The Silver Locomotive Mystery Read online

  Tallis issued a challenge. ‘Then interest me.’

  The sergeant gave his report. Colbeck had taught him to keep a written account of every interview that he conducted so that it could be referred back to at a future date. Leeming had memorised what he had put down on paper yet – unsettled by the basilisk stare of the superintendent – he still stumbled over some of the words. When the report reached the point where Leeming had departed from Wood Street the night before, Tallis wanted to clarify one point.

  ‘And you’re sure that you warned Mr Voke that the duplicate set of keys had been stolen?’

  ‘Inspector Colbeck sent me there for that express purpose.’

  ‘Did you examine the premises before you left?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Leeming.

  ‘It never occurred to you to advise him about the security of his premises?’

  ‘I didn’t think it was my place to do so. Mr Voke has had that shop for many years. He knows how to guard his stock. A silversmith would not remain in business if he didn’t lock all his doors at night.’

  ‘Locks can be opened,’ said Tallis.

  ‘Only by the right keys, sir,’ Leeming pointed out.

  ‘Someone appears to have had them.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘According to this,’ said Tallis, picking up a sheet of paper, ‘a Mr Leonard Voke reported a burglary at his premises during the night. It appears that his safe was completely emptied.’

  ‘I did tell him to be on his guard.’

  ‘You obviously didn’t tell him loudly enough. Nor did you have the sense to check every door to the premises to see if they could in any way be made more secure. Our task,’ he went on, sententiously, ‘is not merely to solve crime. We also exist to prevent it.’

  Leeming was abashed. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Since you chose to act on your own initiative this morning, the very least you could have done was to return to Mr Voke’s shop to check if anything untoward had happened during the night.’

  ‘I thought it was more important to visit Mrs Jennings.’

  ‘Was she Mr Kellow’s landlady?’

  ‘Yes, Superintendent,’ said Leeming. ‘She showed me his room.’

  He gave an account of his visit to the house, hoping to receive at least a hint of praise for what he had learnt. Tallis, however, was unimpressed. Stroking his moustache, he pondered.

  ‘Mrs Jennings has told you little of practical use,’ he announced at length. ‘Your visit there was hardly productive.’

  ‘I learnt much about the murder victim’s character, sir.’

  ‘That brings us no closer to identifying his killer.’

  ‘I believe it does,’ argued Leeming. ‘It seems clear to me that the prime suspect is Mr Stephen Voke. He was fired by revenge. From what I can gather, Mr Kellow not only supplanted him as a silversmith, he also took young Mr Voke’s place in his father’s affections. That must have rankled with him.’

  ‘Yes,’ conceded Tallis, ‘I can detect a plausible motive there.’

  ‘Stephen Voke would also have known to whom that coffee pot locomotive was being delivered and had a very good idea as to when work on it would be completed. More to the point,’ said Leeming, ‘he would know his way around the premises in the dark.’

  ‘Then he needs to be brought in for questioning.’

  ‘That may be difficult, sir.’

  ‘Why – Mr Voke told you where his son worked.’

  ‘I called on the proprietor, Mr Solomon Stern. He didn’t speak well of Stephen Voke. Apparently, his work was very satisfactory at first but he became lax. Also, his timekeeping was poor. He began to arrive late and leave early. What annoyed Mr Stern,’ he remembered, ‘was that a young lady was always loitering outside the shop in the evening. As soon as he saw her, Stephen Voke left.’

  ‘Are you telling me that you never actually met Voke?’

  ‘He no longer works in Hatton Garden.’

  ‘Did his employer give him the sack?’

  ‘Mr Stern never had the chance to do so,’ replied Leeming. ‘He has not seen hide nor hair of Stephen Voke for a week. The young man has terminated his employment there without warning.’

  ‘Then you should have sought him at his lodgings.’

  ‘I did, sir. I went to the address given to me by Mr Stern.’

  ‘Was Stephen Voke there?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Leeming, ‘and he never has been. He gave a false address to his employer. Nobody seems to know where he is. Stephen Voke – and, presumably, the young lady – has vanished into thin air.’

