The Last Train to Scarborough

by Andrew Martin

  'Just at present? No, Jim. There was a chap in a week ago. Ellis.'

  'What was he like?'

  'He sold galoshes, Jim, and I don't think there was a great deal more to him than that.'

  'How old was he?'

  'Old.'

  'Did you take him out for a pint?'

  Vaughan stopped and looked at me as though I was crackers.

  'Well, you're taking me out.' 'Different matter entirely, Jim,' he said, walking on.

  'Did he stay in my room, the top one?'

  'No, Jim. He was on my floor.'

  'But that's all being decorated?'

  He explained, under questioning, that there were four guest rooms in total on that floor, including his own, which was not being decorated, and there were no plans in hand to do so. As of last week, Adam Rickerby had only got round to whitewashing two of the other three, so there'd been one spare for Ellis.

  'Wouldn't you like your own room done?' I said.

  'I like it just as it is, Jim.'

  'It's a pretty good house, isn't it?' I said, cautious-like, because it only was pretty good at best. Then again, it might have been a palace to Vaughan.

  'It's the best house in Scarborough at the price, Jim,' said Vaughan. 'They don't leave off fires until May; glorious views; and then you have Miss Rickerby into the bargain. What I wouldn't give for a rattle on the beach with her,' he added.

  So that was that out of the way.

  'How long have you been there?' I enquired, looking sidelong at him and rubbing my own 'tache, in the hope that he'd do the same, and discover the dangling snot.

  'Oh, since last summer,' he said, not taking the hint but just striding on.

  That would comfortably put him in the house at the time Blackburn disappeared, but I would reserve my questions on that front. Instead, I asked about the house, and he gave his answers without reserve, or so it seemed to me.

  The Paradise lodging house was run by Miss Amanda Rickerby and her brother Adam, who was, according to

  Vaughan, 'a bit touched'. Their father had bought the place two years since, dying immediately afterwards, his life's aim completed. He'd been a coal miner; he was a drinking man and pretty hard boiled, but evidently a man determined to take his children away from the life of a South Yorkshire pit village. He'd saved all his life, and Paradise was the result. It was now in the hands of his beautiful daughter and her odd brother. There was one other son and another daughter, but they'd 'cleared out entirely', not being able to stand the father.

  Vaughan at that moment discovered and swiped away the snot in a way that suggested he was very used to finding the stuff just there, and equally used to dislodging it. Miss Rickerby herself, he went on, 'suffered from lazyitis' and was 'over-fond of port wine'.

  'But the house is fairly well kept,' I said.

  This, it appeared, was partly on account of the brother, who was a good worker in spite of being a half wit, and had no other interest in life besides cleaning and maintaining the house. He wasn't up to much as a cook and Vaughan believed that the hot supper we had in prospect would be nothing to write home about. But the lad had help every day in the season from a maid called Beth who was quite a peach in her own right apparently. And a Mrs Dawson came in year round. She was a great hand at all housework, and, being an older woman, was practically a mother to the two Rickerbys. In the off-sea- son, Vaughan said, she came in only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

  'So I'll see her tomorrow?' I enquired, and at this Vaughan stopped and looked up at some clouds riding fast and ghostly through the black sky.

  'Yes, Jim, you will,' he said, walking on. 'Sorry about that, I was just thinking about something else that's happening tomorrow.'

  'I wouldn't have thought you could buy a house like Paradise on a miner's wages,' I said, 'even if you did save all your life.'

  'I don't know about that, Jim,' said Vaughan.

  'Where was the pit village exactly?' I asked, as we came up to a pub called the Two Mariners.

  'Search me,' he said. 'Somewhere near coal! And he fell to thinking hard, and frowning. '... Somewhere up Durham way, I believe it was, Jim.' He pushed open the pub door, saying, 'I like it here of a Sunday. It's quiet and you can talk.'

