It had been Superintendent Harper himself who’d come over from his office and gone through the dead man’s pockets and produced a passport which gave its owner’s name as Johnny Destiny. Comparison with the photograph in the passport and the figure crumpled in the corner didn’t amount to much, the dead man’s face and head had been dreadfully bashed in. It seemed obvious that he had been looking out of the compartment window and encountered either a passing train or tunnel.
Staring down at the mess it occurred to the railway police-officer that there might be something more to it than a mere accident. For no real reason the idea came to him. Accordingly he hurried back to his office and telephoned Chelsea police-station. He spoke to Detective-Superintendent Bruce.
“May be wasting your invaluable time, I know,” he said. “But it looks a bit umpty to me.”
“Spider” Bruce said he’d be right over.
Before he left Chelsea, and because the name Johnny Destiny was not entirely unknown to him and also because he knew Superintendent Harper was not the type to get on to him unless he felt there was good reason for doing so, he put a call through to Scotland Yard to enrol the help of the appropriate departments: photographer, fingerprints and all the rest. He also passed the news on to Detective-Inspector Hood.
So it was not until the railway compartment on platform eight at Victoria and its silent, inert passenger in the corner had been given a thorough going-over by the Scotland Yard experts, that the body decorously covered by a blanket was transferred to the waiting ambulance, to be conveyed to the mortuary at St. George’s Hospital, where, in accordance with usual practice, it would be duly noted down as dead upon arrival. This made things convenient for the coroner and all concerned, since death having occurred on a moving train, it would be difficult to state exactly in what place, county or district, death had ensued. And the body didn’t give a damn anyway.
It was an hour later when the B Division man and Superintendent Harper had got down to considering the map before them. The map was of the railway system between London and Folkestone. Superintendent Harper’s bony finger traced the route the train must have taken from Folkestone, then his finger halted.
“Saltwood Tunnel,” he said, “near Westenhanger. Nine hundred and fifty-four yards long. That’s the first one out of Folkestone.” His finger moved along, to pause again. “Sandling Tunnel, about a hundred yards long.” His finger moved on. “This one at Sevenoaks, one mile six hundred and ninety-three yards long.” Then came Polehill Tunnel, one mile eight hundred and fifty-one miles long. Again the finger shifted, this time to halt on the map at Chelsfield Tunnel, five hundred and ninety-seven yards in its dark length.
Superintendent Harper’s finger moved for the last time to a spot between Penge and Sydenham Hill. “This is the Penge Tunnel,” he said. “Runs for a mile and three hundred and eighty-one yards, right underneath the Crystal Palace. That’s your lot.”
Detective-Superintendent Bruce straightened his thick back. “And you say,” he said, “that the clearance between the tunnel arch and the train’s near-side, that is the left hand side facing the direction it’s travelling, is more than enough to allow anyone to lean out of the window without being struck?”
The other scratched his chin. “Of course,” he said, “anyone who leans out of a railway-carriage window, except when it’s standing at a terminus, and even then only on the platform-side, is asking for it. Why else do we go to such trouble to tell passengers in two or three languages not to? But in fact on this line, anyway, you’d have to lean out a hell of a way to cosh yourself. We did have a case a few week’s back of a Peeping Tom who bought it.”
“Tell me about that.”
“You heard about it, didn’t you? Well, there was a honeymoon couple all alone in one compartment and this other chap in the compartment next to it thought he’d be bright and see what they were up to. He was leaning out so far that when the train ran into Polehill Tunnel the archway caught him and didn’t do him any good at all. Knocked half his blinking head off.”
“They say curiosity kills the cat,” Superintendent Bruce said. He thought for a moment. “If it wasn’t the tunnel that bashed this chap’s head in, it might have been a passing train?”
“On the off-side or right-hand-side? Might be more chance of that. Even though there’s plenty of clearance between two passing trains, some of these coaches bulge outwards quite a bit and they rock a bit, too. So a train whipping past another at speed, and a chap’s looking out of a window, he might catch a packet. Plenty of trains passing on that line, too. We’ll have to wait until we get any reports through from the drivers. Traffic controller at Orpington has been put in the picture. Might come through any minute with some news.”
