by Richard Hull
He had naturally arrived at the station about half an hour too soon. You never could be sure what these railway companies might do. They did say in Scotney End that the time of the only morning train never altered, but he wasn’t going to run any risks. It wasn’t often that he could arrange to have a free day and, if anything went wrong, it might be another few years before he got the chance again. Accordingly he was in plenty of time to see Mr. Cargate arrive at Larkingfield Station.
He was of course perfectly well aware of who Mr. Cargate was. Nobody living in the village could fail to recognize the new owner of Scotney End Hall. Not that Hardy had many dealings with him. Mr. Cargate—it was rather a grievance of Hardy’s—got everything that he possibly could down from London; even his bread was some patent stuff in tins, for Mr. Cargate suffered from a weak digestion in addition to an indifferent heart. Still, there were the members of the household to be supplied, Miss Knox Forster, his middle-aged, plain secretary, Mr. Raikes, his butler, and half a dozen others. The village had at first tried to work up a scandal about his having an unmarried secretary, but one look at Miss Knox Forster had settled that. A woman clearly capable of looking after herself and definitely more competent than attractive.
Still, Scotney End on the whole thought very little of the new owner of the hall. He was a foreigner from London, not like the old Squire, and he made no attempt to overcome the handicap. Indeed he seemed capable of thinking that the village could be improved and he was always interfering in the parish. The vicar in fact was believed strongly to resent his intrusion, but perhaps it was natural that he should dislike having as his principal parishioner one who considered his church an interesting piece of architecture, but openly professed himself an atheist. There was a rumour that Cargate wanted to pull down the vestry to see if there were not the remains of a pagan temple—Roman or some such thing—underneath.
On the whole, Hardy agreed with the vicar and the village if more for the reasons which influenced the latter. Cargate clearly did not care what happened to Scotney End. He only troubled with what happened to himself. It was all very well to mind your own business—both Scotney End and Hardy were in agreement that that was a desirable thing to do—but there was a general consensus of opinion that Cargate overdid it.
But on the morning of Friday, July 13th, the first thing which intrigued Hardy—a naturally inquisitive man—was why Cargate was going by train at all. Normally his arrivals and departures from the village were made in a large and very fast Bentley which he drove at a speed unsuited to the roads round Scotney End at least. It might be all very well when you were beyond Larkingfield and got on to the main road to Great Barwick, but not in places such as the bridge over the brook by Hurst Farm where the corner was blind and there was generally a cow in the middle of the road.
However, that was beside the point. Here was Mr. Cargate getting out of the Austin that could be hired in Larkingfield, and Hardy very properly assumed that there was something wrong with the Bentley. There was also something wrong with Mr. Cargate’s temper. He was tapping his umbrella angrily on the flagstones of the platform and glancing at his watch. Then, seeing the stationmaster, he called out:
“Here, you, how much longer have I got to wait for this infernal train?”
“Due in in about two minutes, sir. We shall see her come round the corner beyond the wood any—”
“The train is already two minutes late. Can’t think what’s coming over railways these days. No wonder nobody ever travels by them.”
Hardy had stood watching, fascinated. He had never seen Harry Benson, who as stationmaster at Larkingfield was of some local importance, talked to in such a way and even interrupted. He wondered what he would do about it. On the whole Hardy was a little disappointed. Benson only shrugged his shoulders when Cargate’s back was turned. He didn’t trouble to make any reply at all.
Cargate himself moved a few yards down the platform in the direction from which the train would come, apparently under the impression that that would hasten its arrival. The movement brought him quite close to Hardy so that he was able to see exactly what happened next. From his pocket Cargate took a small gold-coloured box, rather thicker than a cigarette-case, with something on the lid which sparkled—at least that is how Hardy mentally described it to himself—and, opening it, put as much of a light brown powder on to his left thumb as could be conveniently placed there. It was rather clumsily done and, in fact, a few grains fell on to the platform. Though he had never taken it, Hardy recognized from what he had been told that this must be snuff. He wanted to see what happened next and without realizing what he was doing he took a pace forward.
What happened was that he caused the porter, who was wheeling Cargate’s luggage down the platform, to swerve slightly so that he just touched the left arm that was about to raise the snuff to the nose of an already irritated man. It was only the merest graze but it was sufficient to send the rest of the light brown powder on to the platform. Cargate’s temper gave way at once.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Great clumsy lout! For heaven’s sake go back to looking after the pigs which are your natural companions.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I’m sure, but you seemed to move in to me.”
“I did nothing of the sort.” It was perfectly true but there was no need for the withering contempt in Cargate’s voice. Snuff, after all, was cheap, and if he was in urgent need of its soothing influence, he had already wasted more time in abusing the porter than it would have taken to open the box and replace what had been spilt. But Cargate never had done sensible things like that. “Stationmaster! Stationmaster!” he yelled.
“What’s the matter now, sir?”