  Tegwyn Rees was a tall, angular, emaciated man who looked as if he should be lying on the slab beside the corpses he dissected. When he was introduced to Colbeck by Jeremiah Stockdale, he regarded the inspector through cold, almost colourless eyes.

  ‘Why do we need detectives from London?’ he said with undisguised resentment. ‘The crime was committed on Welsh soil. I’m sure the superintendent could have solved it without interference.’

  ‘I came to help, Dr Rees,’ said Colbeck, ‘and not to interfere. In any case, Superintendent Stockdale is very much involved in the investigation. His officers are making enquiries about the source of that sulphuric acid even as we speak.’

  ‘Yet they are under the direction of a complete stranger.’

  ‘Don’t be so territorial, Tegwyn,’ said Stockdale, jovially. ‘The inspector is no stranger to me. And if you think a Welsh murder can only be tackled by Welsh policeman, it rules me out. I’m as English as Cheddar cheese – and just as delicious. Now tell us what the post-mortem revealed.’

  They were in Rees’s surgery, a room as neat, chilly and sterile as the man himself. He consulted a sheet of paper before speaking.

  ‘The cause of death,’ he began, ‘was heart failure brought on by a massive dose of sulphuric acid. Its corrosive properties can be seen in the disfigurement around the mouth and in several internal organs. The wound on the scalp and the bruising were caused before death.’

  ‘I realised that when I saw the blood,’ said Colbeck. ‘As soon as the heart stops, so does the circulation.’

  ‘Let me finish, please,’ said Rees, tetchily. ‘There were also bruises on the chest and arms of the victim, suggesting that someone may have been kneeling on him.’

  ‘That disposes of your idea that the killer was a female,’ said Stockdale to Colbeck. ‘No woman would have been strong enough to hold him down.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have needed strength if he’d willingly submitted to being tied up,’ returned Colbeck before giving Rees an apologetic smile. ‘Do go on, sir.’

  Rees clicked his tongue. ‘Thank you,’ he said with sarcasm. ‘Need I remind you that I was the one who conducted the autopsy? All that you saw were the more obvious external signs. As it happens, Inspector, your wild guess has some foundation. The victim’s wrists were tied tightly enough to leave a mark and there were similar weals on his ankles. In other words, he was spread-eagled on the bed.’

  ‘That’s what Inspector Colbeck suggested,’ said Stockdale. ‘He felt that Mr Kellow may have been seduced by a woman and that being tied up was part of some ritual.’

  ‘There is some supportive evidence for that theory,’ said Rees, glancing at his notes. ‘There was a discharge of semen in the victim’s underwear, consistent with high sexual excitement. It may even be the case that some of the bruising was a deliberate part of any ritual. There are – believe it or not – people who actually derive pleasure from pain and who pay others to administer it.’

  Stockdale grinned. ‘You don’t need to tell me that, Tegwyn,’ he said. ‘When we raided a house in Charlotte Street last month, we found a man hanging naked from the rafters while a woman in a black mask flayed him with a cat o’nine tails.’ He pulled a face. ‘I don’t mind telling you that it’s not my idea of pleasure.’

  ‘We’re still working on assumptions,’ Colbeck reminded them. ‘It would be mistake to build too much on
them. Explain one thing to us, Dr Rees, if you can,’ he went on. ‘Even someone who enjoyed pain to a certain point would surely have cried out when he was struck on the head with a blunt instrument that broke open the scalp.

  ‘You’re quite right, Inspector.’

  ‘Then why did nobody hear the noise?’

  ‘You should have been there when I examined the back of the victim’s neck,’ said Rees, loftily. ‘There were unmistakable marks of something having been tied very tightly against it. My considered opinion is that, before he was killed, the victim was bound and gagged. He could neither move nor speak. The gag was only removed when the acid was about to be poured down his throat.’

