Railway to the Grave

by Edward Marston

  ‘You have my sympathy, Mrs Doel,’ said Colbeck. ‘It was both wrong and inconsiderate of him to accost you at a time like that. A man whose profession involves comforting the bereaved should know better. I hadn’t realised that personal animus came into it.’

  ‘No more did I,’ said Eve.

  Casting the conversational net wider, Colbeck got them to talk about friends and acquaintances of the Tarletons in other parts of the county. It emerged that they had a relatively wide social circle but that, as time passed, several of their friends had fallen away. Neither Eve nor Agnes could offer any explanation for this beyond the fact that the colonel might inadvertently have upset them by being too brusque. When he felt that he’d drawn all he could out of them, Colbeck had a request to put forward.

  ‘When we first called here,’ he said, ‘the housekeeper showed us the colonel’s arsenal. It’s a fearsome assembly of weapons. I wonder if I might have a look at them again?’

  ‘Of course, you may,’ said Eve. ‘Mrs Withers will take you there. Are you looking for anything in particular, Inspector?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Colbeck. ‘I’m searching for inspiration.’

  Leeming had long ago learnt an important lesson about Edward Tallis. The worst time to enter his room was when you were the bearer of bad tidings. Knowing that he was about to cause distress to the superintendent, Leeming hovered outside the door for minutes before finally plucking up the courage to knock.

  ‘Come in!’ roared an unwelcoming voice.

  Leeming opened the door. ‘Good day to you, sir.’

  ‘What on earth are you doing here, Sergeant?’

  ‘I was told to deliver a report in person. The body of Mrs Tarleton was found during the night.’

  Tallis sat up with interest. ‘How and where?’ he demanded. ‘Close the door, man, and sit down. I want to hear all the details. What state was the body in?’

  ‘I’ll come to that, sir,’ said Leeming, shutting the door and perching on the edge of a chair. ‘What happened was this.’

  On the train journey back, he’d spent a considerable time rehearsing what he was going to say and, on Colbeck’s advice, had made some notes so that he had the sequence of events in order. Faced with Tallis, however, and hit by a steady stream of questions from the hectoring superintendent, he faltered. Forgetting certain details, he repeated others unnecessarily and beads of sweat began to break out on his forehead. He expected a reprimand for being so confused but Tallis had no criticism to offer. Grateful that the news had been delivered to him, he rose to his feet.

  ‘I’ll return to the village this very evening,’ he declared.

  ‘That’s the last thing you must do, sir.’

  ‘Now that we have a body, the investigation has moved on.’

  ‘And it will move on even further if Inspector Colbeck and I are allowed to continue on our own. We are impartial observers. You are not, sir. You suffered the agonies of one inquest,’ said Leeming. ‘Do you really wish to endure a second one?’

  Tallis pondered. ‘Probably not, if I’m honest,’ he conceded.

  ‘Then spare yourself, sir. Put your trust in us.’

  ‘I just feel that I should be there.’

  ‘That means you’d want your room at the Black Bull,’ thought Leeming, moaning inwardly. ‘I’m not going back to the Swan. I’d rather sleep in a tent than put up with that place again. It was unhealthy.’ He saw the pile of papers on the desk. And spoke aloud. ‘You look as if you’re busy, sir.’

  ‘I am,’ said Tallis. ‘We’ve had assaults, robberies, damage to property and a case of arson to investigate. Then there’s an alleged rape in Hyde Park.’ His voice became a whisper. ‘When Miriam – Mrs Tarleton, that is – was examined, was there any evidence of sexual interference?’

  ‘There was none whatsoever, sir.’

  ‘Thank heaven for that!’

  ‘And nothing was stolen from her.’

  ‘Apart from her life, of course – that’s the most monstrous theft of all.’ Tallis stared at the mound of papers. ‘By rights, I should stay here to supervise the investigation of these crimes. But I feel that I have an obligation to some dear friends.’

  ‘The only obligation you have is to see the colonel’s name cleared and to make sure that his wife’s killer is caught. The best way you can do that,’ Leeming went on, amazed at the confidence now surging through him, ‘is to leave everything to us. As long as you’re there, you’ll be holding us up without meaning to do so.’