  Talk about what? I wondered, as we stepped into a wooden room with pictures of sea-going men all around the walls, both painted and photographed, but not a single live person of any description to be seen. Somebody must have been in the room lately though, for a good fire was burning in the grate and two oil lamps were doing the same on the bar top. There was a door open behind the bar, which was quite promising, and Vaughan was evidently confident that someone would turn up and serve us a drink because he placed the paper package on a table near the fire, took off his cape, and pitched it over a chair, removing a pipe and a tin of tobacco from one of the pockets in the process. He left his muffler about his neck, and this in combination with the pipe made him look like a university man, which perhaps he had been.

  He walked over to the bar, and shouted, 'Rose!'

  A woman came through the door behind the bar: she was small, brown and stout.

  'How do, Mr Vaughan?' she said.

  'Two pints of the Four X please, Rose,' he said, and only as the pints were being pulled did he call over to me, 'Four X all right for you, Jim?'

  He turned back to the barmaid. 'Bit quiet . . . even for a Sunday.'

  'All gone to bed,' she said. 'Most of our lot will be at sea come sunrise.'

  'We've yet to have our supper,' he said.

  'Well, that's Miss Amanda Rickerby for you,' said the barmaid.

  Theo Vaughan brought over the pints, and placed the package between us. He then lit his pipe, which went out directly, and placed his feet up on a stool, so that he was quite relaxed, only I had the idea that it cost him more effort to keep his feet up on the stool than otherwise.

  'Cheers, Jim,' he said, and we clashed glasses.

  He was very forward indeed. From the way he acted you'd have thought he knew me of old, but that was quite all right by me.

  'I'm bursting to see inside that package,' I said, and he picked it up with his yellowy fingers and took out a quantity of picture post cards. The top one showed trains unloading at a dockside.

  'Old Fielding and I are connected through the railways,' said Vaughan. 'We ran a little business: post card publishing. Well, he did. The Fielding Picture Post Card Company - had a little office in Leeds. Armoury Road, I don't know if you know it, Jim. I had high hopes that it might one day become "The Fielding and Vaughan Picture Post Card Company", but as long as it went on, I was Fielding's employee. Commercial agent, do you know what that means?'

  'Not really.'

  'It means nothing, Jim. But it was all right. I mean, he is all right, old Fielding. Bit stuck-up, bit of an old maid, and a bit weird in some of his tastes, but decent enough to work for and he struck lucky with the business for a while. We'd done a few runs of cards for some of the big hotels up and down the coast, and to make a long story short some of these caught the eye of a bloke called Robinson, who's the publicity manager of your lot: the North Eastern Railway. I expect you know him pretty well?'

  'You're wrong there, Theo,' I said.

  'I'm pulling your leg, Jim,' he said, sucking on his dead pipe. 'Robinson gave Fielding the contract -1 should say one of the contracts - for stocking the automatic picture post card machines you see on the station platforms.'

  'Oh,' I said.

  He looked again at his pipe.

  'You know, I think I prefer cigars, Jim. At least a fellow can get them lit!

  'You smoke cigars, do you?'

  'On occasion, yes.'

  'Anyhow, that was me for a year, Jim: third class rail pass in my pocket, and I'd go about re-filling these machines with the cards we'd commissioned.'

  I knew the machines. They were in most of the bigger stations. You put in a penny, and pulled out a little drawer that contained a card with ha'penny postage already
on it. Some showed North Eastern Railway scenes: interesting spots in the system. Others might show Yorkshire views in general. Vaughan pushed the top-most card across to me.

  'Is that Hull?' I said.

  'Might be,' he said. 'It was one of the winter series.'

  For all his build-up, he didn't seem very interested in it. The card was from a painting, and there was writing across the top of it: The Industrial Supremacy of North East England. The Secret of Success: Cheap Power, Labour Facilities and Raw Materials. Then, in smaller type: For information as to sites and special advantages apply to the commercial agent, North Eastern Railway, York. It was hard to imagine anyone wanting to receive it through the post. I looked at Vaughan. He seemed to want me to say something about it.

  'That artist is coming it a bit,' I said.

  'How's that?' asked Vaughan.

  'Looks like a Class S, does that engine. But you'd never see one of those on dock duties - not in a million years.'

  'Why not, Jim?' asked Vaughan, but I could tell he wasn't really bothered either way.

