Death on the Arkham Express

by Byron Craft

  He took the notes and then he said the bad thing. “I will also need your badge and your gun.”

  “Do you want your friends to call you lefty? Providing you have any friends.” I don’t think the railroad dick was used to people addressing him in that manner. He started to reach inside his coat. “Don’t go for it, Mr. Railroad. You don’t stand a chance.” He was obviously startled. The not so tough guy, Pennsylvania Station Railroad Detective, unbuttoned his coat, opened it wide and displayed three cigars protruding from a breast pocket. They were cheap cigars. The nickel ones you get in a drug store. “Look, Detective, let’s you and I start from scratch and play nice, nice. I promise not to shoot you if you promise not to shoot me,” I smiled. I’d been doing that a lot lately. It did the trick, and he tendered me one of his five-cent stogies.

  “A peace offering,” he said a bit sheepishly. I guessed that he decided that he had been coming on too strong. Maybe he was having a lousy day as well.

  I took the cigar, bit off the end, and lit it. It tasted like crap; I didn’t say so; it was best not to offend. He leaned forward, and I ignited his with my zippo. “The return trip was going to be a vacation for me, but if you want, we can pool our resources and try to crack this case.”

  “I’ll consider it. You are still a suspect. You were the first one to discover the body.”

  “Third.” He looked confused. “The two lady cooks were first.”

  He wrote it down on the pad of paper I gave him. “I, of course, will have to question them.”

  “You’re a day late and a dollar short, Pal. I saw one of them leave the train at your Pennsylvania Station and I wouldn’t be surprised if the other vamoosed as well. There’s always the busboy. He came into the kitchen after I did.”

  I was about to give him Alvin’s name when we were greeted by the uniformed conductor. “Ticket please?” he mechanically asked.

  I handed him mine, and Railroad Detective just nodded in his direction. “Took you a good long time to check for tickets?” I contested.

  “It has been a hectic schedule, Sir,” he answered marking my admission receipt with a ticket punch.

  The train’s brakes hissed and screeched slowing us to a stop. I looked at my watch. “We haven’t been out of the station very long. It is not a scheduled stop.”

  “Maybe there’s a cow on the tracks,” Mr. Railroad speculated.

  I noticed something peculiar. The conductor and Railroad made eye contact and exchanged guarded peeps. There was something fishy afoot. I got up from my chair and looked outside. It was about half-past ten when the train came to a halt. Heads poked out of windows. A little knot of men was clustered by the side of the line looking and pointing toward the front of the engine. Ice stalactites hung off the window sills. “Looks like your people are going to need you, Detective,” I said turning from the window. My second-best friend had buttoned up his topcoat and was heading out of the dining car.

  “I’ll get my hat and coat and be with you in a minute,” I called out as the door to the connecting platform closed.

  ***

  I retrieved my trench coat from my compartment and stepped off the platform. The ground was slippery. The train’s engineer, the conductor, and the railroad detective were huddled in conversation, steamy breaths in the cold night air. I was unable to hear what they were saying as I approached. Railroad Detective gestured frantically appearing to issue orders to the other two. “What’s happened?” I asked.

  “Ice, sir,” answered the engineer turning in my direction with a lantern in one hand and an oilcan in the other. Purely precautionary, sir. There is a switch up ahead, and I’ve sent our boilerman to inspect it. The station house between here and our next watering stop was shut down due to layoffs — no one around to daily examine the tracks, sir. We have orders to do the inspections ourselves when faced with adverse weather conditions. Last year a Baltimore & Ohio train encountered a frozen switch. The pony truck on the locomotive derailed, turning the engine and tender over. Thirteen people were killed. It is purely precautionary, sir.”

  FDR’s “New Deal” sought to stabilize the economy but unemployment stood at twelve million. While politicians proclaimed that the national economy was in good condition the railroad industry was in a state of deep pessimism. Capital investments were cut, and maintenance was deferred to the greatest extent possible. It made everything the engineer claimed seem straightforward enough. However, he also sounded rehearsed.

