2
The Boots told her that Mr. Wickstead lodged in the annexe made from part of the old coaching stable, but added that he had just gone out, so she waited until the man's back was turned and then slipped through the arch and up a wooden stair to the gallery. She had no way of knowing which of the four rooms up here was his, but trying the first door found it open. A woman's cape and hood lay on the bed so she moved on and tried the two adjoining rooms, finding them both unoccupied with their beds stripped. The fourth door, farthest from the main building, was fastened but in one of the unoccupied rooms a key had been left in the lock and so she got it and tried it on the end room, finding that it fitted the common lock pattern. She went in, not knowing what she was seeking beyond some kind of confirmation that Wickstead was a trained thief and she did not stop to ask herself whether this justified her ransacking the man's room on suspicion. All she needed, at this stage, was proof that Wickstead was not what he seemed to be, an ex-stableboy down on his luck and currently marking time as a waggoner on twenty-five shillings a week. With that, perhaps, he could be challenged.
She found evidence of a kind at once, a suit of good broadcloth in the closet, and a riding cloak of excellent quality, as were the calfskin boots treed on the rack below. Then, as she was closing the closet door, her eye caught a gleam of metal on the shelf reserved for hats and she reached up to find a heavy, six-chambered revolver, fully loaded. Attached to it was a looped strap, too short to be used as a belt, and she had to study the weapon for a moment before understanding its purpose. It was made to buckle round the forearm, so that user and gun could not be separated in a struggle. She was quite sure now, certainty making her perspire under the armpits as she turned to the small cabin trunk at the foot of the bed. In here, among some neatly packed small clothes, was more positive proof. A young man of his temperament might conceivably own a pistol but what would he be doing with a crêpe mask, of the kind highwaymen used robbing coaches two generations ago? She examined the trunk very closely then, noting a fresh label consigning it to Liverpool. She thought about this, deciding that his plan was probably to send his luggage carriage forward to the port, and claim it there after he had extracted everything of value from the Harwich package on the short journey between terminus and quay. In the bottom of the trunk was a pair of shoes, stuffed with newspaper and they seemed to her, as she turned them over, unusually heavy. She extracted the paper from one and three gold watches and a dozen pairs of ornamental studs and cuff-links winked up at her.
She replaced the shoes, closed the trunk and glanced out into the passage finding it empty. In twenty seconds she had relocked the door, replaced the key, and descended into the yard, passing through the service door and finding the Boots eating his dinner at a staff table. “Mr. Wickstead doesn’t seem to be in any of the public rooms,” she said, giving him sixpence. “Tell him I called with this on my way out of town,” and she handed him the envelope containing the laundered neckcloth and went through the buttery into the street.
Her first thought was to consult the police. That way, she supposed, the safety of Beckstein's goods would be assured, for even if Wickstead could talk his way out of possessing a loaded firearm, a mask, and a shoeful of watches, he would be unlikely to report to the yard after questioning. But two following thoughts occurred to her and both were prompted by her pride. One was that Wickstead, whatever his profession and ulterior motives, had been instrumental in saving her from death or injury under that shower of drain pipes. The other was less easily defined. It had to do with her position in the Crescents, a woman in authority over so many men, and it seemed to her that here was an unlooked for chance of setting the seal upon that authority. Suppose she devised a counterplot? Suppose she was able to catch a thief in the commission of a crime and attach to herself the kind of publicity Ratcliffe had won when he recaptured a tame lion, or Bryn Lovell had gained when he saved the lives of half a hundred miners?
It wasn’t an easy decision to make. She had the nerve but did she have the skill to challenge a man as calculating as Wickstead? And suppose she bungled it, and he got clear away with Beckstein's casket, and then it later emerged, as surely it must, that she had known him for what he was long before the Harwich bag had left the depot? She was still undecided when she found her steps had led her past the station and here she suddenly remembered Brockworth, the goods manager, to whom, in a sense, she owed her promotion to the position of manager. Brockworth was an intelligent man, and because he fancied himself in love with her, would be likely to take a good deal on trust. She smoothed her hair, retied her shawl under her chin, and marched into his office, finding him sorting his forms at a counter set against the wall.
He rose with a smile that augured well for the granting of favours. She said, without preamble, “I’m here on business, Edward. We’ve got a high value package going to Harwich on the evening train. It’ll be in one of our usual sacks in the luggage van and I’d take it kindly if you allowed me to travel with it. In the mail van, that is.”
He said, with a puzzled look, “But that's flat against regulations, Edith. No one but the guard is allowed to sit in there.”
“That's why I’m here asking you to arrange it. The fact is, I don’t want that sack out of my sight, for far too much depends on its safe arrival. I could go into details but I don’t care to at this stage. All I can promise is this; if you and your guard shut your eyes to my presence in the van I’ll explain later, when I get back.”
“I couldn’t take that risk,” he said, unhappily, “not even for you, Edith,” but then, seeing her frown, “I daresay Hibbert would let you ride in the brakevan and from there you could watch the sacks through his spyhole. Would that do?”
“Very nicely,” she said, “so long as I get aboard before the sacks are loaded.”
