The Last Train to Scarborough

by Andrew Martin

  'I know,' I said, cutting him off.

  'I've been twice in the past ten minutes,' he said, which made me worried again about the food we'd eaten, even though I felt all right.

  'This is me,' Vaughan said, indicating a closed door. 'Care for a peek?'

  He proudly occupied the worst room I'd seen so far in the house. It had the green and less-green wallpaper on three walls, and the dried-blood roses on the fourth. The effect was of two rooms that had crashed into each other. The roses were singed and discoloured behind two copper gas pipes that rose up either side of the fireplace. These ran up to little pale green shades that made the whole room look sickly. On the mantelshelf a pipe stand had spaces for a dozen pipes but held just one. The small fireplace was dead, but Vaughan too had a paraffin heater going. It was directed at the wall, like a child being punished for naughtiness in a school form room.

  'A few damp spots there,' he said as I looked at it.

  Vaughan had evidently been lying on his bed, and right next to the pillow end was a portmanteau stuffed with clothes, and a pile of copies of Sporting Life. The only furniture besides the bed and washstand was a wicker chair and a cabinet with the door open. A black trunk marked, for some reason, 'WELLINBROUGH' in white painted letters stood alongside the cabinet. There were no pictures at all on the walls. The flimsy curtains were drawn, but Vaughan too would have overlooked the sea. He was sitting on the wicker chair and removing his boots. I thought: I've got to get out of here before he takes off his trousers.

  'You an early riser, Jim?' he said.

  'Do you call seven o'clock early?' I said.

  'I call it bloody ridiculous,' he said. 'Have a care tomorrow, will you, old man? I can hear most of what goes on up there.'

  I looked up.

  'But you heard nothing the night that Blackburn disappeared.'

  'I was half cut then, Jim... And you know, there might have been something . . . something about two, something again about four. A sort of rumbling.'

  'Did you mention it to the coppers?'

  He shook his head.

  'Not certain of it, Jim .. . not certain. You don't go in for physical jerks, I hope?' he added as I looked at the gas pipes, noting that they continued rising beyond the two shades, disappearing into the ceiling... and yet there was no gas plumbed into my room.

  Vaughan, having thrown one boot towards the cabinet, now threw the second in a roughly similar direction.

  'I should take these downstairs for the lad to clean,' he said.

  'And will you?'

  'Doubt it,' he said. 'I give that youth a wide berth.'

  'Does he ever fly off about anything?' I enquired. 'He always seems liable to.'

  Vaughan frowned.

  'Shouldn't wonder,' he said. 'He's cracked.'

  'But you've never seen him do it?'

  'I've seen him on the point of blowing up - then I've made myself scarce.'

  'When did you find out about his accident?'

  'Oh, that all came out when the police started asking questions. They could see he was nuts, and wanted to know why. Miss Rickerby told them, and then she told us all.'

  'You don't suppose he did for Blackburn, do you?'

  'Blackburn jumped into the sea, Jim,' said Vaughan, who was now kneeling down and fishing about inside the trunk. '... Or that's what we all tell ourselves in this house. I mean, none of us likes to think we're sharing lodgings with a murderer.'

  He lifted a book out of the trunk, and rifled through the pages, as if to make sure they were all properly bound in.

  'Well,' I said, 'no-one can say what happened.'

  Vaughan stowed the book back in the trunk.

  'The lad's got a hell of a job on with that decorating,' I said.

  'Well, he's making an apartment, Jim. It's Fielding's idea, and he's persuaded the lady of it. Eliminate the rough element.'

  I looked upwards again, following the pipes with my eye.

  'Where do they go?' I said, indicating them.

  'Up into the floorboards. Up into your room, I expect.'

  'But there's only an oil lamp in my room.'

  'Well,' he said, 'perhaps there was gas once.'

  There had been. The painting in the dining room showed my room the brightest.

  'Why would it be stopped?'

  'Economy,' said Vaughan with a shrug, and he was now at my side.

  'Here's our little friend again,' he said, and he passed me a post card showing a woman - the bicycling woman. Only now she was painting a picture. You couldn't see it because the easel faced away from the camera but you could see everything else. The card came from a new envelope, lately fished from the trunk.