  “We are just waiting for the boilerman’s return and after a few maintenance checks,” holding up his oilcan, “we’ll be on our way.”

  Puffs of steam emanated from beneath the locomotive melting some of the ice and snow surrounding it. The blood curdling screams of many suddenly overpowered the sounds of the hissing vapor and dripping condensation that augmented the engineer's performance. Not again, I imagined. I tossed the five-cent cigar and watched it dissolve a hole in the snow. Then I hightailed it inside.

  ***

  He was face down on the Pullman Car’s carpet. Blood splatters haloed his head. It was Six-Finger Fraley. The right side of his skull was bashed in, and on the left was a small hole, identical to the one I observed in Donald Wheatcroft’s noodle. And like Wheatcroft’s, it was not made by a bullet, if it was, it should have partially closed. Did it go right into the brain? “There is no clotted blood at all,” I said out loud to no one.

  “Jesus!” proclaimed the Pennsylvania Station Policeman coming up from behind. “How on Earth did this happen?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine; just got here.”

  “Is he dead?” He choked out. He looked like he was desperate to turn and run.

  “As a doornail.” It was obvious that Mr. Railroad Detective didn’t have much experience in these matters.

  ***

  James Fraley kept Donald Wheatcroft company in the refrigerator car. The two porters that stitched up Wheatcroft’s remains in the mail sack had skedaddled at the Pennsylvania Station train stop. I guess they no longer had the stomach for train travel. The distasteful task was left up to the kid and me. Alvin Nash held the stiff’s feet up while I slipped the mailbag over. The load was too heavy for the kid and me to carry the distance of six car lengths. So, I had to enlist the unwilling, but eventually yielding aid of Mr. Railroad. I thought the guy would lose his supper.

  Railroad headed for the john when done, and I returned to the scene of the crime. Again, no witnesses. Only the few that stumbled upon Fraley’s remains and they were useless. Lady Blue was nowhere to be found.

  On the floor of the Pullman was the murder weapon. There were a few writing tables in the lounge car like the ones where James Fraley pretended to play cards. Copper clad eight-inch long paperweights the shape of an oil tanker car with the words “Hickok Producing Co. Toledo Oh.” stamped into them rested on most of the tabletops. When the summer heat prompted passengers to open windows and fans stirred the air, paperweights such as these were both functional and a reminder that the business of America was business. The one I discovered had done its business effectively. Blood and hair adhered to a corner of the heavy paperweight. There was something sticky on the underside. It felt like jelly. I squeezed it, and moisture ran down my wrist. I turned the paperweight over. It was more of that damn bluish pus.

  The hole in the head still mystified me. Both corpses had the same hole. If made by a small caliber bullet, it must have been of extremely low velocity not to exit either skull. And if you shot the guy why club him as well? Plus, in both cases, no one heard a gunshot.

  ***

  We were lunching in the dining car. Nigel and me. I crossed Nigel Guest off my suspect list after the murder of James Fraley. He had two solid alibis. The conductor and Alvin Nash. The three of them had been playing Mahjong in Nigel’s compartment when the murder was committed. It quickly became known that Alvin was a wiz at the game and taught his two playmates a three-player variation. The kid beat the pants off them. Unless they were all in cahoots
, Nigel was off the hook.

  The Luncheonette was extremely limited. The kitchen, of course, remained closed and while we were at the Pennsylvania Station stop the conductor bankrolled Alvin to commandeer some box lunches at the trackside café. Mine was a cheese sandwich and an apple. The bread was stale. Nigel had chosen the pressed chicken. After one bite he set the sandwich aside with disgust and concentrated on his apple. Probably wished he opted for cheese.

  “All around us,” observed Nigel between small dainty bites of his apple, “are people, of all classes, nationalities, and ages. They are strangers to one another, brought together as travelers. They sleep and eat under the same roof on wheels. Now, because of this unscheduled stop, they cannot get away from each other. We are all trapped with a deranged fiend on board. It would make an interesting story for me to write if I wasn't scared out of my wits.”