“That must mean you’re expecting trouble, and if you are this isn’t the way to prevent it.”
“I’m not expecting trouble,” she said, gaily, “and it isn’t that I don’t trust your railway. It's just that I have a fancy to prove somebody's worth.”
“I’ll have to know who that somebody is, Edith.”
“I’ll tell you that. My escort.”
“If you’re sending an escort why do you have to spy on him?”
“To see how well he attends to his business. I’ve singled him out for a more responsible position, but I want to be sure.”
He looked at her curiously. He had known her since she was a child but he had never understood her. She was an impulsive, wayward creature, utterly unlike her phlegmatic father and her sweet-faced mother, whose courtship and marriage he remembered. At one time he had thought of her as a lovable, high-spirited little lass, very much the tomboy, and at another time, after she had shown him and his children kindness, he had hoped to make her the second Mrs. Brockworth, but now he was resigned to an avuncular role, for what would a lively girl like her want with a middle-aged plodder like him? He said, glumly, “You’re up to mischief again and I daresay it's to do with that young gaffer of yours. I don’t have to tell you there are folk hereabouts who raise their eyebrows at a slip of a girl like you running a haulage business and lording it over a lot of foul-mouthed old drunkards down at that yard.”
“No, you don’t, Edward. I see the eyebrows raised and noses tilted every time I give an order but most of them are obeyed and I mean to keep it that way. This ‘mischief ’ as you call it is planned with that in mind. What time do you smuggle me aboard?”
“Be here at five sharp,” he said, “and you can watch your bags stowed. What the guard will think is more than I can say.”
“Tell him there's half-a-sovereign waiting for him and he’ll say nothing, not even to his wife,” and she flashed him a smile and blew him a kiss so that he sighed as he watched her walk quickly back across the siding to the street.
3
There was a great deal to be done in the three hours left to her. On the way back to the yard she telegraphed Kitson,
the Cambridge agent, advising him that there would be an extra sack in his consignment marked “Waterbeach” and that it was to be offloaded by him personally and held back, pending further instructions. Kitson had a warehouse and she could break her journey on the way back and reclaim the sack. This seemed to her safer than keeping the Harwich bag on the premises where there was no secure place to stow it, and also eliminated the possibility of alerting Wickstead by withdrawing the parcel from the shed. Then she went to the sorting-house, locked the door and removed the Harwich docket and the “Fragile” label from the bag, replacing the docket with one made out for “Waterbeach.” It occurred to her then that a man of Wickstead's daring might have saved himself trouble by stealing the package before it left the premises, but then she realised that this would have reduced his start to about an hour, or even a few moments if anyone had made a final check. His plan was to extend that start into days, possibly until the casket was found to be missing at Rotterdam and the news was telegraphed to Beckstein.
When the decoy bag was ready she went to the far end of the shed where spare sacks and packing materials were stored, choosing an identical bag, stuffing it with paper and three or four half-bricks to make up the weight. She marked this bag with the Harwich docket and a “Fragile” label, replacing it in the rack. It was then near to four o’clock and she went to the office and wrote a detailed report of everything she had done and proposed doing between the time Duckworth's remark had alerted her and her estimated time of arrival at Harwich. Set down like that it seemed to her a wild and improbable tale, and it was not until she had read it through and signed it that she realised the letter for what it was, a kind of insurance against her losing the package and perhaps even her life. She had a serious qualm then, reminding herself that she was facing a high and unnecessary risk, but the moment passed. Adam Swann required indisputable proof that he had a woman up here who was the equal, possibly the superior of Ratcliffe in the Wedge, and Bryn Lovell in the Mountain Square.
At four-thirty, when she had sealed the report and marked the envelope “For H.Q. in the event of my absence at lock-up on Saturday, 15th August,” she saw Wickstead drive his waggon across to the shed, where he was met by Duckworth and the waggoner who was to bring the empty vehicle back to the yard. She studied his bearing intently, searching for signs of tension, but there were none. He vaulted from the box, exchanged a joke with the waggoner, and they all went into the shed, emerging a moment later carrying one sack apiece. As soon as they had disappeared she slipped across to the gate where Hallet, the weighbridge clerk, was sitting on his bench picking his teeth. “Tell Mr. Duckworth I’ve had an urgent call from Grimsby, and won’t be back until tomorrow, around midday. If I’m later he’ll find instructions on my desk. Is that clear?” Hallett said it was and made a note of it and she went out through market crowds to the station, arriving in time to inspect the train waiting in the bay and finding it was made up of four passenger coaches, one luggage van, and partitioned brakevan combined. Brockworth came up with the guard Hibbert in tow.
“Pleased to have you along, Miss Wadsworth,” Hibbert said, but Edward said, “Are you sure you want to go ahead with this nonsense, Edith?”
“Quite sure,” she said, “and I’m obliged to both of you.”
“You’ll call in on your way back?”
She promised she would and they climbed aboard the van. Hibbert had even provided a cushion for his bench beside the brake lever. “You can look into the mail van from here,” he told her, indicating the cage reserved for the mail. “She's a rare slow coach, Miss. Stops at March, Cambridge, Newmarket, Bury St. Edmunds, Manningtree, and places you’ll not have heard of.”