But the B Division man was shaking his head gently.
“I don’t think we have to worry about that eventuality,” he said. “Blood and mess wasn’t on the off-side window.” He paused. “I’m very grateful to you, old chap, for sending for me the way you did.”
Superintendent Harper gave a deprecating shrug. “I had a hunch there was something that you ought to look into.”
“I may be jumping to conclusions,” Superintendent Bruce said. But he didn’t think he was. He was thinking of Johnny Destiny and all that would go with the sticky end he’d come to.
It was about this time that a burly bowler-hatted figure of over medium height wended his way into Hudson Place at the side of Victoria Station, where Post Office vans, lorries and private cars moved around busily. Past the doorway which led to the royal waiting-room, past the entrance for night-ferry passengers the man padded to turn into a dark green door. On the door: Police London District F Division.
The burly figure removed his bowler-hat to mop his moist forehead with a handkerchief, then replacing his hat he went through another door. He was lighting his pipe as he pushed into Superintendent Harper’s office.
“Hello, ‘Spider’,” he said.
Detective-Superintendent Bruce turned with genial greeting. He indicated his companion. “Superintendent Harper,” he said. “Detective-Inspector Hood from Scotland Yard.”
Detective-Inspector Hood ambled forward, chewing on his pipe-stem. “This sounds quite interesting,” he said. “He had it coming to him. Tell me all you know.”
Chapter Eight
MISS FRAYLE HAD to admit to herself that her first impression of Pebcreek was not exactly encouraging. In fact, it looked the last place on earth she would have chosen to spend a holiday. She was sure it was the last place on earth. The end of nowhere. And it was still raining.
The thunderstorm had burst with freakish suddenness. As the Chelmsford train pulled out from Liverpool Street, the sky had been bright blue and with not a cloud to mar its serenity. It wasn’t until they reached Shenfield where Miss Frayle and Erica Travers changed for Sharbridge that they realized that it was dark overhead and threatening, the atmosphere full of foreboding.
“It’s going to rain,” Miss Frayle said mildly, as they waited for their train to arrive.
“You can say that again,” Erica said. “In for a monsoon by the look of it.” She muttered bitterly to the effect that it would definitely never happen in Paris. The French had this sort of thing so much more under control.
As their train rattled out of Shenfield for Sharbridge, the first fork of lightning split the swollen sky with a searing flash and the thunder crashed directly overhead. Erica groaned with vexation and Miss Frayle stared morosely at the shadowed landscape and then the carriage window was a blurred rectangle as the rain buffetted it, completely cutting off any view. Erica groaned out aloud. “Isn’t this absolutely unspeakable,” she said, her pretty mouth a rebellious line, eyes flashing with frustration.
Miss Frayle was forced to agree that it didn’t look too good, and her face became fixed in a disconsolate expression.
The storm had moved inland by the time the train drew into Sharbridge station, some three-quarters of an hour later, but as Miss Frayle an
d Erica got out of the station to the bus that was to convey them on the last stage of their journey it was still raining hard, the sky was still overcast.
The uncomfortable journey in the rattling bus had heightened her growing disillusionment, had brought pangs of regret that she had accepted Erica’s invitation to share a holiday in this desolate corner of the Essex marshes.
It would be so different, Erica had said. Peering through the rain-splashed bus-window Miss Frayle decided that the only difference was, no matter how far they travelled, the scene outside remained the same. From Sharbridge to Pebcreek the world was flat and grey, criss-crossed with creeks and dykes, marshland and river walls, with only here and there a boarded cottage or spinney to break the monotony.
The drab scene outside emphasized by the weather seemed to effect the steamy atmosphere inside the half-empty bus, for Erica had subsided into silence, hardly saying a word throughout the twenty-five-minute journey.
