The Silver Locomotive Mystery

by Edward Marston

  When they finally reached their destination, he got swiftly onto the platform, one hand on his stomach to keep at bay the travel sickness that threatened. Effie followed him. To his amazement, she was ready to talk to him now.

  ‘Where are we going, Sergeant?’ she asked.

  ‘To the Railway Hotel,’ he replied.

  ‘Is that where Hugh…where it happened?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Kellow. It’s also where Inspector Colbeck is staying and you’ll need to speak to him before you’re allowed to see the body.’

  She looked anxious. ‘He won’t try to stop me, will he?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Mr Dalrymple said I was entitled as next of kin.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘Then why do I have to speak to Inspector Colbeck?’

  ‘He’s in charge of the investigation.’

  ‘Has he caught the man who killed my brother yet?’

  ‘I think that highly unlikely, Miss Kellow,’ said Leeming, ‘but we will certainly do so in the fullness of time. The inspector will leave no stone unturned to find the person we’re looking for.’

  They joined the passengers thronging around the exit, the fierce hubbub making any further conversation difficult. Though he was barely ten years older, Leeming felt more like a parent to her and had a father’s reluctance to expose her to anything as unpleasant as viewing the corpse of a murder victim. Yet Effie had a kind of inner strength which had made her insist on coming to Cardiff and he hoped that it would sustain her through the ordeal.

  ‘Have you been to Wales before?’ he asked.

  ‘I haven’t been anywhere,’ she said, dully.

  ‘Where were you born?’

  ‘Watford – we moved to London when I was a child and I’ve been there ever since. Hugh was going to take me to Margate this year,’ she went on, brightening momentarily. Her face crumpled. ‘That won’t happen now. I’d always wanted to go to Margate.’

  ‘It sounds as if he really looked after you, Miss Kellow.’

  ‘Oh, he did, sir. Hugh was much more than a brother to me.’

  Leeming wondered how she would cope without him. Her future was bleak. Effie Kellow seemed doomed to spend the rest of her life in service. With the death of her brother, her one real escape route had been blocked. For such an attractive woman, there was the possibility of marriage but it would only to be to someone on the same social level. The one consolation was that, according to her, Effie had a very considerate employer. Leeming knew of many cases where rapacious householders had taken advantage of female members of staff who had been forced to comply rather than risk dismissal. He was relieved that she had at least been spared that torment.

  To the sergeant’s relief, Colbeck was at the hotel when they got there. It meant that Leeming no longer felt in loco parentis. Colbeck was interested to meet Effie and he put her at ease immediately by agreeing to let her identify the body of her brother.

  ‘Thank you, Inspector,’ she said, grasping his hand.

  ‘Sergeant Leeming will doubtless have warned you what to expect,’ he said, looking at his colleague. ‘The body was viewed by someone who travelled with your brother on the train but I’m not sure how much credence can be placed on his identification.’

  ‘I’m the only person who ought to have seen Hugh.’

  ‘Granted, Mrs Kellow, but we had no means of getting in touch with you. Fortunately, the reward notice and newspaper report came to your attention.’

  ‘Can I see him now, sir?’

  ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like some refreshment first?’ offered Leeming. ‘It must be a long time since you’ve eaten and you must be hungry – I know that I am.’

  ‘I suggest a meal afterwards, Sergeant,’ said Colbeck.

  Leeming read his meaningful glance. If she viewed the corpse on a full stomach, there was always the possibility that Effie Kellow would be violently sick. It had happened many times with other relatives of murder victims. Leeming mimed an apology to Colbeck.

  ‘Where is my brother?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ll take you to him at once,’ said Colbeck.

  ‘I have to see him, Inspector.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘It’s the only way to put my mind at rest.’

  Leeming squirmed inwardly. He feared that the sight of her brother’s corpse would have exactly the opposite effect.