  'Too big,' I said. 'They're hundred mile an hour jobs. The company's not going to waste 'em on loading fish.'

  Vaughan nodded as though he was satisfied with this. He slid over another card.

  'Summer Series,' he said.

  This too was from a painting. It showed a sea cliff in twilight. 'The Yorkshire Coast' read the heading. Then: 'Railway stations within easy reach. For particulars write to the Chief Passenger Agent, Department 'A, North Eastern Railway, York.' Vaughan was eyeing me again. I felt minded to ask what he was playing at, but couldn't quite see my way to doing it. Another card was put down: a photograph of a signal gantry on what looked like a foggy day.

  'Where's that?' I said.

  'Search me,' said Vaughan.

  'That one's crossed,' I said, pointing to one of the signals, which had a wooden cross nailed over the arm.'... Means it's out of commission.'

  'That right, Jim?' said Vaughan. 'Interesting is that.'

  But he wasn't interested in the least.

  Out came another card. A station master and a couple of porters stood on a little country platform somewhere.

  'That fellow's managed to get his dog into the picture,' said Vaughan, pointing, and then another card came from the packet and was put down. This showed a flat-bed wagon carrying a great boiler or some such outsized article that overhung the wagon by about six feet. A handful of railway officials stood about grinning foolishly.

  'Out-of-gauge load,' I said.

  'However would they move a thing like that, Jim?' asked Vaughan, who kept looking over my shoulder, as though expecting someone to come up behind me. But the pub was still quite empty.

  'They've to keep the next track clear,' I said.

  Vaughan nodded.

  'They'd run a breakdown wagon along behind it,' I said. 'A crane, I mean, to lift it clear of any obstacles that might come up trackside. Fancy another?' I said, indicating our empty glasses. Vaughan gave a quick nod; I walked up to the bar, shouted 'Rose!' and the trick worked for me too.

  When I came back to the table and handed Vaughan his pint he took down his feet from the stool, and ran his hands through his long hair. He then blew his nose on the blue handkerchief, and I saw that there was another card in my place, and this was a comic one, like a picture out of the funny papers. It showed a baby in a cot, and the words above read: 'A Present from Scarborough'.

  'One for the holiday makers,' said Vaughan, who was now fiddling with his pipe.

  'Enough said,' I replied, giving a grin. But then a thought struck me: 'I don't suppose this one was sold on the stations.'

  'Not likely,' said Vaughan. 'This isn't one of the Fielding lot. I'm a sort of free agent now when it comes to the cards.'

  He'd got his pipe going properly at last. Rose had gone away from the bar again. Vaughan said, 'I bring a good many over from France, as a matter of fact, Jim.'

  'Oh yes?' I said. 'Pictures of French trains, would that be?'

  'Not quite, Jim,' and he put down another card, which showed a lady holding a bicycle.

  She had no clothes on.

  I looked up at Vaughan, who was frowning slightly and sucking on his pipe in a very thoughtful manner.

  PART THREE

  Chapter Nineteen

  'Do you suppose she means to get on that bike?' I said, handing back the card.

  Vaughan took his pipe out of his mouth and gave a grin.

  'I think the saddle's set a little too high, Jim,' he said. 'But she looks a game sort, doesn't she? Matter of fact, I know she is.'

  'You know her?' I said.

  'Home grown, she is,' he said, and I didn't quite take his meaning.

  He now returned the package to the cape pocket, and I was relieved at that. I wasn't well enough acquainted with Vaughan to talk sex with him.

  He said, 'Drink up, Jim, or we'll be late for supper,' and we walked out of the pub, and reversed our steps, with no sound in the Scarborough Old Town but the breathing of the German Sea.

  For a while, nothing was said between us. Vaughan seemed to have attained his object in showing me that particular card, and it had done its work - I'd been made to feel rather hot by it, which brought Amanda Rickerby more and more to mind. Not that I hadn't seen plenty of similar ones before. They would do the rounds of any engine shed, and there was an envelope in the police office that was full of them, and marked 'Improper'. Any stuff of that nature discovered on a train (down the back of a seat or folded into a newspaper on the luggage rack) and taken into the lost luggage office would not be collected or enquired after, and would come to us. But the rum thing was that when it was placed in the left luggage it wouldn't be called for either. So we had our ever-growing file in the police office containing pictures and little home-made- looking books, and one day the Chief said to me, bold as you like, 'Every man in this office looks at that file when left alone,' a remark that put me on the spot rather, and was no doubt meant to do so. I just coloured up and changed the subject, for I had leafed through it from time to time.