“I’ll trouble you not to be sarcastic to me. I shall undoubtedly report this when I get to Liverpool Street. Your train is late and you pretend that it isn’t; you are thoroughly impertinent and offhand in your manner yourself, and this oaf of a porter of yours runs into me and then has the cheek to tell me that I ran into him. With a heart like mine, the sudden shock might well have been very bad for me.”
“If you’ve got a bad heart, I should calm yourself, sir. I’m sure Jim here didn’t mean any harm and he’ll say he’s sorry. Accidents will happen, sir, even in the best regulated stations.”
“Which this certainly is not.”
“No, sir, but we do our best.” Benson did his best to pour oil on the troubled waters, though even at the time he couldn’t imagine why he was taking so much trouble. Still, it was a good example to the porter with whom he knew he was going to have trouble directly the eleven-fifty-six had gone.
Fortunately, before Cargate could reply, a diversion was created by a nondescript brown dog which came cheerfully bounding along the platform towards them with every sign of joyous recognition.
“Here’s that dog of yours again, Jim.” Benson turned at once to the porter. “How often have I told you to keep him locked up properly when there’s duty to be done.” He didn’t like telling off Jim in front of this man Cargate, but it might change the subject. Also it would anticipate the trouble that was only too likely to be brewing up. Even with porters, offence was often the best defence.
“Well, I’m sorry, sir.” Jim was unexpectedly humble. “But he’s that clever, he will get out.”
“Then he doesn’t resemble his master,” Cargate snapped, “except that he’s thoroughly out of hand. I notice that neither of you can control your subordinates. I shall add that to my report.”
But the dog had not yet finished creating his diversion, and now, instead of being ill-omened, it glanced aside into a more propitious course, since attracted by the smell, it put its nose down to where the powder had been spilled. Apparently it did not like it at all since after a startled sneeze, it ran away howling and rubbing its nose against the paling as if something was burning it. At that moment too the train came in, and with a less indignant “Serve yo
u right”, Cargate got in. It had amused him to watch the dog’s discomfiture; nevertheless he saw no reason to tip the porter and he was fully determined to complain about the whole matter. Already in his mind he was preparing the exaggerated sentences that he would use, for Cargate was well aware of the best way of getting those to whom he took a dislike into trouble. In fact he had probably done more harm to other people than almost any other private individual in the world.
During all this time Hardy had remained in the background, an interested spectator. He could, and afterwards he frequently did, give a most vivid rendering of what occurred, but that was to make up for the fact that Mr. Justice Smith did not encourage him to tell the Court about it nearly so completely as he might. Moreover, just after the train left Larkingfield he was still an interested spectator for he shrewdly guessed that as soon as it started, Cargate would take his deferred pinch of snuff and he wanted to watch him. Quite what he expected to see, it is difficult to imagine. Perhaps it was simply that he did not know what he would see that excited his ever active curiosity.
Luck was with him. The train was only a slow one on a branch line, but Great Barwick was just sufficiently distinguished to be allowed (grudgingly) an occasional through carriage, composed partly of first and partly of third class compartments with a corridor. Consequently Hardy was able to stand in the passage, and while keeping out of Cargate’s sight, watch in the window the reflection of that gentleman once more taking out his snuffbox. Indeed afterwards Hardy was invariably to say that it was the accident of that reflection which made him look. On the whole it is probable that he would have looked anyhow, directly or indirectly, and that the reflection was just a lucky chance for him but, be that as it may, he looked and he saw.
Once more he saw “the box with the sparkling lid” appear from Cargate’s pocket and the light brown powder be put on the left thumb. A lot of it there was and this time the clumsiness had gone. Hardy admired the skill with which so much was kept so carefully in place. The thumb travelled surely up to Cargate’s nostril and with a powerful sniff, the brown powder disappeared. For a fifth of a second Cargate’s ill-natured face seemed more satisfied. Then followed a sneeze more violent than any Hardy had ever heard in his life. As if the sneeze wanted to expel everything from his nostrils. After that a slight flush appeared over his cheeks and he fell back in the seat, the box clattering on the floor and its contents being all spilled.
Hardy was only a simple country man but he didn’t like the look of it all. He was sure that Cargate was very ill and he remembered the remarks which he had just heard him making about his heart. He had only been in a railway train a few times before but he was certain that he ought to do something—in fact that he ought to do the thing that he had always been told was the one thing that normally you must never do. Before the train was out of sight of Larkingfield Station, he pulled the communication cord.
Naturally the account which Hardy gave to his friends was a longer one than he gave either at the instigation of Mr. Blayton or to Inspector Fenby. Jim’s dog, for instance, in whom the Inspector did show a transient interest, was not allowed to appear in Court at all, and when it came to being cross-questioned by counsel for the accused, the interest shifted to an unexpected subject.
The defence, as Blayton had so kindly told the Court, was in the hands of Mr. Vernon, K.C., assisted by Mr. Oliver, and Hardy, as the first witness, was taken in hand by the senior counsel.
“You were,” suggested Vernon in a bored voice, “when the deceased took the pinch of snuff, sitting in your compartment?”