  “Perhaps, it is not as random as you presume," I countered. “Maybe some or all of them are linked together in a conspiracy. It would explain why no one seems to see or know anything.”

  Nigel took another nibble of his sandwich as if his first assessment was a mistake. He smacked it down on its wax paper wrapper his features repeating the revulsion. “You are morbid, my friend. Maybe it’s something you ate.”

  I almost laughed out loud. “You have to consider all possibilities in my business.”

  “You appear distant. It weighs heavily on your mind?’

  “Too many variables.”

  “Which are?”

  “Five questions,” I announced, my right hand up four fingers and a thumb spread wide.

  “Only five?”

  “Yes, Nigel. Five big questions if answered would crack this case wide open. First, how did the murderer enter and leave the dining car galley without being noticed?”

  “That is a tough one. Perhaps your killer was truly unclothed. A clever possibility. Blood would quickly and easily be washed off so that a change of clothes, simply stashed ahead of time in the lavatory, once donned would allow him to blend in with the other passengers.”

  “Yet no one saw anyone enter the Pullman.”

  “Unless it was one of them or a disguise maybe. You told me that you have not ruled out the possibility that the killer could be a woman. Did you inspect the Ladies Washroom?”

  “I did not. That is worth investigating.”

  “What is number two?”

  “Why do the victims have a tiny hole in their left temple?”

  “A bullet hole?”

  “Possible, but even a small caliber bullet with a low velocity should have exited the other side of the victim’s skull. Or at least have exhibited some form of additional cranial damage. Only a full autopsy will give us answers. You don’t happen to have a bone saw on you?”

  “Heaven’s no.”

  “Number three,” holding up three digits. “Why did the murderer only remove Mr. Wheatcroft’s head and not Fraley’s?”

  “That is a difficult one. If a single killer, you would think that he or she would establish an identical pattern.”

  “Exactly, you are getting good at this Nigel.” My hand up again with four fingers showing. “If Blue Lady is our suspect, how come her dress isn’t covered in blood?”

  “That I believe brings us back to the possibility of a disguise and the prospect of the Ladies Lavatory used as a changing room.”

  “Very good, Nigel.”

  “Thank you. I must say that it is obvious that you and your Lady Blue were not hitting it off.”

  “Yeah, there’s a rumor going around that she had a mother.” His observation made me stop and think. I thoughtfully offered, “And why does the color of that pus residue left at the scene of each crime seem so damn familiar to me?”

  “That is your fifth question?”

  “Yes.”

  “That has me stumped, and I am afraid that you are the only one that can answer it.”

  “I’ll give it some more thought.”

  “You left out the six-fingered man,” he threw down.

  “He’s just a loose end.”

  ***

  Nigel “the nut” made a halfway decent sounding board. I needed a willing ear to bend to my notions. My options were limited like the train. Most were hiding in their compartments or running away from me when I attempted to question them. It was while we were kicking around some of the ideas when a parade of railroad employees approached us.

  The engineer, void of his lantern and oilcan, the conductor consulting his pocket watch as he moved, accompanied by the Pennsylvania Station Dick marched up to our table. “The boilerman has not returned,” announced the sullen police Dick.

  “I wondered why this was taking so long,” I probed. “Have you tried looking for him?”

  “A thick snow is falling,” answered the train’s engineer. “You can barely see your hand in front of your face.”

  “You got a light on the front of this buggy?” I asked. “And a few more lanterns?”

  He nodded, “yes.”

  “Then let’s put this train in gear. Drive slow while some of us will hang off the sides of the engine with lanterns in hand and you’ll light the way ahead. And hopefully, we’ll be able to spot him.”

  “But he was my fireman,” the engineer protested. “I need someone to stoke the firebox while I operate the engine.”

  “I can do it!” announced Alvin entering from the Pullman end of the car.

