Pugg assured them he would act as desired, but as French pointed out to his companions, his request was really weighing the scales against their success. ‘He says he’ll act as on that night,’ said French, ‘but, of course, he won’t. You bet he’ll keep his eyes skinned. So if we can succeed under this handicap Joss and Co. won’t have had much difficulty.’
They left their suitcases in their staterooms and came out for a final stroll on the platform.
‘I should remind you two,’ French went on, ‘that Coates has already twice visited Sir John. On these calls he has told him of his friend’s success with the linen-silk fabric, and has got him to agree to go over to Belfast via Larne to see the process with a view to putting money into it; all much as Joss stated. On some pretext, such perhaps as hearing details of further experiments, he had doubtless also led the old man to expect a call at his stateroom after the train has started. Either of you see anything wrong so far?’
Ormsby and M’Clung both thought that a plausible man could have convinced the deceased on all these points.
‘Very well then, we’ll leave it at that,’ French concluded. ‘You Ormsby, expect a call from me after we start.’
They took their places and presently the train began to glide slowly from the station. The network of roads at the end of the platforms passed before them and the train wormed its way into a tunnel. As it did so Attendant Pugg appeared.
‘I’ll just see your tickets now, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘then you won’t be disturbed till we get to Stranraer. Thank you, sir: thank you, sir. What about a call in the morning? … ’Alf an hour before we get in? Right, sir. And two cups o’ tea? Thank you, sir.’
He noted the particulars in his book and vanished, closing the door. Immediately they heard him repeating his formula to Ormsby.
As soon as he had gone on to the next stateroom, French got busy. Bolting the door to the corridor he took an instrument of bent wire from his pocket and inserted it in the lock of the communicating door. For some minutes he worked, then a faint click, and a satisfied expression on his face announced that the bolt had been shot back. Next he did the same with the finger bolt. The door was now fastened by the handle and the bolt on Sir John’s side only.
By the time this was done both men estimated that Pugg would have moved on to the third-class sleeper adjoining. French unbolted and slowly opened the corridor door.
‘All clear,’ he whispered and knocked at Ormsby’s door.
‘Come in,’ they heard faintly above the roar of the train, which by now was running at a high speed. Both men squeezed in and closed the door.
‘Get over there on to the luggage stool,’ French directed M’Clung. Ormsby was sitting on the bed near its foot and he moved slightly up so that the Irishman might pass him and take his place at the window. French also sat down on the bed.
‘Now first,’ went on French, ‘without letting you see me, Sir John, I bolt your corridor door.’ He suited the action to the word. ‘Next I talk to you and I am as pleasant and interesting as I know how. I tell you about my friend’s experiment or whatever you are expecting to hear, and then I probably say that I must go back to my stateroom, as no doubt you are tired and wish to be alone. At all events, at the end of my interview I produce my flask.
‘“I happen to have here some really choice old brandy,” I say. “I hope you will join me in a nightcap?” I unscrew the top of the flask, hand you the glass from the toilet rack and use the cap for myself.’
French paused to let his companions appreciate the situation.
‘Whether Sir John wants the drink or whether he merely takes it for politeness sake, we don’t know, but we know that he accepts it. And when he does so Joss has taken his first fence. For, as I presume, you have grasped that brandy contains a safe, but powerful and quick-acting sleeping draught. Lastly, I wipe my finger marks off the flask and leave it here on the rack.’
French took out his watch.
‘You have now drunk the brandy, Ormsby, and we shall give you fifteen minutes to be asleep. In order not to arouse your suspicions I go on talking to you. But presently you drop over. We shall suppose you have done it. I now unbolt the communicating door. This enables me to open it and I return through it to my stateroom, bolting it behind me on my own side. You may go to sleep now, Ormsby. There’ll be nothing more until we’re near Castle-Douglas. But before I go I want you both to appreciate the situation.