At last the bus stopped outside a weather-boarded cottage which identified itself as Pebcreek post office. Erica brightened a little.
“Here we are,” she said, and with the conductor lending a hand with their three suitcases she and Miss Frayle got off the bus into the rain, carrying a suitcase in one hand, and the third between them. They crossed the narrow street to shelter in the porch of the Safe Harbour.
“Of course, it’s all quite different when the sun’s shining,” Erica had said with an attempt at a smile. “I couldn’t have picked a worse day to introduce you.”
Miss Frayle had slipped off her horn-rimmed glasses and was drying them with a handkerchief.
“You can’t help the weather,” Miss Frayle said. She tried to infuse a cheerful note into her voice; but with her wet stockings clinging coldly to her legs and the awful shriek of the swinging inn-sign above setting her teeth on edge, it was not easy to sound happy. She tried to rouse some interest in her new surroundings, but what she could see through the rain did not contribute to a holiday feeling either.
Pebcreek seemed to consist of one street in which the most prominent building appeared to be the old inn, under whose porch they were now sheltering. The porch itself gave the impression of being likely to collapse in the not too distant future, Miss Frayle thought. Where it had been bolted to the door posts the wood was breaking away, the salt air had loosened some of the bolts so that there was a gap between the porch and the building where rain trickled through, while the structure leaned slightly towards the road conveying the impression of a departing customer who had imbibed too freely.
The red single-decker bus, giving a certain touch of colour to the scene, turned round and went back the way it had come. Miss Frayle noticed that the boarded cottage proclaiming itself the post office, in front of which the bus had stood, seemed to be the only inviting place she could see. Cream-painted it had a large bowl of flowers displayed in the parlour window next to the shop door.
Next to the post office along the street ran a terrace of slate-roofed cottages with the same weather-boarded walls. They were small and quaint with wooden palings fringing each tiny square garden, and although the paintwork was weathered, the windows were neatly curtained. There appeared to be no signs of life in them.
At the end of this row stood a double-fronted shop with Pebcreek Stores over the windows, in which was displayed a miscellany of goods from a length of smoked bacon to a box of washing powder. Miss Frayle could make out a couple of people in the shop.
The one brick building was at the end of the street, a small house designed in modern style, a blue plaque at the side of the door announcing it to be the police station. It occurred to Miss Frayle that with only a further half-a-dozen houses and a barn-like building neighbouring the inn, making up the sum total of Pebcreek, there seemed to be little for a policeman to do.
Beyond the houses opposite she caught a glimpse of the river. Greyish-brown it looked as cold and uninviting as the Thames at Blackfriars. She could just see the river wall on the further side. But the curtain of rain cut off the rest of the picture, though she imagined the scene to continue without change, just as it had appeared from the bus.
The Safe Harbour stood on the village fringe, and just to their right the street narrowed to become little more than a side road following the river. Here two or three tarred and dilapidated sheds jutted out over the mud. On one shed Miss Frayle could just discern the faded words: BOAT BUILDER. The road ran on parallel with the river, sometimes below the river wall and sometimes level with it, strange and lonely.
With a little shiver Miss Frayle turned her attention to Erica, sitting on her suitcase nonchalantly replacing the make-up the rain had washed off her face. Miss Frayle recalled Erica mentioning in the train that they would be met at Pebcreek with a car. There was no sign of a car at all; but Miss Frayle concluded that Erica obviously had hopes of it arriving and soon, else why should she bother with her appearance?
Miss Frayle, leaning against the side of the porch, smiled in spite of her discomfort. “Didn’t you say someone was going to be here to meet us?”
Erica put the mirror and lipstick back into her bag. “That wretched Jim Rayner,” she said. “Swore on his sacred oath he’d be here at the bus-stop. He’s probably tinkering with his blessed car.” She sighed with annoyance.
“Wouldn’t mind so much if it wasn’t raining. Isn’t very far to walk, there’s a short cut to the creek.”
“Does he live on a boat, too?” Miss Frayle said.