  “It’s hard physical labor shoveling coal, young man,” disputed the station detective.

  “I was baling hay on my father’s farm when I was six before the banks repossessed it,” he shot back, chest pumped with pride.

  “Then it’s settled,” I declared. “Time is wasting.”

  ***

  I held onto the left side of the engine’s cab with my right hand and a lantern in the other sweeping to and fro as we crept along. Railroad cop did like me, hanging onto the right side of the cab. My khaki trench coat wasn’t adequate protection from the cold. Icy wind penetrated my garb chilling me to the bone. In contrast, Alvin was sweating profusely shoveling black rocks of coal into the furnace. Visibility was extremely poor. In a short while, the engineer brought the locomotive to a slow grinding halt. “There’s the switch he went to inspect,” he shouted over the noise of the engine.

  I jumped down, and my counterpart did the same. The falling snow had almost obliterated any evidence of the boilerman’s existence. I could barely make out the faint impressions left by his boots. A deeper, but larger man-sized imprint visible next to the rail switch was rapidly filling up with snow. The railroad detective kicked some of the snow away from the depression. Beneath, it was stained with rusty patches; blood.

  ***

  There was something else I noticed out there, in the cold. There was no ice on the railroad switch. Not a lick. I brushed a layer of powdery snow off the mechanism, and there wasn’t even a trace of frost. Unquestionably, icicles were hanging off some of the cars closest to the engine. However, that was due to condensation from the steam train’s boiler collecting on the windowsills put there by the forward movement. When surface temperatures are below freezing, you get powder; powdery snow contains less water. The switch had been dry as a bone. I didn’t mention it to the railroad employees. Their actions had become suspicious to me. I was playing my cards close to my chest. I doubted I could get the Pennsylvania Railroad Dick to fess up if there was anything to tell, so I decided that when the opportunity presented itself, I’d question the other two. The conductor was the obvious choice, when we returned to the dining car, since the engineer was not within arm’s reach piloting the train.

  “I’ve got a curious impression, Mister Conductor.”

  “Of what nature, Sir,” he answered. He was white as chalk.

  “What do I call you besides, Conductor?”

  “Passworthy, Sir. Denton Passworthy.”

  “Fancy name, Passworthy, but not as fancy as the game that you and your pals are playing.”


  “I don’t know what you mean, Officer.”

  I was gettin’ respect all of a sudden. I guessed he recognized my cop sense. “This unscheduled stop. It’s got nothin’ to do with ice on the switch. What did you and Mister Engineer and the lousy Rail Dick cook up?”

  “It was an unscheduled rail stop. Purely precautionary, sir.”

  “You mugs recite from the same script. Stop pussy-footin' around Passworthy, or I’ll have you locked up at the next stop as an accessory to manslaughter.”

  He sputtered a few syllables, shook like a leaf, and chewed on his lip. “Manslaughter?”

  “That’s right, Pal. Your boilerman has gone missing, probably dead. It’s as cold as an Eskimo’s hind end out there, and the guy is probably frozen stiff by now. Fess up, Passworthy. What’s the real reason for this ‘unscheduled stop?’”

  “Honest, Officer, it was not my idea. I was only following orders.”

  “From who? The Engineer?”

  “No, sir.” He stopped chewing on his lip and started to chew on his next words, then abruptly became silent.

  I unholstered my .45, produced a pair of handcuffs, and laid them both on the table in front of him. Like the flatfoot on rails, I chose the seclusion of the empty dining car to do my interrogation. He stared at my hardware and swallowed hard.

  “The detective, sir. He instructed the train’s engineer and me to bring about the stoppage. The engineer and I are required to abide by all directives from Rowley Line Security. Neither of us was mixed up in his plans.”

  I had to give the mug credit. At least he wasn’t chicken enough to take his buddy, the Engineer, down with him. “What was the plan, pal?”

  “He told us that he wanted time to question all onboard about the murder.”