christian?’

  ‘I detest the man and all he stands for,’ snarled Fellowes.

  ‘And what do you stand for?’

  ‘I stand for freedom. I wanted to shock this place into life for once. Shifts, rotas, duties – every day is the same if you work for the GWR. We live in the same houses, work in the same places and all move at the same slow, boring, uneventful pace. We’re like so many rabbits, retiring obediently to our hutches every night before getting up to do exactly the same thing the next day. And that’s how it goes on without the slightest change. Frank Rodman gave me the chance to shake this village to its foundations,’ said Fellowes, unrepentant, ‘and so I did. Killing him made me feel very, very good.’

  ‘Then you have a distorted view of your fellow human beings,’ said Colbeck. ‘If the only way for you to feel very, very good is to make everyone else feel very, very bad then you’ve no place in society.’

  ‘Being in this particular society is like wearing a straitjacket.’

  ‘You’ll be able to take it off now.’

  ‘I did pull the wool over your eyes, though, didn’t I?’ said Fellowes, laughing wildly. ‘You have to admit that.’

  ‘All you did was to delay the inevitable,’ said Colbeck. ‘Fortunately, the public hangman is a patient man. He was quite content to wait for you until you were ready to come.’ He pointed a finger. ‘Let’s go, Sergeant. We can’t bring Mr Rodman back to life again but his wife will be pleased to know that we’ve arrested his killer. It will bring her a small measure of relief.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  No matter how many times he tried, Alan Hinton was unable to persuade Captain Wardlow to go home to a warm house and a soft bed. The older man insisted on staying at the police station in Canterbury even though it meant sitting on an upright chair in a draughty room.

  ‘Go back home,’ pleaded Hinton. ‘There’s nothing you can do here.’

  ‘I’m staying until Major Tallis is found.’

  ‘That might be days away.’

  ‘I’ll wait here as long as it takes.’

  Wardlow brought up a palm to conceal a yawn. He was plainly fatigued and had come close to dozing off a number of times, but his friendship with Tallis somehow made him find extra reserves of stamina. Hinton couldn’t bear to see the pain etched into his features.

  ‘The inspector said that we could use that empty cell,’ he said.

  Wardlow was insulted. ‘I’m not going to be locked up like a prisoner,’ he declared. ‘I mean to remain here, fully awake. Any discomfort I suffer pales beside what the major is probably going through.’

  ‘But there’s a bed and blankets in there, sir. You could lie down.’

  ‘That’s not a bed, Constable. It’s a bare, wooden board and it’s usually occupied, I daresay, by some drunkard they’ve hauled in from the streets. If you’re getting tired, you try sleeping in there.’

  ‘Mr Grosvenor told me to stay up until he returned.’

  ‘If he returns,’ muttered Wardlow.

  ‘I’m sure that he will, sir.’

  ‘Well, I pray he doesn’t start us off on another wild goose chase. It was unkind of him to raise our hopes like that.’

  ‘He hasn’t been in charge of anything like this before,’ said Hinton, tactfully, ‘but he’s a very experienced detective. In looking at cases in which Superintendent Tallis was once involved, I believe he was doing the right thing. He just happened to settle on the wrong name.’

  ‘What guarantee do we have that he’ll ever stumble on to the right one?’

  ‘I have faith in him, sir.’

  ‘Mine is rapidly disappearing.’

  His eyelids fluttered and he nodded off. Hinton was afraid that he’d fall off the chair altogether. Wardlow’s head dropped on to his chest. His body sagged and he began to wheeze. Without any warning, he then started to keel over. Hinton was just in time to catch him before he hit the floor.

  ‘Let go of me!’ cried the older man, testily.

  ‘You fell asleep, sir.’

  ‘I did nothing of the kind. I was merely resting my eyes.’

  ‘Then I apologise.’

  Easing him back up into a sitting position, Hinton retired to the other chair. The pair of them retreated into a cold silence. Wardlow was willing himself to stay awake while Hinton was going over the details of the case once again.

  ‘There is an alternative explanation,’ he said, eventually.

  Wardlow blinked his eyes. ‘What do you say?’

  ‘Perhaps we are looking in the wrong place.’

  ‘That’s self-evident.’

  ‘Superintendent Grosvenor is convinced that we’re after a criminal with a vengeful nature and there’s sound reasoning for that. Couldn’t he also be from Superintendent Tallis’s more distant past?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The kidnapper could have once been in the army.’

  ‘That’s arrant nonsense!’ snapped Wardlow.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s because Major Tallis had an impeccable military record. The men held him in the highest esteem because they knew he never made mistakes. He’d never lead them into an ambush or take them unprepared into a skirmish. Our old colonel, Aubrey Tarleton, used to say that the major cared too much for his men. I consider that to be an admirable trait in his character.’

  Hinton was amazed. He’d had little direct contact with Tallis but, on the occasions when they had met, he’d always found the man abrasive. He made a mental note to tell his colleagues that, during his years in the army, Tallis was known for consideration towards the lower ranks. There’d be howls of incredulity.

  ‘Did you serve in India with him?’ asked Hinton.

  ‘We served everywhere together. Our careers ran in parallel.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘That’s why I know that it’s futile to look through his army career. The person – or persons – we’re after belongs to the major’s life as a detective. Damnation!’ he exclaimed, using his stick to hit the floor sev
eral times. ‘Where is Grosvenor? He’s been gone for hours.’

  ‘He’s tied to the railway timetable, sir. What is certain is that he’ll never give up. He’ll find the name we need if it takes him all night.’

  Going through the records by the light of the oil lamp, Grosvenor was enveloped by the fug created by the cigars he’d been smoking. He had found two more former prisoners who’d vowed to punish Tallis when they were released. The problem was that neither of them had any connection with Canterbury. It had to be someone who came from, or near, the city. He was certain of that because he’d found a cutting from the local newspaper in the desk drawer. It contained a long article about Tallis’s military career and explained why he would be given a special award at the forthcoming reunion. It was impossible not to be impressed by his achievements. His work at Scotland Yard was also praised. The most significant piece of information was in the concluding sentence.

  Our thanks are due to Captain R. D. H. Wardlow from Lower Hardres, who provided us with the foregoing detail and who is looking forward to meeting his old friend once more.

  Grosvenor felt the thrill of discovery. That was it. He now knew how the kidnapper had found out about Tallis’s visit to the reunion and guessed that he was likely to stay beforehand with Wardlow. The pair of them had probably been kept under surveillance. If it was not by Sam Byard, by whom had it been?