by Clara Benson
Copyright
© 2018 Clara Benson
All rights reserved
The right of Clara Benson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
The Man on the Train
October 1925: On finding herself stuck in a small town in Illinois following floods on the railway line, Angela Marchmont falls in with a vaudeville company and helps a young man accused of theft prove his innocence.
This is a short story of fourteen thousand words—just right for an afternoon curled up on the sofa!
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Illinois, October 1925
The rain was so heavy it sounded as though someone was hurling stones from the heavens onto the roof of the train as it toiled along the line by the river, seemingly struggling to pick up speed. The water streamed down the windows, turning the view of the autumn foliage along the river banks into an indistinct blur of orange and gold that merged into the dull brown of the angry river below and the chalky grey of the sky above. Alone in the private car, a woman of about thirty-five wearing a smart travelling suit gazed absently out through the glass, a half-written letter lying neglected before her on the polished desk. At length she shook herself and returned her attention to the matter at hand, then made a little sound of impatience as she saw that her pen had leaked a blot of ink onto the paper. With a sigh she screwed up the spoilt missive, took out another sheet from her writing-case and began again.
The train slowed almost to a crawl as it entered a tunnel, and the drumming of the rain stopped instantly as though turned off by a switch, leaving behind it a silence that was almost deafening until the rhythmic sound of the engine once more intruded itself. It was quiet enough to allow other sounds to be distinguished, and the woman glanced up from her work curiously as a door clicked nearby, indicating that someone had entered the car. She saw no-one, and after a moment returned to her letter, a slight frown upon her face.
At last the train emerged from the tunnel and drew to a ponderous halt, as though it had finally given up all thoughts of moving forward. Ten, fifteen minutes passed with no further progress, and after a while the woman stood up and went to look out through the window at the other side of the car. Here the trees were thinner, and she could see that a road ran parallel to the track, perhaps ten yards away. As she watched, she saw two police cars approach at speed and stop. Several men emerged, pulling their collars up against the driving rain, and walked towards the train. The woman was regarding the scene with interest when the Pullman conductor came in and informed her with many apologies that there was some hold-up on the track a way ahead, which had forced the train to stop.
‘Is that why the police are here?’ she said.
‘The police?’ he replied in surprise. ‘What the—?’ She pointed through the window and he turned and saw the car. ‘Well, now! If that ain’t—excuse me, ma’am.’
He disappeared to find out what was going on, leaving the woman alone in the private car once again. Five minutes passed, then again came the tiniest click, and she looked round sharply. After a moment’s hesitation she moved towards the door of the lavatory, but just as she did so the conductor returned, this time followed by several policemen.
‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ said the conductor, but before he could go on a large man wearing a sheriff’s badge pushed rudely past him, followed by two deputies.
‘We’re looking for a dangerous criminal who we believe came on board this train a few minutes ago,’ the sheriff said brusquely. ‘We’ll have to search this car.’
‘Goodness!’ said the woman. She remained with her back pressed to the lavatory door, as though to keep herself out of the way. ‘Naturally you may take a look around, but I’m sure there’s nobody here but me. I’ve been writing at that desk and haven’t seen anyone come in.’
She indicated where she had been sitting. The seat had a clear view of both ends of the private car. The sheriff took in the whole of the drawing-room at a glance and nodded his head to the deputies, who went to look in the kitchen and the bedroom.
‘Nothing,’ said one as he came back from the observation room. ‘I guess he’s not here. If you ask me he ran along the train and jumped off again.’
‘What about in here?’ said the sheriff, looking at the door to the lavatory, against which the woman was still standing. She coughed and looked embarrassed.
‘I’ve—er—just this second come out,’ she said delicately. ‘Believe me, if there had been an escaped criminal in there I should have noticed him and screamed the place down.’
One of the deputies snickered and the sheriff quelled him with a glare.
‘All right, ma’am,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t look like he’s here. But if you see him you be sure and let us know, won’t you?’
‘Of course I shall,’ she said. ‘I do hope you catch him soon.’
‘We will,’ said the sheriff grimly, and departed in company with his deputies, followed by the Pullman conductor.
The woman waited, and after a few minutes saw the policemen jump down from the train and begin hunting about in the undergrowth. She took a deep breath and knocked on the lavatory door.
‘You’d better come out,’ she said.
There was a pause, then a young man emerged, looking both sheepish and wary at the same time. He was tall and brawny, with freckles that just showed through the streaks of mud on his face. The woman withdrew to a safe distance, but he did not seem to have any intention of harming her and instead regarded her doubtfully.