“No, sir, I was standing in the corridor.” Considering that he had said so already only a few minutes before, Hardy was rather nettled by the question.
“And looking out of the window?”
“Yes, sir, and into the window, if you see what I mean.”
“I am quite able to follow you, thank you, but it isn’t quite the same thing, is it?”
“It comes to the same thing.”
“Does it?”
“Well, sir—”
“Come, come, ‘out of’ and ‘into’ aren’t the same thing, are they?”
“But they come to the same thing; because there happened to be a reflection.”
“So you say. Are you sure you weren’t looking at the station or the fields?”
“No, sir.”
“I suggest to you that you were. ‘Out of’ in fact, not ‘into’.”
“Anyhow I saw the reflection.”
“And what was the deceased wearing?”
There was a slight pause while Hardy collected his slow-moving thoughts to meet this new abrupt demand.
“Well, sir, I don’t know that I took much notice of his clothes. It was a warm day, and I don’t think he had an overcoat. No, I’m sure he hadn’t.”
“You presume that because it was a warm day he had no overcoat? Isn’t that all that it amounts to?” Since Hardy’s gesture implied consent, Vernon let it pass and went on: “What coloured suit was he wearing?”
“I think it was brown.”
“You think it was brown. And what coloured tie? Green?”
“I don’t rightly remember.”
“I suggest to you that it was red.”
“It may have been.”
“You aren’t very sure about colours, are you? Are you certain that there wasn’t a prismatic effect from a flaw in the glass of the window or reflection which made you think there was some colour present which was not in fact there at all?”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand all those words, but very likely you’re right, sir.” Hardy was quite prepared to be friendly with anybody and, having no idea what learned counsel was talking about, was quite ready to agree on a point which seemed to him quite trivial. What did it matter what coloured tie Cargate had been wearing?
“Very likely I am right,” Vernon went on suavely, and a little contemptuously. “Now, Mr. Hardy, you said, if I heard you rightly, that you noticed a slight flush on Mr. Cargate’s face just after he took the snuff. Are you sure that you are right about that too? Might not that be a mistake? Or, alternately, might it not also be due to the fact that you only saw things reflected?”
Put that way it did sound possible and Hardy began to waver. Seeing what he thought was his advantage, Vernon unwisely pressed the point.
“I suggest to you that there was no flush on his face at all.”
But by now Hardy had recovered himself and his recollection was clear.
“Yes, sir, there was. I seed it clearly.”
“Though you didn’t notice the colour of anything else?”
“Well, it changed. Nothing else did.”
“Exactly. But the train was moving. The light might have changed too, might it not?”
“Yes sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hardy.” Vernon sat down. It was going to be part of his case that the witness’s imagination had played tricks with him, and he thought that he had established his point sufficiently.
In his turn Blayton rose to his feet and addressed the witness. He was not quite sure what Vernon’s point was, or how it would help him in view of the medical evidence, but it seemed easy to defeat it. “In your evidence, in chief you said that in your opinion a flush came over the deceased’s face just after he took the snuff?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I think you said that you clearly saw him take the snuff?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you also said—correct me if I am wrong—that you saw quite clearly that the snuff placed on Mr. Cargate’s thumb actually disappeared up his nostril?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hardy.” In his turn Blayton expressed his gratitude and resumed his seat. “That will be all, Mr. Hardy.”
“Aren’t I to say what happened after I pulled the cord and the guard an
d then Harry Benson and Jim came along? And the engine driver?”
“No, thank you, Mr. Hardy. They can give us quite a clear account of that themselves.”
Had Blayton been present at eleven-fifty-eight on that morning, it is doubtful whether he would have been so confident of the clarity of his witnesses, for at the time there is no doubt that there was considerable confusion.
Benson had just recorded that the eleven-fifty-six had, whatever Cargate might have said, left Larkingfield punctually when, as he emerged from his office, he was surprised to hear sounds as if the train were stopping. Looking down the straight track that led away from the station he saw that it had actually stopped.
“Now what’s the matter?” he asked himself. “Jim,” he called out to the porter. “There ain’t any signal against her, is there?”
“Course not. There ain’t one there what could be.” The porter looked rather pityingly at Benson. The old man must be breaking up, first truckling to men like that—quite unprintable—passenger, and now imagining that a signal had been put up all of a sudden where there never had been one before! “Most likely that man from Scotney End ’All—what’s ’is name? Cargate? Most likely he’s found something else to complain about. Doesn’t like the colour of the cushions, I expect.” He relieved his feelings by a loud guffaw.
“Seems as if something ’as ’appened. Guard’s going along the line. Better go and see what it is.” Benson started to walk down the track, followed by Jim who had nothing to do at the moment that would not wait and was not going to be left out of any fun that there might be. There might be a chance to get his own back on the object of his aversion.
On reaching the train Benson climbed up on to the step outside the carriage while Jim stayed by the side of the track and meditatively picked and chewed a piece of grass.