‘Sir John is lying here asleep with his door bolted. Should anything go wrong and the door has to be broken open everything will be found normal. The flask—a new one—containing the dregs of a mixed sleeping draught will be found. To get a good sleep in the unusual circumstance of a train journey, it is quite reasonable that Sir John should have taken a draught. You follow me? Up to the present there is nothing to arouse suspicion.’
‘The communicating door is unlocked,’ M’Clung suggested.
‘That won’t arouse suspicion,’ returned French, ‘because my side of it is bolted and therefore it cannot be opened. If any trouble arose I should of course lock it.’
‘It’s not bolted on Sir John’s side,’ M’Clung persisted.
‘I agree,’ French admitted, ‘but that would be put down to an oversight on the attendant’s part, no matter how he denied it. Besides if one goes in for crime one must take some risk.’
Both men agreed. French and M’Clung then withdrew according to plan, bolting the communicating door behind them.
‘There’s an extra rug and I told the old chap to leave in a second pillow. Make up another bed on the floor, M’Clung, and we’ll take it in turns.’
But neither French nor his companion felt like sleep. Though neither would have admitted it, both were consumed with a lively excitement, to which in French’s case was added not a little anxiety. For him, this was a serious matter in which they were engaged. After what had seemed an endless period of effort and suspense he had at last taken the plunge. He had stated his theory and now it was under test. If the thing went well it would help him at headquarters as surely as the converse would be to his disadvantage. To a certain extent his reputation and prospects were at stake.
To M’Clung the affair was simpler. His interest came from curiosity, and from the mere fact that he was assisting at the reconstruction of a big murder case with officers of the far-famed Yard. He only wished a certain young lady, Mrs Adam M’Clung that was to be, could see him moving in these exalted circles.
The train was running well. French presently giving up the pretence of sleep, raised the blind and the two men gazed out into the black night and watched the lights appear at intervals, singly or in groups, twinkle for a moment and hurry by. Bridges hurled themselves backward with a quick ‘Wha!’ while the rhythmic beat of the wheels on the rail joints ran on relentlessly, occasionally, indeed, grumblingly broken by the crossings at some station, but immediately dropping once more into its endless song.
After a time they reached Rugby. A halt there and off again. Crewe. Wigan. The long pull up Shap. The rush down on the other side. Carlisle.
‘No good making a move till we pass Dumfries,’ said French, and they settled down again.
For a while they lay listening once again to the rushing noises of the night, and then at last the great moment was upon them. French slowly got up, switched on the lights and bolted the door into the corridor. Then unbolting that into the next berth, he opened the door and passed through.
Ormsby was asleep, but he roused himself as French turned on the lights here also.
‘Now, Ormsby, ever been murdered by a knock over the skull?’ French said cheerily. ‘Because you’ll see what it’s like now.’
He took a pencil from his pocket and held it up.
‘This,’ he explained, ‘I obtained some days ago in London. It is, I imagine, a short tube of very soft, thick rubber, sealed at the end and filled with shot. Soft, but very heavy; would crack a man’s skull without cutting the skin. Or it may be a sandbag.
At all events you appreciate the fact that I have arrived here with my weapon and that you, Ormsby, are asleep from your drug and therefore helpless.’
The men nodded, keenly interested.
‘I now,’ went on French, ‘crack your brainbox. You are lying on your side, so I do it at the correct place.’ He touched the man’s head lightly with the pencil. ‘There, the deed is done. You’re a dead man and I’m a murderer. Well, it’ll not lie heavily on my conscience. Now with the help of my friends I have to cover up the evidences of my crime. This is how I do it.’
From the other stateroom he produced the brown cloak. ‘Remember, Sir John,’ he continued, ‘that you are undressed. We shall suppose your clothes are there on the rack. Now I dress you in this brown cloak. You put it on and we’ll suppose I’ve done it for you. All I want is that you should both be satisfied that Joss could have dressed the body in the cloak.’
Of this neither man had any doubt.
‘In that cloak of dark and dull material, you would be invisible on a dark night, and that’s what you’ve got to be now. Let me explain to you just what Carter and Harvey have done, remembering that Carter is playing Victor and Harvey, Teer.’