‘That sheriff was dreadfully rude,’ she said, in answer to his unasked question. ‘And you were so charming and helpful the other day at Union Station when I couldn’t find a porter that I’m afraid I let my prejudices have their head. But perhaps I’m being very stupid. What do you think?’
‘That was you in Chicago!’ he said in dawning realization. ‘Of course! I’d forgotten all about it.’
‘Well, you earned yourself a good turn for helping me with my luggage,’ she replied. ‘I hope I don’t live to regret it.’
He did not answer directly, but said:
‘You’re English.’
‘What of it?’
‘Why, so am I!’
‘You don’t sound it.’
‘It was a long time ago. I must have been about six or seven when we came here. But I’m a Londoner, all right. Old Kent Road, miss.’
This last was in broad Cockney, and she laughed at the sudden transformation.
‘Y
ou’re with the vaudeville company?’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I’m an acrobat. I sing a little, too. I’ve done it all my life.’
‘By yourself?’
‘No, with my family. My brothers.’
‘You must have come to Wynnsville on Monday, then? The same day I arrived. I saw the bills all over town.’
‘Yes. We’re there this week, then we move on to Cincinnati on Sunday.’
‘Why are you running away? What are you supposed to have done?’
He hesitated, but must have realized that there was nothing to be gained from silence.
‘The receipts are missing,’ he said. ‘Almost three thousand dollars. Two weeks’ worth, he had, in a box in his room.’
‘Who had?’
‘Emmett Owens, the company manager.’
‘Did you steal the money?’
‘No.’
‘Then why do they think you did?’
‘The dogs didn’t bark,’ said the young man.
‘I beg your pardon? Which dogs?’
‘Mr. Owens’. He keeps two dogs—great big brutes they are, and nobody dares go near ’em except me. I don’t know why, but they took to me. When Mr. Owens has money and can’t get to the bank he sets the dogs to guard it. Keeps ’em inside his room or in the corridor. The hotels don’t like it, but they let him do what he wants. You don’t cross Mr. Owens lightly, and this is a quiet time of year for the hotels so they let it pass.’
‘I see. And the takings went missing but the dogs didn’t bark, so everybody assumed you did it because the dogs like you. It seems rather a slight reason for suspecting you.’
‘Well, it wasn’t only that,’ he admitted.
‘I thought not. What else?’
He set his chin.
‘Mr. Owens and I aren’t on the best of terms,’ he said. ‘He cracks the whip too much, if you catch my meaning. He’s strict but not fair with it. He’s mean with the money—docks our wages for the slightest thing. If you stay out too late at night, or if you fluff a line, or if you stand in the wrong place in the middle of the big act, you get a fine. I didn’t like that. These are good people, and that’s no way to treat your performers. Then three weeks ago in Minneapolis I had ’flu and ought to have been in bed with it, but I told myself it wasn’t a bad attack, and I didn’t want to let the act down so I went on anyway. As you can imagine, the performance didn’t go so well, and Mr. Owens said he was going to fine me a day’s pay. Well, I wasn’t going to stand for that, and I said so. We had a quarrel that got kind of heated, and a few people overheard.’
‘What did they overhear?’
‘I don’t remember it all, but I know I said something about taking the money he had that was rightfully mine, and the money that was owed to other people too. We have two ladies in the company who sing to support their old mother, and he kept money back from them because he said one of them missed a high note one night. I said that one day he’d turn up to find his stupid money-box was empty and that we’d all upped and left. And I told him I didn’t like the way he treated—’
He stopped, as he thought better of whatever it was he had been about to say.
‘Go on,’ said the woman. ‘You didn’t like the way he treated whom?’
‘No-one,’ he said, flushing slightly. ‘It’s nothing. Anyway, there was a big rumpus after breakfast this morning when Mr. Owens found the money was missing. There was a search, and some money was found in among my things.’
‘The whole lot?’
‘No, just a hundred dollars. But it must have come from the box. You see, when Mr. Owens counts the money he folds the bills together in a certain way, and there was a bundle folded just like that in my trunk.’
‘But why did they assume it was stolen money? Mightn’t it have been your own money that you’d received as wages?’
He shook his head with a wry smile.
‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Everyone knew I was stony broke.’
‘It certainly wasn’t yours?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Then who put it there?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said unwillingly. She looked at him sharply, and he went on hurriedly, ‘Anyhow, the police were called, and Mr. Owens told my own brothers to keep a hold of me till they arrived, and they did it too.’ His tone was bitter. ‘It was pretty clear how it was going to end up, and I didn’t care to spend the next ten years in jail, so I gave them the slip and made a break for it across country. I thought I was lucky when I caught up with the train just as it slowed down before the tunnel, but I guess they spotted me.’