  No one ever suggested throwing it out, anyhow.

  As we walked along Newborough, I noticed a little alleyway going off to the left directly before Bright's Cliff, and this one ran steeply but smoothly down to the Prom, almost like a slipway for ships, rather than ending in a steep drop. A woman stood shivering halfway down it, and she eyed us directly and took a step towards us as we went past.

  'You might form your own opinion as to how she gets her living, Jim,' said Vaughan.

  'That would be the quickest way down to the beach, wouldn't it?' I said.

  'Eh?' he said.

  'Where she stood?'

  'It would, Jim,' he said, 'but the beach is for summer.'

  The woman had retreated into her doorway, and so my gaze shifted to the black, writhing sea beyond. The wind was getting up. As we gained the cobbles of Bright's Cliff, I said, 'What happened to Fielding's post card company?'

  'Lost the North Eastern contract,' said Vaughan.'. . . Back end of 1912, hardly a year after we started. Went bust as a consequence.'

  'Why?'

  'The cards weren't liked. I mean, cross-eyed station masters on lonely platforms, busted signals, details of dock working, "Sunderland Station Illuminated and Photographed by Kitson Light". Fielding found all that interesting but you see he's an intellect, is old Howard ... or so he tells me. He lacks the common touch.'

  'Is he in with you as regards the ...?'

  'The continental specialities? He is not. Well, he wouldn't be, now would he?'

  'You keep it a secret from him, do you?'

  Vaughan stopped walking, as if to make a declaration.

  'I see nothing shameful in it, Jim,' he said, 'and so it's not kept secret - not from men, anyhow.'

  'Does Fielding approve?'

  'Not exactly, Jim,' said Vaughan. 'Not exactly.'

  'How does he get his living?' I enquired.

  'He has private means
, Jim. We're both lucky in that way. His old man did well for himself in the law, you know.'

  'Barrister?'

  'Solicitor,' he said, and he was eyeing me. The word made me turn white as paper at the thought of all that lay ahead.

  'Is his old man still alive?'

  'Hardly, Jim. Howard's pushing sixty, you know. My old man is living.'

  'Where?'

  'Streatham,' he said, taking his key from his pocket as we approached the door of Paradise. 'A very dismal place in London that suits his character to perfection, Jim. But I shouldn't complain really. The old boy puts five pounds in the post every month, which is not riches but better than a pokein the eye with a blunt stick.'

  'Miss Rickerby doesn't usually run to a hot tea on Sundays, does she?' I enquired, as Vaughan pushed at the door.

  'She does not. Of course, you know why she's laying it on tonight?'

  'I've no notion,' I said.

  'I'd say it was all on your account, Jim,' he said, and we stepped into the hot hallway and a smell of cooking.

  Vaughan darted straight upstairs. I removed my hat and great-coat, then turned and tidied my hair in the hall mirror. I tried to tell myself this was normal behaviour before supper taken in company, but in fact I was only doing it for Miss Rickerby's sake. It must be true, if Vaughan had noticed it, that the lady had taken a shine to me, but that didn't mean she wasn't out to kill me.

  This time I did hang my coat in the hall, first checking that my warrant card was stowed safely in my suit-coat. I followed the food smell along the hallway, coming first to what I imagined to be the dining room. It was on the front side of the house: a faded room with a table that could have sat six but had cutlery laid for five, which must mean that Amanda Rickerby and her brother would eat with we three paying guests. The white cloth was a little askew and nearly, but not quite, completely clean. Also, the wallpaper - decorated with a design of roses the colour of dried blood - had come away a little around the two gas lamps that roared softly on the end walls, and there was a black soot smudge above the fireplace, like a permanent shadow.