Murder on the Flying Scotsman

by Carola Dunn

  CAROLA DUNN is the author of several mysteries featuring Daisy Dalrymple as well as numerous historical novels. Born and raised in England, she lives in Eugene, Oregon.

  The Daisy Dalrymple Series

  Death at Wentwater Court*

  The Winter Garden Mystery*

  Requiem for a Mezzo*

  Murder on the Flying Scotsman*

  Damsel in Distress*

  Dead in the Water*

  Styx and Stones

  Rattle His Bones

  To Davy Jones Below

  The Case of the Murdered Muckraker

  Mistletoe and Murder

  Die Laughing

  A Mourning Wedding

  Fall of a Philanderer

  Gunpowder Plot

  The Bloody Tower

  The Black Ship*

  Sheer Folly*

  *Published by Constable & Robinson Ltd

  www.constablerobinson.com

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  3 The Lanchesters

  162 Fulham Palace Rd

  London W6 9ER

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the US, 1997 by St Martin’s Press, New York

  First UK edition published by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2010

  Copyright © 1997, 2010 Carola Dunn

  The right of Carola Dunn to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-84901-330-7

  eISBN: 978-1-84901-838-8

  Printed and bound in the EU

  CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My particular thanks to Peter N. Hall, LNER Steward and member of the Historical Model Railway Society, for his extensive research on the Flying Scotsman of 1923. Any errors made or facts altered to suit the story are solely my responsibility.

  Thanks also to the librarians of Berwick-on-Tweed. Their patience in demonstrating (more than once) the microfiche machine enabled me to discover, in the Berwick Journal of 1923, Superintendent Halliday and his officers.

  And I must both thank and apologize to Beryl Houghton of the Berwick Walls Hotel, which resembles the Raven’s Nest Hotel only in its location and exterior. The discomforts of the latter emanate entirely from my imagination.

  PROLOGUE

  ‘A month, hey, Doctor?’

  ‘I’ll no gi’ ye more than five weeks, Mr. McGowan, nor promise the end willna come sooner.’

  ‘Bah!’ The old man snorted with surprising vigour, considering his cadaverous face and the skeletal hand plucking at the patched counterpane. ‘Niver kenned a doctor yet wha’d commit himsel’ one way or t’ither.’

  His lips pursed, the doctor picked up his black bag and turned to the grey-haired, dowdy woman who stood at the foot of the four-poster bed. ‘I s’ll write twa prescriptions, Miss Gillespie, for the pain and to help your uncle sleep. And I’ll drop by next week . . .’

  ‘That ye’ll not!’ Alistair McGowan snapped. ‘If there’s nowt to be done, I’ll no pay a guinea to hae ye not do’t.’

  The doctor shrugged. ‘Verra weel. I’ll see ye again when I write oot the death certificate. Good-day tae ye, sir.’

  Julia Gillespie led the way out of the gloomy, chilly, cavernous bedchamber into the equally gloomy and chilly if less cavernous passage with its threadbare carpet. As they descended the magnificent Jacobean staircase, she noted with distress a thin layer of dust on the carved oak balusters. It was impossible to keep the house decent when Uncle Alistair refused to hire more than an absolute minimum of staff, but at least the front stairs should be clean.

  ‘A month?’ she said, the news at last beginning to sink in.

  ‘Thereabouts. Ye’ll be sending for the family?’

  ‘Not unless Uncle Alistair tells me to. I shouldn’t dare. A month!’ A tiny smile lightened her careworn face. ‘It’s a shocking thing to say, Doctor, but I can’t wait to shake the dust of Dunston Castle from my feet. I shan’t stay a moment longer than I must.’

  ‘Ye’re provided for?’ he asked gruffly.

  ‘A hundred a year, enough to live on if I’m careful, and I’ve practice enough at that.’

  ‘Imphm.’

  Julia saw the look in his eyes: genteel poverty, it said, but was that not how she had lived for nearly a quarter of a century now, in this year of 1923? Twenty-five years ago, before the turn of the century, the family had collectively made up its mind she was the one to be sacrificed on the altar of duty. Uncle Alistair’s older daughter, Amelia, was married. The younger, Geraldine, had run away, disappeared beyond all ken. Somehow Julia had had no choice.

  ‘The wife sent her greetings,’ the doctor said now, ‘and she expects ye for coffee the morn’s morn as usual.’

  ‘Thank you. Yes, I’ll try to be there.’

  He wrote out the prescriptions and took his leave. Julia hurried back up to her uncle’s bedroom.

  ‘Whaur the de’il hae ye been?’ he greeted her. ‘I’m cauld. Draw the bed-curtains and bring anither quilt.’

  ‘I’ll have a fire lit, Uncle.’

  ‘In April? Hae I no taught ye yet that a bawbee saved is a bawbee earned?’

  Under her breath, Julia rebelliously muttered his other favourite maxim, ‘Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.’ But in this case he was the only one to suffer, so she did not make even the feeblest effort to persuade him.