  'Who is this bloody woman, Theo?' I said.

  'Yorkshire lass,' he said, and he passed me another card.

  'Told you she was game,' he said, and she was now sitting on a gate before a meadow and dangerously close -1 would have thought - to a country road. Vaughan said, 'You can tell it's a windy day, can't you?'

  'Why put these sorts of picture on post cards?' I said. 'I mean, it's not as if you can post 'em, is it?'

  'For collectors,' he said. 'And you can post 'em in envelopes, Jim.'

  I glanced over towards his bed. There was a tin of something there. At first I'd taken it for a tin of lozenges, but I now read 'Oglesby's Pilules', and, underneath, 'Oglesby's Pilules are a Certain Cure for Blind and Bleeding Piles'.

  'Do you have piles, Jim?' he enquired, seeing where I was looking and holding out another post card. 'Sometimes I can't walk around town. Rather fancy studio shot. I presume that swan is stuffed,' he added, passing me the card.

  'Look here,' I said, 'why are you showing me these?'

  He stepped back, offended.

  'What's the matter, Jim?' he said. 'Has old Fielding warned you off?'

  'Warned me off what?'

  'Business connection,' he said.

  'Eh?'

  'You can have the choicest selection from the choicest range. A hundred cards for a quid, Jim.'

  'Why would I want a hundred?'

  'You can have two hundred if you want. To be perfectly honest, I'm keen to sell the whole stock, hence the special rate. Of course, you're a chum as well - that's the other reason.'

  He moved over to the fire, leant on the mantel-shelf, and looked shrewdly at me, or at least I supposed that was the idea.

  'But maybe you think rather narrowly of me for bringing them out.'

  'You mean me to buy them and sell them on?' I said.

  He nodded quickly.

  'They go like hot cakes in any engine shed,' he said. 'Sixpence a piece. I've blokes on the Great Northern and the Hull and Barnsley, and they're getting rich at this game, Jim. When the samples are first shown there's a bit of a frost, I'll not deny it. Blokes are shy, as I can see you are, Jim; they're married men, and it's on their conscience a little, but I promise you that after a couple of weeks, when they think back to what they've seen, and turned it over a little in their minds, why ... there's a regular rush, Jim.'

  'The cards are not legal though, are they?'

  'Where?' he demanded, still with the shrewd look.' Where are they not legal? They're jolly well legal in France.'

  But then he relented a little.

  'The coppers can be a nuisance,' he said. 'But it's small apples to them, Jim. I know that from experience. Would you care for a bottle of beer?'

  'Well,' I said, 'what time is it?'

  'Quarter to midnight,' he said.

  I grinned, for it was a crazy situation. It seemed about a week since I'd come into Scarborough station with Tommy Nugent.

  'It's nearly midnight, Jim!' said Theo Vaughan, laying the card package down on the bed. 'I'm not going to mince words! I believe in plain speaking!'

  I was curious to see where he'd go for the beer, and in the end - after a bit of head scratching on his part - it was the portmanteau. The bottle opener he found at last in the bottom of the closet.

  'I don't run to gl
asses,' he said, handing over the bottle. 'But you're not the sort to bother. Try giving old Fielding a bottle and no glass and just see what happens!'

  'What does happen?' I said.

  'Nothing,' said Vaughan. 'But it's the look he gives you.'

  'He'll drink it then?'

  'He'll drink it all right.'

  Vaughan took a pull on his beer, and fell to eyeing me for a while.

  'I should just think he will,' he ran on. 'What's the old devil been saying about me? But go on, Jim, I can see you want to question me. Get straight to it. Honesty and trust and plain- dealing - that's the start of any business connection.'

  'Did you show your cards to Blackburn?' I said.

  That knocked Vaughan, I could tell, for he asked, "What cards?' and went back to his shrewd look.

  'Well,' I said, taking a pull of beer, 'the ones presently underdiscussion. The ones you've just asked me to question you about.'

  At this, Vaughan might have nodded, but it was done too fast for me to be certain.

  'The coppers want to know every detail of my dealings with the man, which amount to this: sitting next to him at one supper, during which he was more or less silent; going with him to the Two Mariners, beginning in hopes of conversation and ending in complete silence.'