  Clifford Tomkins had spent many years regretting his decision to marry Winifred Armitage. At the time, of course, she had seemed like a good catch, a handsome young woman from the landed gentry with a vivacity kept just inside the bounds of convention. Unlike any other female of his acquaintance, she had shown a sincere interest in his work and been willing to live in Merthyr, the greatest iron town in the world, a noisy, dirty, over-crowded, rough and ready place that would have deterred many potential wives. She had produced five children, gaining weight and losing more of her dwindling appeal after each birth, and devoted herself to spending increasing amounts of his vast wealth. As he looked at her now, in the wild-eyed and bellicose state to which she reverted so easily, he could not believe that her beauty had ever ensnared him or that he had foolishly endured a lengthy and highly regulated betrothal in order to wed her.

  ‘I must have that coffee pot back, Clifford!’ she asserted.

  ‘You will, my dear,’ he soothed.

  ‘Otherwise, I’ll be the laughing-stock of Cardiff.’

  ‘Nobody will laugh at a brutal murder.’

  ‘They all knew how much store I set by it. How they must be rejoicing now! Lady Pryde will be cackling, Carys Evans will be clapping her hands and the rest of them will be taking immense pleasure out of my misfortune.’

  ‘You do them wrong, Winifred,’ he told her. ‘Your friends will have genuine sympathy for you. Lady Pryde might wrest some cruel enjoyment out of your predicament, perhaps, but Carys and the others will all feel sorry. They know how much that coffee pot meant to you.’

  ‘There’d be nothing else like it in the whole of Wales.’

  ‘You always did have a sense of originality, my dear.’

  He gave a noncommittal smile. They were in the drawing room of their house and Tomkins was forced to listen to yet another outburst of self-pity from his wife. A silver coffee pot in the shape of a locomotive struck him as a rather bizarre and totally unnecessary object to commission, especially at such a high price. But it was an opinion he would never dare to vouchsafe to his wife.

  ‘We must put our trust in this Inspector Colbeck,’ he resumed.

  ‘I’m not sure that I can, Clifford.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, I don’t have much faith in a man who doesn’t even bother to call on us. If he is in charge of the investigation, it was his duty to inform us in person of the loss we sustained. Instead of doing so, he sent that oaf, Superintendent Stockdale.’

  ‘Be fair to the man,’ said Tomkins, remembering the occasion when Stockdale’s discretion had saved him from being exposed as a client of a certain brothel in the town. ‘The superintendent is no oaf. He does a difficult job very well even if he is somewhat heavy-handed at times.’

  ‘He let us down,’ she accused.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘The crime occurred not long after noon yet it was hours before we were told about it. We should have been contacted at once.’

  ‘You can understand the delay, my dear. Stockdale had a murder on his hands. That took precedence over the theft. He was probably waiting for Inspector Colbeck to arrive before he took any major decision.’

  She was enraged. ‘Whose side are you on?’

  ‘It’s not a question of sides, Winifred.’

  ‘Then why are you defending the superintendent?’

  ‘I’m defending nobody, my dear.’

  ‘You’re the one person I felt I could rely on,’ she said, hotly. ‘When my property was stolen, I should have been told instantly.’

  ‘I qu
ite agree,’ he said, choosing dishonesty as a means of appeasing her. ‘I’ll make that point to Stockdale when I see him.’

  ‘Inspector Colbeck is the person we ought to be seeing. Out of common courtesy, he should have been in touch with us.’ She drew herself up to her full height. ‘Does he know who we are?’

  He swelled with pride. ‘Everyone in South Wales knows who we are, Winifred,’ he boasted. ‘As for the inspector, we must bear in mind what Stockdale said of him. He comes with an excellent reputation for solving crimes.’

  ‘I haven’t been impressed with what he’s done do far. According to him, someone would be trying to sell that coffee pot back to us. I believed him at first,’ she said, ‘but I think it’s an absurd idea now. My fear is that the coffee pot is no longer even in Cardiff.’

  ‘We’ll get it back somehow, my dear.’

  ‘Will we?’

  ‘If all else fails, I’ll commission another one.’

  ‘That would take ages, Clifford. I want it now.’

  ‘Then you’ll simply have to keep your fingers crossed.’

  Before she could reply, she was interrupted by a tap on the door. It opened to reveal the butler who came into the room with something on a silver salver.