  ‘There may be some truth in that, Leeming.’

  ‘Does that mean I can go back there alone?’

  ‘Yes, it does. Here, I’m desperately needed; there, I’ll be nothing but a handicap.’ He sat down again. ‘I’ll stay. But I’ll want regular reports,’ he warned, ‘even if you have to send them by telegraph.’

  Leeming got up. ‘We’ll keep you fully informed, sir.’

  ‘Thank you. I appreciate your coming here like this.’

  ‘It was no trouble at all,’ said the sergeant as something jogged his memory. ‘By the way, did you know that there’s a village in the North Riding that’s named after me? It’s called Leeming.’

  Tallis scowled. ‘Does this have anything to do with the case in hand?’ Leeming shook his head. ‘Then get out of here and don’t introduce irrelevant material into a police report again. I don’t care if there’s a herd of sheep named after you. It’s beside the point.’ He banged the table. ‘Well, don’t just stand there, man. Clear off.’

  As he fled through the door, Leeming gave a smile of relief. The superintendent was back to something like his old self. His anger was reassuring. Tallis might not be interested in a village called Leeming but the sergeant knew someone at home who would be. When he left Scotland Yard, he was brimming with joy.

  Margery Withers led him to the room for the second time and took the opportunity to gather information from Colbeck.

  ‘Is it true that nothing will now be confiscated?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Colbeck. ‘When a verdict of suicide while the victim is non compos mentis is reached, no seizure is exercised on his property. Everything will pass to his heirs.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so pleased to hear that.’

  ‘The evidence given was honest and compelling. On the basis of that, the correct verdict was unavoidable. Unhappily, that’s not always been the case at inquests.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Inspector?’

  ‘Fraud, Mrs Withers, the impulse in some people to tell the most outrageous lies in order to get every penny left behind by a deceased relative. No family wants to admit that any member of it was so unhappy with his or her life that suicide was the only option left to them. It would be a terrible stigma,’ said Colbeck. ‘So they’ll go out of their way to convince a jury that someone who’s perfectly sane was, in fact, completely mad. That way, they gain sympathy and lose nothing of the inheritance.’

  ‘That’s criminal, Inspector.’

  ‘It’s the way of the world, I fear.’ He looked around. ‘This really is a fine collection. Some of it should be in a museum.’

  ‘Young Mr Tarleton has talked of selling some items.’

  ‘What’s that you’re saying about me, Mrs Withers?’ asked Adam Tarleton, coming into the room. ‘And why are you in here?’

  ‘It was at my request, sir,’ explained Colbeck.

  ‘And what could possibly interest you in this place?’

  ‘I wanted to see the firearms again.’

  ‘I have the keys if you wish to open any of the cabinets,’ said Mrs Withers. ‘The colonel entrusted them to me.’

  Tarleton laughed. ‘What she means,’ he said, ‘is that he told her where they were hidden. I wasn’t supposed to know, you see. The shotguns were out of bounds to me. My stepfather thought that I was too irresponsible to be given a loaded weapon.’

  ‘Did you mind that?’ asked Colbeck.

  ‘I minded very much, Inspector. It was on
e of the many ways in which he sought to keep me down. Will you require the keys?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘There you are, Mrs Withers,’ said Tarleton, rounding on her. ‘You can leave them in their hiding place – but only until I ask for them.’ He waved a hand. ‘Off you go.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, withdrawing quickly.

  ‘So, Inspector, what did you wish to see?’

  ‘Those boxes behind you, sir,’ said Colbeck, pointing to the shelf. ‘It looks to me as if your stepfather was very methodical. Everything seems to have been clearly marked.’

  ‘He was obsessed with order. Even little things annoyed him. If any of the knives and forks were not perfectly aligned on the dining table, for instance, he’d castigate one of the servants for hours.’

  ‘Yes, you had more of them in the old days.’

  ‘In the old days,’ echoed Tarleton, ‘we had money.’

  ‘Where did it all go?’

  ‘I’m hoping to find that out myself, Inspector.’ He moved aside. ‘But don’t let me come between you and your interest in those boxes of ammunition.’