  'But on the walk - in the pub - you did show him the cards?'

  'I suppose so.'

  Vaughan was pacing now, beer bottle in hand.

  'And he didn't take to the cards?'

  'You should have seen him when I took 'em out, Jim. Face like bloody yesterday and he said, "I shall be mentioning this to Miss Rickerby.'"

  'Oh,' I said.

  'Next development, Jim,' said Vaughan. 'The coppers - the Scarborough lot - made a search of the house - well, they've made several - and they turned up a few of my choicest cards in one of them. I had them stowed away in two places in this room, and they evidently found both. No action was taken. They just gave me a bit of a rating, you know. They were quite decent about it really. I think they knew it was a bit unsporting, the way they came upon them, and to be honest I think they rather enjoyed the experience. Bit of light relief. Now I knew that Blackburn had threatened to split on me to the Lady, and I didn't know whether he had done, or whether she'd told the coppers. So I thought it best to come right out with it, and let on that I'd shown Blackburn a couple of samples.'

  He took a long pull on his beer before continuing:

  'But if I thought that would bring an end to the matter I thought wrong, Jim. Three times in the past five months I've been called in to the copper shop on Castle Road.'

  'I can't imagine the Lady splitting,' I said. 'She seems pretty free and easy - she'd just think those cards were a bit of a laugh.'

  Vaughan seemed quite bucked by the thought. He nodded and said, 'I can just see her in a series of her own, Jim. She'd be shown all day about her normal activities only without a stitch on. You're getting pretty hot at the thought, I can see it, Jim.'

  'No, no, I'm just, you know ... rather hot.'

  'Mind you,' he continued, 'what you'd end up with would be a lot of photographs of the Lady drinking glasses of wine.'

  'If the cards drew the interest of the coppers,' I said, 'and they've been all over this house, how come you've still got all the cards?'

  'I haven't nearly as many as I once had,' said Vaughan. 'They've had some of the best ones off me, and I generally keep the few I do have in a little hidey hole outside this house.'

  'Where's that then?' I asked, taking a pull on my beer.

  'Just now, Jim,' he said, 'it's the left luggage office at Scarborough station.'

  I finished my beer, and put the bottle on the mantel-shelf.

  'I'm off to get my boots cleaned,' I said, 'if the lad's still about.'

  'You back at work tomorrow, then?' asked Vaughan.

  'If they've fettled the engine,' I said, opening the door, 'then yes. But I've got a feeling I'll be stuck here another night.'

  No railway man was ever required to wait two nights for an engine. It made no kind of operating sense, but I had decided that I was on the track of something. Besides, Vaughan showed no sign of thinking anything amiss. I turned in the doorway, and took a last look at the room.

  This was the real meaning of the term 'bachelor's lodgings'. The phrase was meant to mean something different but this was it in practice.

  'We'll talk about a business connection tomorrow, shall we?' said Vaughan, and I nodded in a vague sort of way.

  'You look about ready to move out of here,' I said.

  'I've always got an eye out. After all that's gone on here I'm a bit sick, but then everyone's under the gun because of this bloody never-ending investigation.'

  'Even Fielding?' I said.

  'Him most of all,' said Vaughan.

  'How come?'

  'I shan't say, Jim. I'm sworn to silence.'

  But I didn't doubt that he'd let on eventually, and here was another reason for staying on at Paradise.

  "Night then,' I said.

  On quitting Vaughan's room I needed a piss, and so stepped into the bathroom he'd earlier come out of.

  The cabinet by the side of the toilet stood open. Inside was a mass of razor blades in paper wrappings, a length of elasticated bandage, a big bottle of Batty's Stomach Pills, something called Clarke's Blood Mixture, Owbridge's Lung Tonic, some ointment for puffed-up feet, Eczema Balm ('the worst complaint will disappear before our wonderful skin cure'), and a red paste-board packet with a picture of a dead rat on it. Rat poison in the bathroom cabinet: 'Fletcher's Quick-Acting Rat Poison', to be exact. The ingredients were printed on the back: 'Lampblack, Wheat Flour, Suet, Oil of Aniseed, Arsenious Acid'. This last came from arsenic, and it struck me that there was a whole murder kit in this cabinet. But the investigating officers had obviously not thought so - otherwise they'd have taken the stuff away. I wondered whether it was Vaughan's stuff, or whether it belonged to the household in general. I unbuttoned my fly, and I was just slacking off, playing the yellow jet spiral-wise in the toilet bowl and thinking on when the door opened behind me. It was Vaughan again. It was less than a minute since I'd seen him last.

