The Silver Locomotive Mystery

by Edward Marston

  ‘And you’re sure that nobody has made enquiries in the city?’

  ‘If they had, I’d have got to hear about it. We stick together for our own protection in this trade. We won’t let any Tom, Dick or Harry stroll in and open up a shop just because he likes to hear cathedral bells on a Sunday. No,’ said Grindle, ‘the people you’re after never came near Gloucester. You’ll have to look somewhere else.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Colbeck. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’

  He and Leeming left the shop and closed the door behind him.

  ‘I don’t think he was any help at all,’ said Leeming. ‘If he’s as rude as that to customers, he won’t keep many of them.’

  ‘Mr Grindle is exactly what we need, Victor.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘Yes – he guards his own territory and bristles at the slightest hint of a fresh rival. In five minutes, he saved us the trouble of looking anywhere else in the city.’

  ‘So what do we do now, sir?’

  ‘We go on to Chepstow,’ said Colbeck, happily, ‘and we find someone exactly like Jack Grindle, Silversmith.’

  Leonard Voke had been a principal victim of the crimes and despair had eaten into his soul. Since his safe was ransacked, he had had neither the confidence nor the need to open his shop. Without his tools he could make nothing. He spent most of the day sitting in his back room amid the ruins of his livelihood. Edward Tallis called on him and discovered Voke more demoralised than ever.

  ‘There is no God,’ said the silversmith, despondently. ‘If there had been, I would never have had to suffer like this. My assistant has been murdered, my safe has been emptied and my ungrateful son is responsible for both crimes. Where is God’s mercy in all that?’

  ‘This is not the time for a theological discussion,’ said Tallis, ‘but I can assure you that there is a heaven. God looks down on us all with true pity.’

  ‘I’m not aware of it, Superintendent.’

  ‘You are still dazed by the shock of what happened to you.’

  ‘Dazed?’ echoed Voke. ‘I’ve been smashed into pieces.’

  Feeling that the old man deserved to be informed of the latest developments, Tallis had made the journey to Wood Street. There was no hope of cheering the silversmith up but he felt able to tell him that his detectives were closing in on the culprits. Voke listened to it all without comment. His mind was elsewhere.

  ‘It’s in two days’ time,’ he murmured.

  ‘What is, Mr Voke?’

  ‘The funeral – the arrangements have been made though there’ll be precious few of us to see dear Hugh lowered into the ground.’

  ‘There’ll be his sister,’ said Tallis, ‘and I’m quite certain that his landlady, Mrs Jennings, will be there. Mr Kellow must have friends who need to be informed of the details.’

  ‘I’ve put a notice in the newspapers.’

  ‘That should bring some people in. Did his sister make any special requests for the service?’

  ‘No,’ said Voke, ‘she was grateful to leave it all to me. After all that’s happened, the poor creature can’t think straight.’

  ‘The sudden death of a loved one can have that affect. When that death is of such a violent and unnatural kind, of course, the agony is more searing.’

  ‘Oh, I know all about agony,’ groaned the old man.

  Tallis did not let him wallow in his misery. He still felt that Voke, unbeknown to him, might have information tucked away at the back of his mind that could be of use in the investigation. The silversmith had so far refused to talk about his son unless it was to unleash a stream of vituperation. Hoping to provoke him into a more considered discussion, Tallis decided to tell him something about Stephen Voke that his father did not know.

  ‘When your son left your employment, he changed somewhat.’

  ‘Yes – he began to plot my destruction!’

  ‘I was talking about his work,’ said Tallis. ‘I know that you thought him lazy but he seems to have applied himself to his craft. Not, I should add, when he was at Mr Stern’s shop. This was when he was on his own. According to his landlord, Mr Meyrick, your son would spend almost all his spare time working on commissioned items for private customers.’

  Voke was roused. ‘Is this true?’

  ‘He was so dedicated that he worked on into the night until there were complaints about the noise he was making with his hammer. Evidently, the walls in the house are rather thin.’