  She drew the faded brocade draperies on both sides, handling the worn, fragile material with care. As she reached for the curtain at the foot, he stopped her with a gesture of one claw-like hand.

  ‘Wait. Write to my solicitor today and tell him I want to see him. Donald Braeburn o’ Braeburn, Braeburn, Tiddle and Plunkett. Ye’ll find the address in my desk.’

  ‘You want Mr. Braeburn to come all the way from London?’

  ‘I pay him, don’t I?’ the old man snarled. ‘And a pretty penny it costs to keep a Scottish lawyer in London, but almost worth it sin’ he’s bound to outwit the Sassenachs. Then write to a’ the family and tell them to be here next Monday wi’out fail. Every single one, mind.’

  ‘But suppose they cannot get away?’

  ‘They’ll come, if ye tell ’em Braeburn’s on his way.’ He chuckled nastily. ‘Half o’ them’ll hope I’m going to change my will, and t’ither half’ll hope I shan’t. Dinna fash yersel’, they’ll come running all right.’

  CHAPTER 1

  The vast vault of King’s Cross Station echoed and re-echoed to the thunder of pneumatic hammers. The air was thick with dust. Daisy tucked her extravagant first-class ticket into her handbag, hitched up the camera’s strap securely on her shoulder, stuck her
fingers in her ears, and looked about her.

  The unification of three railway companies into one, the new London and North Eastern, was responsible for the current chaos. Why the merger necessitated the complete rebuilding of King’s Cross escaped Daisy, but one result was that the clerk at the ticket window had not been able to tell her with any assurance which platform the Flying Scotsman would leave from today.

  Another result was that the usual swarms of people were confined within a variety of barricades and temporary walls. Not only was the W. H. Smith’s bookstall out of bounds, so were the slot machines, and Alec was not there this morning to see her off with a box of chocs. He was already in the North, the Northumberland police having called in Scotland Yard to solve some difficult case for them. Daisy was not even likely to see him, since she was going still further north. She was on her way to a stately home near Edinburgh to collect information for her next Town and Country article.

  Her porter reappeared, battling through the crowd towards her with her bags and the portable typewriter. She removed one finger from one ear and he bellowed into it, ‘Platform Five, miss’.

  He led the way to the ticket barrier, where a reassuring sign announced The Flying Scotsman: London – York – Edinburgh dep. 10:00 A.M. A harassed ticket-inspector was trying to deal with a long queue at the same time as fielding queries from anxious passengers who had expected their train to leave from Platform 5.

  Daisy’s porter went ahead with her luggage and she joined the slow-moving queue. It looked as if the train was going to be pretty full and she was glad she had blown the extra three quid odd on the first-class ticket. She could just about afford it since getting the American magazine commission for the series on London’s museums. For short trips third class was good enough; for over eight hours, the extra comfort and space was worth the money.

  All the same, it was a pity she had not been able to buy something to read, she thought as she walked along the platform beside the varnished teak coaches. Passengers in first tended to be less chatty, more stand-offish, than their lower-class fellow-travelers. It was going to be a long, dull journey. Oh well, she could always buzz along and try to bag a seat in third for a while when the scenery palled.

  She did want a window-seat, though. Coming to the first-class carriage, she stepped up into the train and walked along the corridor. Some of the first few compartments were smokers, others had both window-seats taken, but at last she came to an empty one with a No Smoking sign.

  ‘To face the engine or not to face the engine,’ she mused. ‘That is the question.’

  Reluctantly she put down her handbag and Lucy’s camera on the backwards seat. She preferred traveling forwards, especially when she had nothing to read. However, she wanted to arrive looking reasonably professional, and the frightful smuts which always floated in through the window invariably landed on one’s face. The window was bound to be opened, since the weather forecast prophesied another unseasonably warm day.

  In fact, it was jolly hot in the train already. Why the steam heating was always on at full blast on warm days and left one shivering on cold days was another of life’s little unsolvable mysteries.

  Brought up on ‘Ne’er cast a clout till May be out’ (May month or May blossom? she had always wondered), Daisy was wearing her green tweed winter coat. As she unbuttoned it, from the corridor came a male voice in rising tones of desperation.

  ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God, I can’t stand it much longer! Some of the fellows think the mud’s the worst, but to me its a hot day when all you want is to play cricket or laze in a punt. I tell you, I can’t . . .’

  ‘Hush, Raymond.’ A girl’s voice, its superficial languid drawl seemed to Daisy to have an undertone of tenderness, a blend of love and pity. ‘Come and sit down, darling. We’ll close the window and door, and you can put your hands over your ears.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Judith,’ he said brokenly. ‘It’s those damned hammers. They sound just like . . . Oh God, why doesn’t the bloody train start?’

  Shell-shock. Daisy knew the attacks of memories too vivid to be ignored were often set off by loud noises. Wilfred Owen’s words drifted through her head:

  What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

  Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

  Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle

  Can patter out their hasty orisons.

  Owen had been a friend of Michael’s. He was dead, along with Michael, and Gervaise, and uncountable others. At least they were at peace, she thought with a lump in her throat, unlike those poor souls who still suffered five years after the Armistice.