  ‘It’s only one box that I want to examine, sir.’

  ‘Is there any special reason?’

  ‘There are two of them,’ said Colbeck, opening a hand to show him the spent cartridges he was holding, ‘and here they both are. I recovered these from the shallow grave in which your mother was buried.’

  Tarleton was startled. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I didn’t realise that you were here as part of your investigation. What are you trying to prove?’

  ‘I just want to satisfy my curiosity, sir. On the day that your mother went missing, your stepfather was carrying a shotgun.’ He indicated one of the cabinets. ‘In all likelihood, it was that Purdey with his initials carved on it. I gather that it was his favourite. Major Tallis, as he was known here, told me that he’d seen the colonel take this particular weapon out regularly so it’s logical to assume that he had it with him on the day in question. Thanks to the way he’s marked these boxes,’ he went on, reaching to take one off the shelf, ‘we know that this is the correct ammunition. Would you care to open the box for me, sir?’

  ‘I will if you insist, Inspector.’ Taking the box, Tarleton opened it. ‘What am I supposed to do now?’

  ‘Put one of the cartridges into my hand.’

  Colbeck extended an empty palm and Tarleton placed a shotgun cartridge into it. For the first time since he’d arrived back at his old home, he’d lost some of his arrogance. He watched as the inspector put the two spent cartridges beside the other one.

  ‘Well?’ said Colbeck.

  Tarleton blanched. ‘It’s a perfect match.’

  ‘And what do you deduce from that?’

  ‘The old rogue killed my mother!’

  ‘That’s not what I see, sir.’

  ‘Open your eyes, man. It’s so obvious.’

  ‘It’s rather too obvious for my liking. What you see is proof of your stepfather’s guilt. What I see, however,’ said Colbeck, looking at the cartridges, ‘is clear evidence that he was completely innocent of the crime. Colonel Tarleton did not commit murder.’

  When he got back from work that evening, Caleb Andrews found his daughter hunched over the table with a pen in her hand. Taking off his cap and his coat, he hung them on a peg.

  ‘Who are you writing to, Maddy?’ he asked.

  ‘Who else would I write to but Robert?’

  ‘Do you know his address?’

  ‘I know more than that,’ she said, looking up. ‘I even know which room he’s staying in at the Black Bull. I had a letter from him, delivered in person by Sergeant Leeming.’

  ‘Is he the ugly one with a face like death?’

  ‘I think he has a rather kind face.’

  ‘You wouldn’t think that if it jumped out of an alleyway at you on a dark night. Anyway, what did the inspector say?’

  ‘That he’s going to be away for some time.’

  ‘Well, you can tell him that your father wants to know when the wedding is going to be.’

  ‘I’ll tell him nothing of the kind.’

  ‘There are times when a man needs prodding along.’

  ‘Living with you has taught me that,’ said Madeleine, signing the letter before folding it to put it in an envelope. ‘You need to be prodded more or less every day.’ She sealed the envelope. ‘There – it’s all done.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to address it, Maddy?’

  ‘I don’t need to. I have a courier.’

  ‘Oh…and who’s that?’

  ‘It’s Sergeant Leeming, of course.’

  ‘I’d never trust a man with a face like that.’

  ‘He’s the most trustworthy man you could find, Father.’

  ‘Is he going back to Yorkshire, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Madeleine, ‘he’s leaving tomorrow on the early train. That brings me to your breakfast. You’ll have to eat it on your own when you get up. It will be set out for you.’

  ‘Where will you be?’

  ‘I’ll be walking to King’s Cross, of course.’

  ‘Won’t the sergeant pick up the letter from here?’

  ‘He doesn’t even know that I’ve written it. But since he told me which train he’d be on, I’ll be able to intercept him and use him as my courier. My letter will go speeding to Robert.’

  ‘Does it mention that I was thinking of looking for a bride?’

  Madeleine blinked. ‘Are you really serious about that, Father?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Andrews, chortling, ‘and you should use that fact to give the inspector a good, hard prod. Otherwise, you could be getting yourself a stepmother before you have a husband.’