  ‘This just arrived for you, Mr Tomkins,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, Glover – rather late for any mail, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s not franked, sir,’ said the butler as Tomkins took the envelope. ‘Someone put it through the letterbox and slipped away unseen. I just found it there.’

  ‘I see. That will be all.’

  The butler nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him. Tomkins, meanwhile, opened the letter. He blenched when he read it.

  ‘What is it?’ demanded his wife.

  ‘It’s a ransom demand,’ he gulped. ‘Inspector Colbeck was right.’

  Since there was no mortuary in the town, the dead body was kept in a cold, dank cellar that helped to delay decomposition slightly. Herbs had been scattered to combat the stench of death. An oil lamp hung from a beam, casting a circle of light around the slab. Colbeck was glad to have the body identified by a family member and grateful that Dr Rees had cleaned the scalp wound and wiped away the blood from the corpse. It was no longer as gruesome a sight as it had been. How Effie Kellow would respond, he did not know but he and Leeming stood either side of her as a precautionary measure. They left it to Rees to draw back the shroud. As soon as the dead man’s face came into view, Effie needed only a second to confirm that it was her brother. Staring in horror, she reached out to touch the corpse tenderly on the shoulder and seemed to be on the point of leaning forward to plant a farewell kiss on her brother’s forehead. Changing her mind, she averted her eyes. Effie clearly needed time to recover. Colbeck waited a full minute before speaking.

  ‘I’m sorry we had to put you through that,’ he said.

  ‘It’s Hugh,’ she said, chewing her lip. ‘It’s my brother.’

  ‘Let’s get you out of here, Miss Kellow.’

  ‘Who could have done such a terrible a thing?’

  ‘We’ll find his killer, I guarantee it.’

  ‘It’s so unfair – Hugh wouldn’t have harmed a fly.’

  Colbeck wanted to ask her if she could suggest any reason why her brother had been in that particular hotel in the first place but it was obviously the wrong moment to do so. Effie, in any case, had gone off in a private world, her face contorted with grief and her head moving to and fro. A flood of tears then came. Colbeck was ready for them, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to give her and placing a gentle arm around her shoulder by way of comfort. He was moved by the sheer hopelessness of her situation.

  ‘Miss Kellow can’t return to London in this condition,’ he told Leeming. ‘We’ll have to find a room for her at the hotel.’

  The first night of Macbeth was a glittering occasion. The cream of Cardiff society converged on the Theatre Royal in its finery. Carriages of every description arrived in an endless procession to drop off those attending the opening performance. The mayor and mayoress were among the first to arrive, the one wearing his chain of office and the other in a blue silk taffeta dress that would not have been out of place in the presence of royalty. A small knot of people had gathered to watch their social superiors, marvelling at the elegant men and the bejewelled ladies arriving in waves. There was so much colour, action and affectation on show that it seemed as if a drama was being enacted outside the theatre as well as upon its stage.

  Sir David and Lady Pryde descended from their phaeton with aristocratic poise, ignoring the watching hoi polloi before sweeping in through the portals of the theatre. Swathed in a black and cerise silk dress that accentuated, rather than concealed, her bulk, Martha Pryde wore a silver tiara and flicked an ivory fan ostentatiously beneath her double chin. She was a hefty woman in her fifties with an arrogant strut. As she and her husband were shown to their seats, her beady eyes scanned the whole auditorium.

  ‘She’s not here,’ she said, gleefully.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked her husband.

  ‘Winifred Tomkins is not here. She can’t face us now that her outlandish coffee pot has been stolen. I know that she was invited but I can’t see her anywhere. Can you, David?’

  ‘I haven’t really looked.’

  ‘Well, look now. I can’t believe that I’ve missed her.’

  ‘Very well, Martha,’ he said, reluctantly shifting his gaze from Carys Evans with whom he had been exchanging a secret smile. ‘Although why you should be bothered with them, I really don’t know. They no longer exist as far as I’m concerned. If I bump into either of that dreadful pair, I shall cut them dead.’

  ‘Winifred hasn’t got the courage to appear in public.’