‘So the police are after you,’ said the woman. ‘What do you propose to do? I suppose you intended to stay on the train until Chicago.’
‘That’s what I hoped. I have friends who will help me—I won’t say where. I figured I’d lay low until the heat died down.’
‘But you won’t be able to work any more.’
He shrugged.
‘That don’t matter. I was tiring of the life anyway. Too much backbiting and competition. I don’t have the talent for the big time, and I’m starting to get a little too old for the acrobatics. My brothers and I don’t see eye to eye either. They’re only my half-brothers, and I’m the youngest, and they never did take to me much. I’d like an ordinary job as a mechanic or something like that. I always liked tinkering with engines, but when you’re in the business it’s difficult to leave.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that. Still, there’s no doubt you’re in a fix at the moment.’
‘What are you going to do? Are you going to turn me in?’ he said.
‘Oh,’ she said, momentarily doubtful. ‘I suppose I ought to, oughtn’t I?’
‘I guess so.’ He looked downcast.
‘Still, I’ve never been very good at doing what I ought to do,’ she went on after a pause, as he looked up hopefully. ‘Perhaps you are a thief, but I imagine you have the whole town out after you, and I’ve always had rather an awkward inclination to side with the under-dog. Suppose we pretend you never came in here at all, then you may go and find somewhere else to hide on the train, and I shall sit here and cogitate upon my own gullibility until we get to Chicago.’
There was a gleam of humour in her eyes as she said it.
‘Why, that’s—’ he began, then started at the sound of footsteps approaching from outside the car.
‘Quick!’ she exclaimed, and pushed him back into the lavatory.
If the Pullman conductor was surprised to find her still standing in the same spot in which he had left her, he made no sign of it.
‘Beg your pardon, ma’am, but we can’t go any further. There’s a mud-slide on the track up ahead,’ he said. ‘We have to go back to Wynnsville.’
‘Oh, dear me!’ she said. ‘When will it be cleared, do you think?’
‘In a day or two, they say. If you’re in a hurry to get to Chicago you’ll have to hire a car. You speak to the office when you get back to Wynnsville, and they’ll fix you right up. I’ll take you there myself, ma’am.’
‘Thank you,’ she said.
The conductor disappeared, and the young man emerged again.
‘I take it you heard that,’ she said.
He nodded, pale in the face.
‘What am I to do now?’ he said.
‘Perhaps you ought to give yourself up,’ she suggested. ‘After all, it’s not as though they don’t have due process here, and if you really are innocent then it all ought to come out in court. If you like I can try and find you an attorney.’
He shook his head.
‘It’s no good. There’s too much evidence against me. I’ll have to make a run for it.’
‘But it must be a hundred miles or more to Chicago,’ she objected.
‘Maybe I can pick up a ride, or find another
line that isn’t blocked,’ he said. ‘But I’m not going back to Wynnsville. There’s nothing there for me now.’
She saw that he had made up his mind.
‘Well, I won’t try and stop you,’ she said. ‘Go from the observation platform. That way you won’t have to pass the conductor. I’ll keep an eye out.’
‘All right,’ he said.
They went into the observation room and the woman went out briefly onto the platform to see how the land lay. The rain was still coming down heavily, and farther along the train she could see one or two of the police deputies beating the undergrowth in desultory fashion.
‘I don’t suppose they’ll want to stay out for long in this weather,’ she said, as she came back in. ‘Now, you’d better run before they come back this way.’ She was struck by a sudden thought. ‘By the way, you might tell me your name before you go.’
‘It’s Tibbs,’ he said. ‘William Tibbs.’
‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Tibbs,’ she said gravely. ‘My name is Angela Marchmont.’
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you too—er—Miss—’
‘Mrs,’ she said, as she saw him looking uncertainly at her ring finger. ‘I think the police have gone around to the other side of the train. You’d better get off now if you really are determined to go.’ She held out a hand. ‘I probably oughtn’t to say it, but goodbye, and good luck!’
The young man shook her hand.
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said, and without further ado swung himself down and onto the track. He crouched under the platform for a few seconds, then darted out and headed for a thicket of trees by the side of the road. Unluckily for him, he had not got more than halfway there before the sheriff himself stepped out from the very same thicket and caught sight of him.
‘Hey!’ he shouted, and reached into his belt for his gun. William Tibbs swerved away from the trees, pelted back towards the train and ducked underneath it. There were more shouts, then the sound of a gunshot. For some moments, there was silence. From the observation car, Angela Marchmont watched anxiously, looking for the fugitive and hoping the bullet had not hit him. All the police officers had now returned to the train and were proceeding along its length, peering underneath. As the last one passed, William dived out on the side away from the road and barrelled down the river bank towards the roaring waters.