  Eve Doel and Agnes Reader were stunned by the information that the cartridges found in the shallow grave matched those used by the colonel in his favourite shotgun. They reached the same devastating conclusion as Adam Tarleton. Holding her stomach as if she were about to be sick, Eve shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘He simply couldn’t have done it,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, yes, he could,’ asserted her brother. ‘The more I think about it, the more certain of it I am. Our stepfather was a killer.’

  Agnes was dazed. ‘I find it hard to accept that, Adam.’

  ‘The only shotgun that uses those particular cartridges is the one with his initials on it. He used to boast how it’d been made specifically for him with features that no other gun possessed. That’s why he committed suicide,’ he argued. ‘He felt so guilty over Mother’s death that he took his own life.’

  ‘No, no!’ cried Eve, ‘I simply don’t believe it.’

  ‘You don’t have to believe it, Mrs Doel,’ said Colbeck, ‘because it just isn’t true.’

  The four of them were in the drawing room. Tarleton had burst in and told the women that the name of the killer had been revealed at last. It was none other than that of his stepfather.

  ‘Don’t listen to the inspector,’ advised Tarleton. ‘He didn’t know him the way that I did. I saw the swirling anger that was just below the surface. I was the victim of that black rage of his many times. It was scary. When he lost his temper, he was capable of anything. After all, he was a soldier – he used to kill for a living.’

  ‘Stop and think for a moment, sir,’ counselled Colbeck. ‘The first thing apparent about this case was that the killer was not acting on impulse. This crime wasn’t perpetrated in a fit of temper. He looked ahead. Knowing that the route taken by your mother that day would be searched with a fine-toothed comb, he moved the body miles away. It was only by sheer chance that it was actually found. The killer even allowed for that eventuality.’

  ‘In what way, Inspector?’ asked Agnes.

  ‘He left these by the body.’ He opened his palm to show off the two spent cartridges. ‘Now ask yourselves this. Why would a man shoot his victim in one place then take these some distance away so that he could bury them with the corpse? As far as
I can see, there’s only one explanation.’

  ‘I fail to see it,’ confessed Eve.

  ‘So do I,’ said Agnes.

  ‘Permit me to explain,’ said Colbeck. ‘The killer deliberately wanted to incriminate someone else. Cartridges are important clues. He knew that. By planting them with the body, he could point the finger of suspicion at the colonel and thereby avoid culpability himself. How convenient it would be for the real killer if we all believed that the man who murdered Mrs Tarleton was already dead.’

  ‘I still think it was him,’ maintained Tarleton.

  ‘Then you have to provide a motive, sir.’

  ‘He and Mother fell out.’

  ‘That’s not true, Adam,’ said Eve, passionately. ‘If it had been, I’d have heard about it.’

  ‘Would you consider the colonel to have been an intelligent man?’ asked Colbeck.

  ‘Yes, Inspector, he was very intelligent.’

  ‘He was intelligent but pig-headed,’ said her brother.

  ‘Then picture this situation,’ suggested Colbeck. ‘If an intelligent man wishes to dispose of his wife, would he be stupid enough to be seen walking alone with her and carrying his shotgun? In short, would he advertise the murder in advance?’

  ‘No,’ said Eve, firmly, ‘of course not. Even you must agree with that, Adam.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said her brother, sourly.

  ‘And look at the colonel’s behaviour afterwards,’ Colbeck went on. ‘Had he been the killer and tormented by guilt, he wouldn’t have committed suicide. He’s much more likely to have confessed the crime and faced execution. Do you know one of the things that drove him to do what he did?’

  ‘He received poison-pen letters,’ replied Agnes.

  ‘That’s quite right, Mrs Reader.’

  ‘Aubrey told my husband about them. He said they were so vile that he asked Mrs Withers to burn them.’

  ‘Not all of them, as it happens,’ said Colbeck. ‘We still have the last letter sent to him. It not only accuses the colonel of murder, but of other unspeakable crimes as well.’ He produced the letter from his coat. ‘I wouldn’t dare let any of you read it but I’d like you to examine the handwriting on the envelope to see if you recognise it.’ He gave it to Tarleton. ‘It was written by somebody from the area. Have you ever seen that hand before, sir?’