Erica shook her head. “Got a cottage not far from the Moya. Lives there all the summer and spends his winters in Chelsea. Just like him not to appear when he’s wanted most. An artist, and not too reliable. Can’t say I’m surprised at this, but I didn’t expect we’d run into the North Sea as well.” And she stared out irritably at the driving rain.
“No chance of a taxi, or anything?” Miss Frayle said.
“Nothing like that here. Everyone goes by boat.”
“Oh,” Miss Frayle said uncertainly. “We’ll just have to wait and hope. There seems to be a break coming in the clouds over there.” She infused all the optimism of which she was capable into her tone, and indicated the northwest, where a vein of light streaked the dark-grey cloud-mass. “If it eases off we could start walking.”
“Terribly sorry it’s such a ghastly start for you,” Erica said. “But honest, once you’re on board and the weather clears, you’ll lap up every moment.”
Miss Frayle smiled at her and they both stood watching and waiting for the skies to lift or a car to show up. But despite the lightening sky, the rain continued to imprison them in the inn porch for another quarter-hour. Then as suddenly as it had begun it slackened and in a miraculously few moments a watery sun cheered their surroundings. The rain became a few isolated drops and Erica and Miss Frayle took advantage of the break and started quickly down the river road.
“Might have to take shelter again,” Erica said with a glance at the sky. “But at least we’ll be half-way there.”
“How far is Dormouse Creek?” Miss Frayle said.
“Two miles by river, one and a half by road; under a mile by this short cut.” Erica pointed ahead. “See that little copse in front?”
Miss Frayle looked beyond the curl of the road to where it climbed a gentle rise. At the top was a shallow stone wall, trees and shrubs grew in a neglected cluster behind it. Some of the trees looked dead and among them she could detect the grey stonework of a crumbling building.
“We turn off on a footpath just the other side of it,” Erica was saying.
Miss Frayle said: “What’s that building among the trees? A ruin of some kind?”
“Pebcreek Church, or what’s left of it,” Erica said. “Ages back Pebcreek used to be on the low-lying ground next to the river. But the place was flooded, practically washed away in a great storm. Most of the people drowned. Those who were left built a new village on higher ground, above the river, as you saw. This old church was never used, and it’s gradually caved
in.”
Miss Frayle recollected having noticed a church, as they came into the village on the bus. She remembered it looked comparatively new. Seventy or eighty years old. Her attention riveted on the spot where the old village had been. There was a grass wall and a steep dyke separating the site from the river now, but the ground appeared marshy and treacherous, criss-crossed with sedge-lined drains. Nothing grew there except spiky tufts of grass and clusters of short, tiny-headed mauve flowers. They made a pretty carpet of colour in their drab surroundings, the sun had gone in and the sky looked threatening again. A low distant rumble of thunder rolled across the wide open country, and Miss Frayle quickened her pace.
“Another shower,” Erica said grimly. “Better make for the shelter of the trees.”
“Trees in a thunderstorm?” Miss Frayle said anxiously.
“Oh. Then we can shelter in the ruins.”
As they climbed the rise Miss Frayle saw the full width of the river. She was surprised to find so much water. It had given the impression of being narrow when she had seen it at the village. She thought the tide was coming in and decided that could account for the fact that it appeared so much broader.
The few feet they climbed above the river-level gave her a view of a strange waste that was neither land or water. In the distance she could see the sea, and between that and where they stood spread a great area of marsh fissured by tidal creeks and dyke-walls, with the river itself a broad winding ribbon between them. Closer to them the scene was broken by tiny islets on which stunted trees had taken grip.
The rain suddenly came in sharp spatters, blown out of the sky on the wings of a fierce squall that shook the branches of the trees. Erica quickly led the way through a clump of gorse and a gap in the stone wall towards a ruined archway that had once been the porch of the old church. The place was overgrown with elder shrubs and nettles. It was not until Miss Frayle stumbled over a shallow mound and fell against a sharp weathered stone that she realized she was in a graveyard.
Dr Morelle and Destiny Page 5