  ‘I knew it!’ yelled Voke. ‘He stole my clients from me. I often wondered why people who had been very pleased with our work suddenly went elsewhere. Stephen must have poached them.’

  ‘He could only do that by offering lower charges. The point is that he was not the complete wastrel you described to me. Your son obviously had a new incentive in life and it must be linked to the young woman who came into his life.’

  ‘Which young woman, Superintendent – there were many.’

  ‘This one concentrated his mind.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Voke, ‘on how to abuse his father.’

  ‘If he was prepared to run away with the lady, he was clearly committed to the liaison.’ Tallis pulled a face. ‘I’m bound to tell you that it’s something I frown upon. Young men and women should not be allowed such free access to each other. It leads to depravity. There are social rules to obey. Unmarried couples should never be allowed to set up house wherever they choose. In some ways,’ he conceded, ‘this young woman seems to have been a good influence on your son. In other ways, I fear, she has led him off the straight and narrow path. Who is she, Mr Voke?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘This is your son we’re discussing.’

  ‘He never brought friends home because he knew I’d disapprove of them. He shut me out of his life, Superintendent.’ Something stirred in his memory. ‘What about the advertisement you put in the press? Did anybody come forward apart from his landlord?’

  ‘Not at first,’ replied Tallis. ‘Indeed, it took Mr Meyrick a while before he showed his face. Two other people did call on me but they were acquaintances of your son’s rather than friends. They used to drink with him at some hostelry or other.’

  ‘That’s all Stephen ever did at one time.’

  ‘Both of them told me the same thing – that your son wanted to move out of London altogether. Apparently, he kept talking about a holiday he’d had when he was much younger. It had made a big impression on him. The problem was,’ Tallis went on, ‘neither of them could recall the name of the place where you took him.’

  Voke’s eyes glazed over. ‘I can tell you,’ he said, wistfully. ‘It was when Stephen was still a boy. My wife had a cousin who offered us the use of her cottage for a week. That was the only reason we went there. We had very few holidays after that. And yes,’ he added, touched by the thought of happier times. ‘Stephen did enjoy it. We were a real family then. We did things together.’

  ‘And where exactly was this cottage, Mr Voke?’

  ‘It was in Caerleon.’

  Chepstow was a charming town that overlooked the River Wye near its junction with the Severn. Its forbidding castle was a reminder of the days when the Normans conquered England and extended their overlordship into Wales. Colbeck and Leeming were not detained there long. They spoke to three silversmiths and to the landlord of the town’s largest public house. All four confirmed that nobody else intended to open a jewellery shop. Of these witnesses, the landlord was the most unequivocal, assuring them that very little happened in Chepstow that escaped his notice. After thanking this local oracle, the detectives adjourned to the railway station to await the next train.

  Leeming was beginning to lose heart. ‘Will we have any more luck in Newport, sir?’

  ‘Wait and see,’ said Colbeck.

  ‘The next stop after that will be Cardiff.’

  ‘They won’t stay there for obvious reasons, Victor. They’ll want to put a little distance between themselves and the scene of their crimes
. They could, however, have moved further west to Swansea.’

  ‘Do we have to go that far?’ asked Leeming, worried that his hopes of returning home that night would disappear. ‘And why should anyone in their right mind want to live here when they don’t speak that peculiar language?’

  ‘You’ll find a lot of English people in South Wales,’ said Colbeck, ‘especially among the ironmasters and coalmine owners. They knew how to exploit the rich mineral resources there. Then, of course, there’s Jeremiah Stockdale, another Englishman who settled down on this side of the border. We could do with his help now. He knows Newport very well.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. He told me he was sent here a few years ago to quell riots during an election.’

  ‘I was thinking of a much earlier visit than that. In 1839 there was a Chartist demonstration in Newport. Violence broke out.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Leeming. ‘The superintendent made his most famous arrest in Newport. I remember him telling us about it.’