They sat down, Ormsby swathed to the eyes in the cloth and with his hood drawn down low over his forehead, while French, demonstrating with outstretched finger, continued his tale.
‘They were told to travel last night by this same train to Castle-Douglas. When they got out they were to note the position in which the sleeper stopped. As you know, trains stop pretty well at the same place every night. Next day they were to explore the station and surroundings. From there they were to go to Dumfries, hire a car, and run it during the night to Castle-Douglas, arriving shortly before this train. Dressed in their cloaks, they should be waiting for us on the line—probably lying down between the rails and the far platform wall.’
Both his hearers were listening with an eager intensity. While they no longer had any doubt as to the denouement of the affair, they were none the less anxious to follow it to its inevitable end.
A whistle, followed by the grinding of the brakes, warned them that the moment was upon them.
‘That’s Castle-Douglas,’ said French, who now held the rope ladder in his hand. ‘Now, Ormsby, look sharp and do as I tell you.’
The speed began to slacken and French turned off the light in both staterooms. Then he opened first the shutter and then the window.
‘The opening is only 24 inches wide by 15 high,’ he explained, ‘and you have to go out through it. If you really were that corpse we talked about I should throw you out; as it is you must go out yourself. But for any sake be quick, for the train only stops for one minute and Carter has to get in.’
They were now drawing up at the platform and French put out the ladder, hooking it to the window. Its query-shaped terminals made it stand out from the side of the carriage so that its rungs could be grasped. The train came to a stand.
‘Now, Ormsby!’ came in a sharp whisper from French.
With considerable difficulty Ormsby pushed himself feet first out of the window and disappeared into the darkness. The rope ladder shook and then suddenly hung loose. French, looking out, could see nothing. A wave of misgiving swept over him as he stared anxiously down. If Carter didn’t hurry up … What if the thing had miscarried? And then French heard the whistle of the guard, and the train began slowly to move. Curse! Something had gone wrong! No, it hadn’t though! The ladder shook again and the ropes strained tight. With the train moving quite rapidly, Carter’s head appeared at the window, followed by his shoulders.
Carter was a bigger man than Ormsby, and, for a few seconds, it looked as if he wasn’t going to get in. But with a prodigious thrust he managed it, falling in a heap on the floor. French swore in his relief. If Carter could do it, Victor, who was a much smaller man, could do it easily. With muttered benedictions, French pulled up the window, closed the shutter and turned on the light.
‘What kept you, Carter?’ he demanded. ‘You gave M’Clung and me the fright of our lives. We thought something had gone wrong.’
Carter sniggered.
‘I’ll tell you, Mr French. We wanted to get the body away from the six-foot way in case some of the station staff should take it into their heads to cross the line. So we lifted it across the other line and laid it up against the platform wall. It would have been all right only Ormsby was a bad corpse, he struggled when he felt us lift him. He nearly made me miss the train. But I got it all right,’ he added with satisfaction.
‘No difficulty up to the present?’
‘None, sir. We got down here last night and fixed the place where the sleeper stopped. Then in the morning we looked over the ground and saw how you got from the station to the road. It’s a fairly long carry, Mr French. If Harvey carries Ormsby all that way, he’ll wish he was in London.’ Carter sniggered again at the prospect.
‘A man trying to cover up a murder won’t worry if it’s a bit tiring,’ French reminded him. ‘Along that path through the trees, and across the field they’re not likely to be seen, and that’s all that matters.’
Carter agreed. ‘There’s not much chance of being seen so long as they’re in the field. It’s getting into the car on the road that’s the difficulty. However, I expect there’ll be no trouble. The place was deserted when we left the car, and it’s unlikely there’ll be anybody around.’
‘Harvey understands to leave the body in the field until he prospects, I take it?’
‘Oh, yes, sir. Harvey knows his way round all right.’