  ‘That would explain the cry for help,’ said Colbeck. ‘One of the guests heard it as she walked past and it was quickly stifled.’ He gritted his teeth. ‘Whoever committed the murder did not simply wish to kill Hugh Kellow. They were determined to make him suffer.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Since he perceived the definite link between the murder in Cardiff and the burglary in Wood Street, Edward Tallis decided to accompany Leeming to the silversmith’s shop. They found Leonard Voke in a state of utter despair. Having closed his shop for the day, the old man was wandering around the premises in a daze. The visitors noticed that he had forgotten to shave that morning. Voke took them into the back room and flopped into a chair, his head in his hands.

  ‘I’m ruined,’ he kept saying. ‘I’m absolutely ruined.’

  ‘We’re very sorry that this has happened, Mr Voke,’ said Leeming with genuine pity, ‘but I did warn you that the keys had been stolen.’

  ‘I have three locks on some doors.’

  ‘They were not enough, sir.’

  ‘What exactly was taken?’ asked Tallis.

  ‘Everything,’ groaned the old man. ‘Everything I hold most dear. The safe contained my most valuable stock as well as commissioned items not yet finished. Clients will demand their deposits back when I tell them that I won’t be able to deliver the items they requested.’

  ‘Can’t you start work on them again?’

  Voke looked forlornly up at him. ‘I could never do that on my own. It would take me years to replace everything. If I still had Hugh beside me, then there’s a chance I could rebuild. He worked quickly as well as meticulously. Without him, Superintendent,’ he said, ‘I’m lost. It’s like having a right hand cut off. Besides,’ he added, wincing as if a nail had just been driven into his body, ‘I kept all my tools in that safe. The burglar stole them as well. That really hurt me.’

  ‘This was no random crime, sir,’ said Leeming. ‘The only person who would steal your tools is either someone who knew how much they meant to you or someone who might have planned on using them himself. That leads us to one particular person.’

  ‘Don’t mention his name under my roof!’ snarled Voke, wagging a finger. ‘I told you, Sergeant, if you want to speak to that detestable young man, you must go to Hatton Garden.’

  ‘That’s what I did, sir, but the bird has flown.’

  Voke winced again. ‘He’s run away?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tallis, taking over, ‘and we have reason to believe that he was not alone. Was your son – this young man we’re talking about, that is – married?’

  ‘No, Superintendent, he was not. He claimed that I never paid him enough to support a wife.’

  ‘Did he have anyone in mind?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ said Voke, sourly. ‘He never brought anyone home but I knew that he frequented places where young women could be found in abundance. That disgusted me more than I can say. I thank God that my wife died without knowing about his habits.’

  ‘We need to contact him as soon as possible,’ said Tallis. ‘Can you give us any advice on how to do that? Did he have male friends with whom we could talk?’ Voke shook his head. ‘Well, can you give us the name of the places where he went drinking?’

  ‘I wish I could, Superintendent. I want him caught as much as you do. But the truth of it is,’ he went on, ‘we lived our lives in different ways. What I had to offer here was not enough for him. He sought excitement elsewhere.’ The lines in his brow deepened. ‘And you say that he left Hatton Garden?’

  ‘I spoke to Mr Stern himself,’ said Leeming.

  ‘I’ll be too embarrassed to do that myself. Sol was a good friend until this happened. He’s a hard task master and I thought he might do a certain person some good. How can I look Sol Stern in the face now this has happened? I told you,’ he said, mournfully, ‘I’m ruined.’

  The two detectives did their best to console him but he was beyond help. After some futile attempts to get useful information out of him, Tallis decided that it was time to leave.

  ‘We’re wasting our time here, Sergeant,’ he said as they left the building. ‘We’ll have to find Stephen Voke without his father’s help.’

  ‘Somebody must know where he is,’ observed Leeming.

  ‘We’re not just looking for him, I fancy. My instinct tells me that there’s a woman involved here as well. Did you get a description of Stephen Voke from his employer?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then it needs to be given to the newspapers,’ said Tallis with rancour. ‘It’s high time the press actually did us some good for a change instead of just sneering at our efforts.’