  ‘Forget the egregious woman.’

  ‘After what happened – how can I?’

  ‘She’s not here – be grateful for the fact.’

  ‘Oh, I’m more than grateful,’ said his wife as she took her seat beside him. ‘I’m delighted. The thief who stole that coffee pot of hers deserves congratulations. He’s wiped that haughty smile off her ugly face.’ She smiled triumphantly. ‘I feel wonderful. I don’t think I’ve ever been so ready to enjoy a performance. Wherever she is, I hope that Winifred is in pain.’

  ‘What do we do, Inspector?’ asked a querulous Winifred Tomkins.

  ‘I suggest that the ransom is paid,’ said Colbeck.

  Tomkins was scandalised. ‘Pay twice for the same thing?’ he said in alarm. ‘That goes against the grain.’

  ‘Nevertheless, sir, it’s what I advise. And, if I might correct you, the full price for the item has not yet been paid. Mr Kellow was to have collected the balance. All that you have parted with is a deposit.’

  ‘Fifty pounds is not a trifling amount.’

  ‘Much more is now required. I’d urge you to pay it.’

  ‘You mean to let the thief get away with it?’

  ‘He’s a murderer as well as a thief, Mr Tomkins, and he will be arraigned for both crimes. Until we arrest him, you must comply with the demands in the ransom note.’

  ‘I refuse to bow to his wishes.’

  ‘Then you can wave farewell to any hope of recovering the item.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Inspector!’ exclaimed Winifred. ‘I can’t bear such a thought. Superintendent Stockdale led us to believe that you would retrieve that coffee pot for us.’

  ‘I’m endeavouring to do just that, Mrs Tomkins.’

  Neither she nor her husband was persuaded. They remained hurt, fearful and sceptical. Colbeck and Leeming had been summoned to the house to be shown the anonymous ransom note. The inspector was completely at ease in the sprawling mansion but his sergeant was perturbed. Leeming always felt intimidated by the sight of wealth and, since their arrival, had been shifting his feet and holding his tongue.

  ‘Have the money ready for tomorrow, sir,’ suggested Colbeck.

  ‘I might as well toss it on a fire,’ sai
d Tomkins, sullenly.

  ‘At least I’d get my property back,’ his wife put in.

  ‘Winifred, it’s not worth twice the asking price.’

  She shot him a look. ‘It is to me.’

  ‘You won’t lose a penny of the money, Mr Tomkins,’ said Colbeck, ‘and you’ll have the satisfaction of seeing the thief put behind bars. The person to thank will be my sergeant.’

  Leeming was taken aback, ‘Me, sir?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, Sergeant, you will be involved in the exchange. All that the note has told us is how much money is required. The details of the exchange will come tomorrow.’

  ‘Then why can’t you lie in wait to catch the thief when he delivers the message here?’ asked Tomkins.

  ‘This person is far too clever to be caught that way. We’re dealing with someone who plans ahead very carefully. When the exchange is made, for instance,’ prophesied Colbeck, ‘it will be somewhere in the open so that the sergeant can be watched.’

  ‘What then, Inspector?’ said Leeming.

  ‘You ask to see the coffee pot before you hand over the money, and when you see no deception is involved – you make the arrest.’

  ‘Where will you be?’ wondered Tomkins.

  ‘A respectable distance away, sir,’ said Colbeck. ‘At the slightest sign of a police ambush, the exchange will be cancelled and the coffee pot will disappear forever.’

  ‘No!’ shrieked Winifred.

  ‘Sergeant Leeming is an experienced detective. It’s not the first time he’s been in this situation. He’ll know what to do.’

  ‘A lot of money is at stake here,’ Tomkins reminded him.

  ‘Not to mention my coffee pot,’ added his wife.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Leeming, pleased to be given such a pivotal role. ‘The money and the coffee pot will be returned when I catch him.’

  Colbeck looked at the ransom note. ‘Why do you assume that you’ll be dealing with a man? I’m no expert on calligraphy,’ he went on, passing the note to Leeming, ‘but I’d say that was definitely a woman’s hand – wouldn’t you?’