‘Very well, that’s the end of our experiment so far as those two men are concerned. Now with regard to ourselves. You understand, Carter, that you’re Victor and that you’ve got to be Sir John. You and I must get busy. I have in my bag the white wig which, you remember, you bought some time ago in connection with some amateur theatricals. I have also an actor’s make-up set and I know how to use it. You may remember Joss was on the stage in America. Very well, I make you up with a white wig, a few lines on your face and glasses. I’m careful not to overdo things: a very slight application of the pencil is enough, for you are like Sir John to begin with. The attendant is the only person you are likely to meet who has seen you within the last seven years, and he will suspect nothing. You agree?’
Both men agreed. M’Clung indeed was ‘certain sure’ the thing could, and had, been done.
French glanced at his watch.
‘This old boy will be coming to call us pretty soon,’ he observed. ‘We’d better get ready. Carter, you bolt your door after us and unbolt the corridor one, Come, M’Clung, we’ll get home.’
A few minutes’ work with the bent wire shot the lock of the communicating door. French then bolted it with the finger bolt, and unfastened the bolt on the corridor door. Presently a knock came and the latter opened.
‘Good morning, Mr French. Good morning, sir. Your tea, gentlemen.’
French could not repress a grin as the two sat, listening intently. They heard the knock next door and the unctuous ‘Good morning, Mr Ormsby.’ Then there was a startled oath, and a little crash, suggestive of a falling tea tray. French opened his door.
‘Hush, Pugg, don’t make a noise. It’s only the experiment we wanted to try. We’ll tell you about it afterwards, but just now try this communicating door.’
Finding the door locked and bolted on each side seemed to add to the man’s mystification. He had a quick look round, then excused himself on the ground that he had to wake his other passengers.
‘That’s all right,’ French said in satisfied tones, ‘we may call this a success. If Harvey and Ormsby carry off their part the possibility of the thing is demonstrated. Jolly good, M’Clung, what?’ He could not refrain from smiling.
M’Clung seemed equally pleased. But he admitted that there were still many details he hadn’t got the hang of and he wondered if Mr French could give him some further explanation.
‘Surely,’ French said ami
cably. ‘But we’ll wait till those other two join us. We’ll see the sights of Stranraer until they turn up, then we’ll have breakfast and after that we’ll go into the thing thoroughly.’
Pugg put his head into the stateroom.
‘Are you crossing over, gentlemen?’ he asked. ‘Because if not I’d like to ’ear ’ow that was done. I shouldn’t ’ave believed such a thing could ’ave ’appened, not no matter ’oo said it.’
‘I’d like to ’ear ’ow it was done,’ he repeated, when they had the car to themselves. ‘I’m sure this ’ere gentleman,’ he pointed to Carter, ‘is not the gentleman ’oo started from Euston. I don’t believe as ’ow any make-up could alter ’im like that. But I’ll swear there weren’t no change made neither. It’s got me fair mazed, it ’as, and I’d like it explained.’
French seemed better pleased than ever.
‘You’re quite right about the gentleman,’ he agreed, ‘but you’re wrong about no change being made. Mr Ormsby got out at Castle-Douglas and Mr Carter, here, got in.’
Pugg slowly rubbed his chin.
‘If so be as you say so, sir, I must believe it, that is,’ he hesitated, ‘if you’re not pulling my leg. But I kept an extra good look out all the way and I saw nothing. And what’s more, I tipped the wink to the guard that something was up and ’e ’ad a look out too. And ’e saw nothing. I tell you, sir, ’owever you did it, it was well done.’
French smiled.
‘I thought you’d do something like that. That’s why I gave you the hint. It’s made our experiment all the more convincing. Just call the guard, will you?’
‘Now,’ French went on to the two officials, ‘you two men in the course of your business have got to know a police secret. The gang that did this did it as part of a scheme to murder a helpless, old man, Sir John Magill. We’re on to them, but we haven’t got them yet. If they get to know that we’ve learned their trick they’ll find it unhealthy here and make tracks. Perhaps we’ll lose them. So they haven’t got to know. Do you see what that means?’
Inspector French: Sir John Magill's Last Journey Page 23