  The locomotive belonged to the Firefly class. It emerged from the tunnel with clouds of thick, dark, acrid smoke billowing in its wake. Legs braced, the driver stood on the footplate and stared at the line ahead. His fireman was reaching into the tender for more coal to feed into the firebox. A railway policeman in top hat and frock coat stood near the opening of the tunnel, right arm outstretched to signal the ‘all clear.’ His dog waited obediently beside him. Four figures were resting against a wall nearby, taking no interest in the clanking monster that was powering its way past them on the next stage of its journey on the Great Western Railway.

  It was Madeleine Andrews’ favourite drawing, lithographed in colour to give it more character and definition. Her only regret was that she was not the artist. It was the work of John Cooke Bourne, a London lithographer, who had taken it upon himself to produce a series of illustrations for his History and Description of the Great Western Railway. Some early copies had been available in 1843 but Madeleine had the main edition published three years later. It was a gift from Robert Colbeck, a spur to her own artistic ambitions and proof that she was not the only person in thrall to the railway system. Whenever she needed encouragement in her own work at the easel, she invariably turned to the volume.

  Caleb Andrews always reproached his daughter for spending so much time with her head in a book about a railway company that was a fierce rival of his own. He urged her to look at Bourne’s Drawings of the London & Birmingham Railway because that company had been incorporated into the one for whom Andrews worked as a driver. Madeleine knew that his reprimands were half-hearted because she had often caught him studying the volume about Brunel’s railway. Bourne’s work was a remarkable record of its early development and she admired the accuracy of its detail every time. When she had finished scrutinising the lithograph, she turned to something that she always read before closing the book. It was the message that Colbeck had inscribed for her on the title page. His firm hand had expressed the hope that the book might serve to inspire her. Madeleine smiled. The very fact that he had bought it for her did that.

  Sir David Pryde was a big, bluff, middle-aged man with a mop of sandy hair and a full beard. He reminded Colbeck of a businessman he had once prosecuted for embezzlement during his time at the bar. Pryde had the same booming voice and easy pomposity. He was not pleased with what his two visitors had told him.

  ‘Why bother me?’ he demanded. ‘You surely can’t think that I have anything to do with the theft of Winifred Tomkins’ infernal coffee pot? I have no interest in it at all.’

  ‘I understand that you recommended the silversmith,’ said Colbeck, ‘so we were bound
to wonder why.’

  ‘Isn’t the answer obvious, Inspector? I felt that Voke had earned the kind word I put in for him. See for yourself,’ he urged, pointing to a large silver yacht that stood on the mantelpiece above the huge fireplace. ‘That’s only one of the things he made for me. Voke is a genuine craftsman and his prices are not as exorbitant as most London silversmiths.’

  The three men were in the drawing room of the Pryde residence, a Regency mansion standing in its own estate. It was impossible to miss its owner’s connection with the sea. Model ships, boats and yachts stood on almost every surface in the room, turning it into a kind of naval museum. Pryde himself was evidently a sailor in his own right. Silver cups that he had won in yachting races occupied the remaining space on the mantelpiece.

  Jeremiah Stockdale stood with his peaked cap under his arm.

  ‘When exactly did you make the recommendation, Sir David?’ he asked with elaborate respect. ‘Can you remember the date?’

  ‘What relevance has that got?’ rejoined the other.

  ‘It must have been some time ago. According to Mrs Tomkins, you and Lady Pryde are no longer regular guests at their home.’

  ‘It’s the other way around, Stockdale – not that it’s any of your business. Mr and Mrs Tomkins have ceased to be part of our circle.’

  ‘I find that surprising,’ said Stockdale, fishing gently.

  ‘I’m not interested in your reaction. It’s a private matter and will always remain so. Now, Inspector,’ he said, confronting Colbeck. ‘Perhaps you’ll tell me exactly why you came here?’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ replied Colbeck. ‘I wish to speak to anyone who was aware that the coffee pot locomotive had been commissioned by Mrs Tomkins.’

  Pryde laughed harshly. ‘Then you’d better speak to half the people in Cardiff,’ he advised, ‘because they all heard her bragging about it. Winifred Tomkins is a woman with a compulsion to impress all and sundry.’

  ‘Several people may have heard about it, Sir David,’ said Stockdale, ‘but very few knew when it would be delivered. Mrs Tomkins said that you and Lady Pryde were among them.’