  ‘Shell-shock, poor chap.’ The porter popped up again like the genie of the lamp. ‘Me sister’s lad’s the same way. Takes him something awful, it does. I put your big bags in the luggage van, miss, and warned the guard to mind the FRAGILE labels on the one with your photographical stuff in, like you said.’

  ‘Thank you. Yes, the typewriter and the small bag up in the rack, and would you put the camera up, too, please.’ She tipped him and he departed.

  It was really too unbearably hot in the compartment, yet opening the window would let in all the noise and dirt of the station’s demolition. Daisy took off her cotton gloves, stuffed them in her pocket, then took off her coat.

  Thank heaven she had trusted the forecast enough to wear a summer frock. It was a rather nice new one, short-sleeved, in blue voile patterned with white and yellow daisies, with a blue sash at the low waist. She looked quite pretty in it even if her figure was far from the fashionable ideal of no bosom and no hips. A pity Alec was not there to notice that the blue was the same shade as her eyes – not that he was given to compliments. About all he had ever said on the subject of her eyes was to blame their guileless depths for leading him into indiscreet disclosures about his investigations.

  She bundled the coat up onto the rack, forced to stand on tiptoe though she was not particularly short. The world was designed for men, she thought darkly. Perhaps that would change now that women at last had the vote.

  The hat came off next, the prized emerald green cloche from Selfridge’s Bargain Basement. Her mother would be simply aghast to see her traveling without gloves and a hat, but Mother was far away. It was too ridiculous to die of heat stroke for the sake of convention. Besides, she had the compartment to herself so far, and the train must be about to start off.

  Kneeling on the seat, she peered in the mirror to tidy her hair. The short, honey brown curls still took her by surprise when she wasn’t thinking. She had not told her mother she’d had practically all her hair cut off. What a row there’d be when she found out!

  Alec said the shingle cut made her look like Lady Caroline Lamb. He also said the little mole by her mouth, the one face-powder never quite hid, looked like an eighteenth-century face-patch called the ‘Kissing’ – but he had not kissed her yet.

  Perhaps he never would, Daisy thought gloomily. When she went to tea at his house, his mother had made it plain, without ever putting it into words, that she disapproved of the middle classes mixing with the aristocracy. Of course Daisy’s mother, the Dowager Lady Dalrymple, felt just the same, or would if she knew about her daughter’s friendship with Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher. As though having an Honourable in front of one’s name translated one to a different plane from ordinary humanity!

  At least Alec’s daughter, Belinda, jolly well liked her.

  The freckles on Daisy’s now were showing. She powdered them into submission and refreshed her lipstick. Sitting down, she leaned her shingled head back on the antimacassar covering the padded headrest. The fawn and red patterned seat was indeed comfortable, softer than third class. She might even manage to snooze away part of the journey.

  Outside, whistles blew and doors slammed. The Flying Scotsman slid slowly along the platform, rattled with increasing speed over the points, and settled down to a steady clickety-clack. Signals and signal-boxes, reverberating tunnels and shunting train
s gave way to the smoke-blackened backs of terraced houses, their tiny gardens abloom with Monday morning’s wash. Daisy stood up to slide open the window and let in the cool morning air.

  ‘M-Miss Dalrymple?’

  She swung round. In the open door to the corridor stood a small, skinny girl with gingerish pigtails, wearing a navy blue school uniform coat and hat, and black stockings. She looked hot and bothered and on the edge of tears.

  ‘Belinda! Good gracious heavens!’

  ‘I thought I’d never find you. I thought I’d got on the wrong train, or you weren’t . . .’ A sob interrupted.

  ‘My dear!’ Daisy opened her arms. Belinda flew into them.

  A hug and a handkerchief later, when the child was sufficiently restored to calm to start unbuttoning her coat, Daisy’s tone changed.

  ‘It’s a jolly good job you found me,’ she said severely, ‘but what on earth are you doing here in the first place?’

  ‘I ran away,’ said Belinda in a small voice, her gaze firmly fixed on the button she was fiddling with.

  ‘From school?’

  ‘No, it’s the Easter hols. This is my best coat and hat, that’s why I’m wearing them.’

  ‘So you ran away from . . . ?’

  ‘From Gran. My grandmother.’

  Her fingers crossed for luck, Daisy prayed it might be the maternal grandmother, of whom she knew nothing. ‘Mrs. Fletcher?’ she asked with foreboding. She groaned beneath her breath as Belinda nodded.

  ‘Granny wouldn’t let me go to Deva’s house,’ she said passionately, ‘or ask her over, or even meet her in the park to play, only because she’s Indian. So I decided to go and ask Daddy if I may. Daddy says you mustn’t judge someone by where they come from or what they look like or how they talk, ’cause everyone’s equal before the law. Anyway, I play with Deva at school, so why shouldn’t I at home?’

  ‘I can’t imagine,’ Daisy lied. ‘But the point is, it was very wicked of you to run away. Your grandmother will be fearfully worried. And what made you think this train would take you to your father?’