“She's heard of all of them,” Brockworth said, sourly, disapproving of his colleague's familiarity. “She's district manager for Swann-on-Wheels, the hauliers,” and the guard's chirpiness fell off like a hat. “Is that so? I had a notion we were indulging a young lady's fancy. This is a business trip?”
“Very much so, Mr. Hibbert,” she said, with a wink at Edward, “so I’ll take my seat if I may.”
From the van window she could watch the platform and within minutes a porter-pushed trolly passed piled with docketed sacks bearing the Swann insignia. Behind the porter, caped and booted, and looking for all the world as though he was a railway director, strode Wickstead, and she watched him superintend the unloading. She was even able to count the sacks dumped beyond the mail cage, noting that he held on to the Harwich bag himself, setting it down near the door. She had no means of watching which part of the train he entered but reasoned it would be as near as possible to the luggage van.
Exhilaration engulfed her as the whistle blew and Hibbert swung himself aboard. She was satisfied that the casket was safe while the train was in motion, and could pretend to listen to Hibbert's conversation, but as they rattled along, with the evening sun flooding miles of sugar beet fields either side of the line, her mind was occupied with the young man sitting farther up the train, and she found that she could wonder about him objectively, as she might contemplate Claude Duval, Dick Turpin, or Robin Hood. There was something old-fashioned and improbable about him that divorced him from the common sneak-thief, of whom she had encountered a great number, and she was half-persuaded that he was committed to this profession for adventure rather than profit. There was another professional aspect of him that interested her. Thief he surely was, and something of an artist at the trade, but she would wager he worked alone and had no use for confederates. She wondered about his gallantry, trying to decide whether his dash to the waggon had been instinctive or the exploitation of a lucky opportunity to get inside her office. This led her to speculate whether he had signed on because of foreknowledge of her dealings with Beckstein, or because a waggoner's job in this area promised good pickings.
The guard left her to supervise the offloading of mail at March and she watched through the panel window. Wickstead did not appear and neither did he when the train stopped to drop mail at intermediate halts. At Cambridge, however, she saw him stroll up to watch the offloading of Swann's parcel sacks, including the genuine Harwich bag docketed for Waterbeach. It was lifted off with the others, but his eye caught the “Fragile” label and she had a bad moment as he exchanged a word with Kitson's carter. Whatever was said must have satisfied him, for he moved the decoy bag nearer the cage, then helped Hibbert close the van door. Then they were off again, chuffing east along the Newmarket and Bury extension, with only two more stops before the terminus.
Dusk had fallen and the moon was rising before they pulled out of Manningtree and the Stour estuary was seen as a white finger laid across a violet veil of mist, with here and there tiny splashes of primrose light on the northern shore, and away to the right the cluster of lights that was Harwich. Hibbert said, “You’ll be staying overnight, Miss Wadsworth?” and she said she would, for she had friends in the port and thanked him again, giving him his half-sovereign which he made a show of refusing but pocketed gratefully enough. “I’m going back on the fast,” he told her, as the train began to slow down. “She’ll have me home and in bed by midnight. Nice to have met you, ma’am. We handle a lot of your parcels and that's a rare smart system your people have devised, with the railway doing most of the work and you getting the best cut off the joint. Somebody in your outfit is quick off the mark, I’d say.” She thought desperately, “Yes, and I wish you were half as quick, for I’m going to need all my wits about me from here on unless I’m to see him get away with a sack of shavings and half-bricks!” but then she knew she could not leave it like this, that there would have to be a confrontation, although she was by no means sure that she could steel herself to the point of giving him in charge.
Mercifully Hibbert jumped off before the train had actually stopped, and a pair of postal clerks appeared to help a Harwich guard empty the luggage van of mail. She stayed watching through the peephole and presently she saw him again, waiting for the mailmen to finish, a cigar glowing under his l
ong, sharp nose. She made her decision then. If he was to be challenged it would have to be here, in lamplight, and in the proximity of other people.
He seemed disposed to take his time, and presently everyone drifted away from this end of the platform. He tossed his cigar butt on to the track and climbed leisurely into the van, ignoring the other Harwich sacks and lifting the decoy carefully, almost tenderly. He had turned, and had one foot on the platform, before she could dodge through the brakevan door and get between him and the station exit. There was not much light up here, just a single gaslamp nearer the barrier. She said, catching her breath, “What about the other sacks, Mr. Wickstead? There might be something worth having in them.”
She had never seen a man look more astounded. He stood there, half in and half out of the van, holding his load of rubbish as if it was a lumpish, passive child. His lips were slightly parted and his eyes were dull with bafflement, the eyes of a sleepwalker arrested on his own doorstep. He said, at last, “You?” and the word emerged like the single note of a flute. She felt almost sorry for him. Dismay seemed to paralyse him and she could almost hear the jangle in his brain as he fumbled with the alternatives—flight, violence, or surrender.
God is an Englishman Page 68