  ‘The arrest was actually made in Cardiff. Zephaniah Williams, one of the Chartist ringleaders, escaped there and hid in the Sea Lock Hotel waiting for a ship to carry him to France. The superintendent disguised himself as a sailor,’ recalled Colbeck with an admiring smile, ‘and was rowed out to the vessel that would have taken Williams to safety. He made the arrest before the fugitive was fully awake.’

  ‘I wish that we could make an arrest,’ said Leeming, glumly.

  ‘The time will come, Victor.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Very soon, I trust.’

  ‘Do we have to visit many more shops like the ones we’ve already been in? I find it so depressing, sir.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘They’re full of things I could never afford to buy. That last place had a silver tankard worth more than my house.’

  ‘It was made in the reign of Charles II,’ said Colbeck, ‘and you have to admit that it was beautifully decorated. But I can see that that wouldn’t carry any weight with you.’

  ‘Tankards are to drink out of and not just to look at.’

  ‘I’ll spare you any more silverware in Newport. There may be another way to find what we’re after.’

  ‘And what’s that, sir?’

  ‘Well, I’ve been thinking about something that Miss Evans said to me. Stephen Voke made a ring for her but not while he was working at Solomon Stern’s shop. It was made at his lodging. In other words,’ Colbeck went on, ‘he was working on private commissions in his own time. Perhaps he has no intention of opening a shop at all. He may be able to earn a living by getting commissions and working from home. We must search for his house.’

  ‘How will we ever find it, Inspector?’ wondered Leeming as a train steamed towards them. ‘Newport is much bigger than Cardiff. They must have thousands of houses there.’

  ‘Granted, Victor, but they won’t all have changed hands recently.’ He raised his voice above the approaching roar. ‘We need to speak to someone who sells property in the town.’

  There were times when Jeremiah Stockdale disliked his job because it gave him a disturbing insights into the depths to which human beings could sink. A week earlier, he had led a raid on a house in notorious Stanley Street where no fewer than fifty-four people were found crammed into four rooms. The pervading stink of poverty and degradation had stayed in his nostrils for days. Now, however, he was relishing his reign as the town’s police chief. He was brimming with optimism. He had forced Nigel Buckmaster to pay full compensation for the time wasted by his men on a pointless search for a supposedly missing actress. He had been able to return a stolen carriage and horses to Clifford Tomkins and earn a generous reward. He had endeared himself even more to Winifred Tomkins. And such was his unwavering confidence in Robert Colbeck that he knew the murder at the Railway Hotel would be solved in time, bringing with it lavish praise for Stockdale’s part in the investigation.

  When he returned to the police station, therefore, he was in a cheerful mood. As he entered the outer office, he found a letter awaiting him on the desk. After exchanging a few jovial words with the custody sergeant, he opened the letter and read it with interest. An anxious look came into his eye and he read the missive again with more care. An expression of horror spread slowly across his face.

  ‘Inspector Colbeck needs to see this,’ he said. ‘Urgently.’

  It took much longer than Colbeck had expected. A large number of properties in Newport had acquired new owners in recent months. None of the auctioneers and house agents they approached had ever heard of Stephen Voke, leading the detectives to wonder if he had changed his name. It was only after hours of trudging from door to door that they were eventually given the information they sought. Colbeck immediately hired a trap and they set off for Caerleon.

  ‘This is the way to travel,’ said Leeming, contentedly.

  ‘Only over short distances,’ argued Colbeck. ‘Had we set out from London in this trap, it would have taken two days to get here.’

  ‘What sort of a place is Caerleon, sir?’

  ‘We’ll find out before too long, Victor. It’s not all that far.’

  ‘That man said that we had to go on beyond the ruins.’

  ‘Yes, Caerleon was a Roman town. It was the headquarters of a legion so it must have been a place of importance. Now, it seems, it’s a trading centre through which iron and tin are shipped.’

  ‘What about silver?’

  ‘I daresay that Stephen Voke will answer that question.’