  'I know you won't mind me interrupting, Jim,' he said.

  'It could have been worse,' I said, craning about.

  'Old Fielding,' he said, as I left off pissing and pulled the chain.'... Guess where he was in the three months before he came here?'

  The flushing of the toilet was so loud (it was as if the thing was throwing down half the German Sea) that I couldn't hear what came next, and had to ask Vaughan to speak up.

  'York gaol!' he repeated, over the dinning of the waters.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  With gun in hand, I began to turn about, but stopped to watch the kid. He had backed away from me, and his right hand rested on the gunwale. Behind him, on the other ship, the man who had raised his arm had lowered it, and he had turned a different way, looking for another bit of good to do; his vessel was also bouncing and swinging away from us, taking him on to the next business.

  The kid, leaning against the gunwale, turned from me to the departing ship. But I ought not to be bothering about him. I had a decision to make. I could go for'ard with the gun or I could go aft. At present, I was looking aft. I could see clear past the bridge house to the wake our ship was making. I ought first to make for the engine room, stop the blokes who were creating that wake. They were party to a crime as long as they continued their work. I pictured them as small, half deafened and blinded, blackened blokes who never questioned the ringing bells that brought their commands. I would go to the bridge, and work the lever that told them to change direction. Suddenly a great wind came, and the fore-deck behind me went low and the bridge house tilted towards me, as though its illuminated windows were eyes, inspecting me. The ship righted itself, and there came the sound of hammering - a hammering on iron. I turned fully about, facing away from the kid, and I was instantly felled by a giant, flying sailor.
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  The gun flew from my hand as I collapsed to the deck. The ship made another slow rise as our struggle began. There were not at first any blows; at least, I did not think so at the time. It was more like a kind of wrestling, in which I was ever closer smothered by the sailor's great weight and his wide oilskin. I was under him, and his stinking breath, and then for an instant I was up, seeing the sea from the wrong angle as the ship pitched again - and catching a glimpse of the gunwale, where the kid had been standing, and was no longer. In that moment of distraction, the sailor had caught hold of my ears, one in each hand. They made convenient handles for him as he contemplated me. His great face was in two halves: black beard and the rest - and the rest was mainly nose. You are ugly, I thought, and perhaps he meant to say the same to me. He got as far as 'You' before rage over-took his speech, and he dashed my head down onto the iron deck.

  The next time I lifted my head, I lay in the iron parlour again, my only companion the mighty slumbering anchor chain. The ship rose and fell, and I slipped in and out of dim dreams. Presently I looked down at my right hand, which lay like a thing defeated. No gun there.

  I had been on the deck, and removed in one dark instant from it. The same had happened to the kid, only I was sure he'd gone overboard in hopes of reaching the second ship. Why had he given over the gun? Because he knew he was in queer, and didn't want any part of what was going on or was about to go on.

  I fancied, over the next long while, that I occasionally heard the ringing of a bell but it was nothing more than a faint tinkling through the iron walls, and I could not keep count of the strokes. My pillow was a link of the anchor chain, and it served as well as goose feathers. My trouble was the cold, and I would ward it off by ordering myself to sleep which I seemed able to do at will. They hadn't drugged my coffee on my first trip to the chart room, I had decided. Instead, I had picked up a sleeping sickness as a result of whatever had happened at Paradise.

  The house came and went in my dreams along with all the old familiars: the red-shaded oil lamp, the over-heated blue room, the roaring white gas, the magician with his kettle, the long needle. In addition, a man with puffed-up feet scrambled about on the bathroom floor for blood tonic, and the poor fellow was cutting himself to ribbons in the process, being quite desperate. A voice spoke in my head, a smooth character sent to explain my own thoughts to me said, 'You see, Jim, he was the last man left in Scarborough.'