  When they left the outer edges of Newport, they had a pleasant drive through open country. The cottage they were after was in an isolated position on the far side of Caerleon. It was a relatively small, squat building but it was in good condition and slate had replaced the original thatch. There was a well-tended garden at the front and a larger one at the rear given over mainly to vegetables. The whole property was surrounded by a low stone wall. As they came over the brow of the hill, they saw that outhouses ran at a right angle to the cottage itself, justifying the value put on it by the vendor. Leeming had expected something more impressive.

  ‘It’s not the home of a rich man, Inspector, is it?’

  ‘Perhaps he doesn’t wish to flaunt his wealth,’ said Colbeck. ‘And it’s certainly an improvement on a single room in someone else’s house. I think it looks very quaint.’

  ‘It was bought with blood money,’ said Leeming. ‘Hugh Kellow helped to pay for that cottage.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten that, Victor. These are merciless people. We need to take the utmost care.’

  Tugging the reins, he turned the trap off the road then pulled it to a halt under the cover of some trees. After tethering the horse, Colbeck removed his hat and put it on the seat. Leeming followed suit, his wound starting to throb at the prospect of a meeting with the man who had inflicted it. They trod stealthily through the undergrowth until they had a good view of the cottage. Colbeck thought he saw a hint of movement through a side window.

  ‘I suggest that you work your way around to the back,’ he said. ‘Be very careful – remember that they know us by sight. When I see you in position, I’ll creep up to the front.’

  ‘Let me arrest Voke,’ said Leeming. ‘He’s mine.’

  ‘As long as you’re not too precipitate – he does have a pistol.’

  ‘I doubt if he’ll have it to hand, sir. Why should he? As you pointed out, he thinks that he’s safe. The last thing he’ll expect is that we tracked him here.’

  ‘That’s what I’m banking on.’

  ‘I’ll be off, Inspector.’

  ‘Keep a wary eye on those outbuildings,’ warned Colbeck. ‘That’s the most likely place for him to set up a workshop. There’s not enough room in the cottage itself. He may well be at work there right now.’

  Leeming nodded then set off. Keeping low and skirting the cottage, he made use of some bushes as temporary hiding places. When the sergeant finally reached the back of the property, he crouched
down behind the wall. It was the signal for Colbeck to move. He, too, kept low, moving swiftly between any trees or shrubs that could offer concealment for a few seconds. Reaching the cottage without being seen, he straightened up, opened the wicker gate and strode quickly to the front door. Roses grew around the little porch, framing it attractively. A new doormat covered the flagstone. Fresh paint had been put on the door itself. There was the sense that someone cared for their property.

  Colbeck pulled the bell rope and it produced a pleasing jingle. He heard footsteps then the door was opened by a handsome young woman with an enquiring smile.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m looking for Mr Stephen Voke,’ he said, politely. ‘Is he at home, by any chance?’

  ‘Yes, he’s out in his workshop. Did you wish to talk business with him, sir?’

  ‘I do, indeed.’

  ‘That’s very encouraging. We’ve been here barely a week and already we are starting to have customers.’ She stepped aside. ‘You’d better come in, sir. May I have your name, please?’

  ‘It’s Colbeck – Robert Colbeck.’

  ‘You’ll have to duck your head. The beams are rather low.’

  Something was wrong. The woman had recognised neither him nor his name. She certainly did not look like someone capable of taking part in a murder. He noted her wedding ring. Colbeck surmised that Voke must have had a different accomplice, one who was kept well away from the peaceful domesticity of his new life in Caerleon. Ducking into the cottage, he saw that it was larger than it looked outside. It was also well-furnished and silver ornaments glistened on the mantelpiece. Most of the furniture was very old but it had been recently polished.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, Mr Colbeck,’ she said, ‘I’ll fetch Stephen.’

  Leeming had saved her the trouble. The back door burst open and Stephen Voke was pushed into the kitchen, handcuffs pinning his wrists together behind his back. Leeming shoved him through into the living room with a grin of triumph.

  ‘Here he is,’ he announced, ‘He didn’t put up any fight.’