Murder on the Brighton Express

‘This is not a mad hypothesis.’

‘Then what is it?’

‘An idea that merits consideration,’ said Colbeck. ‘What Victor suggested was that the crash was caused in order to kill a particular individual who was on the Brighton Express.’

‘But there’s no guarantee that the intended victim would be killed,’ contended Tallis. ‘There would, however, certainly be other deaths. If a man is set on murder, he would surely stalk and kill his victim instead of going to such elaborate lengths as this.’

‘I agree, sir, but take the idea a stage further.’

‘I’d rather disregard it entirely.’

‘It’s really an extension of my original belief that the LB&SCR was the designated target,’ reasoned Colbeck. ‘Supposing that the villain wished to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak?’

‘You’ve lost me, Inspector,’ complained Tallis.

‘The man wanted both to damage the railway company and cause the death of someone on that train, someone who was closely associated with the LB&SCR. Do you see what I mean, sir? What if, for the sake of argument, an individual embodied the railway company in some way? To murder him in a dark alley would have been far easier but it would have lacked any resonance. A public assassination was needed, involving widespread destruction in a train crash.’

‘Stop!’ ordered Tallis, slapping his desk with an angry palm. ‘I’ll hear no more of this fanciful nonsense. Such a person as you portray does not even exist.’

‘Then perhaps you will peruse this, sir,’ said Colbeck, extracting some sheets of paper from an inside pocket and placing them on the desk. ‘It’s a list of the passengers who were injured on that express.’ Tallis snatched it up. ‘It’s rather a long one, unfortunately. May I direct your attention to the names at the top of the first page? Among them you will find a gentleman called Horace Bardwell. Can you pick him out, Superintendent?’

‘Of course,’ growled Tallis, ‘but so what?’

‘Mr Bardwell is a former managing director of the LB&SCR. He still retains a seat on the board and acts as its spokesman. Kill him,’ said Colbeck meaningfully, ‘and you deprive the railway company of a man who personifies all that it stands for.’ Tallis began to grind his teeth. ‘Do you still think that it’s fanciful nonsense, sir?’

CHAPTER FIVE

Victor Leeming was nothing if not tenacious. Given a task, he stuck at it with unwavering commitment until it was completed. Since he had been told to find the names of anyone dismissed by the LB&SCR in recent months, he badgered the staff in the railway company’s London office until he had all the details available. On the cab ride to Scotland Yard, he reflected on how much his job had changed since he had joined the Detective Department. As a uniformed sergeant, he had seen and enjoyed a great deal of action on the dangerous streets of the capital. Catching thieves, arresting drunks, organising night patrols and keeping the peace had taken up most of his time.

Detective work tended to be slower and more painstaking. What it lacked in vigorous action, however, it atoned for in other ways, chief among them being the privilege of working beside Robert Colbeck. Every day spent with the Railway Detective was an education for Leeming and he relished it. He might have to travel on the trains he detested but he had the consolation of investigating crimes of a far more complex and heinous nature than hitherto. Breaking up a fight in a rowdy tavern could not offer him anything like the satisfaction he got from helping to solve cases that dealt with murder, arson, kidnap and other serious crimes. The present investigation promised to be the most challenging yet and he was not certain that the culprit would be found in due course.

Leeming arrived at Scotland Yard to find Colbeck in his office, poring over the list of casualties from the train crash. Pleased to see him, the inspector got to his feet at once.

‘Come on in, Victor. Did you discover anything of interest?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Leeming, taking a notepad from his pocket, ‘I discovered that I could never work for the LB&SCR – not that I’d even think of being employed by a railway company, mind you.’

‘What’s the problem? asked Colbeck.

‘There are too many ways to get sacked. Men have been booted out for being drunk, violent, lazy, slow, sleeping on duty, being late for work, not wearing the correct uniform, disobeying an instruction, telling lies, using bad language, playing cards, pretending to be ill, stealing company property and for dozens of other offences.’ Opening his notebook at the appropriate page, he handed it over. ‘As you’ll see, a porter at Burgess Hill was dismissed when ash from his pipe fell accidentally on to the stationmaster’s newspaper and set it alight.’

‘I think we can eliminate him from our enquiries,’ said Colbeck, scanning the list, ‘and most of these other names can be ruled out as well. The majority seem to have been with the company a very short time so they did not put down any roots in it.’

‘I wonder how some of them were taken on in the first place. I mean, there’s a fireman on that list who used to toss handfuls of coal off his engine at a place along the line then collect it later and take it home. That was criminal, Inspector.’

‘Caleb Andrews would never have allowed that. If any fireman of his tried to break the law, he’d have lashed the man to the buffers.’ Colbeck looked up. ‘Talking of Mr Andrews, you’ll recall that I asked him and his daughter to break the news of Frank Pike’s death to his wife.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Leeming. ‘It was very considerate of you.’

‘You need good friends beside you at such a time.’

‘The widow must have been distraught.’

‘She was grief-stricken,’ said Colbeck, ‘but she did volunteer one useful piece of information.’ He indicated a letter on his desk. ‘Miss Andrews was kind enough to pass it on to me. Mrs Pike remembers her husband telling her that he saw a man using a telescope to watch the trains go past. The sun glinted off it, apparently.’

‘Where did this happen, sir?’

‘It was between Balcombe and Haywards Heath.’

‘That’s exactly where the accident happened.’

‘Frank Pike spotted the man on two separate occasions as he drove past,’ Colbeck went on, ‘and in two slightly different locations. He could well have been looking for the ideal point at which to bring the Brighton Express off the line.’ His eyes flicked back to the notepad. ‘You’ve done well, Victor. This list is very comprehensive.’

‘The trouble is,’ said Leeming, ‘it gives us too many suspects.’

‘I’m not so sure about that. Only three names look really promising to me. Their respective owners all left fairly recently and, according to your notes, may have cause to resent their dismissal.’

‘Who are they, Inspector?’

Colbeck picked them out with an index finger. ‘I’d plump for Jack Rye, Dick Chiffney and Matthew Shanklin.’

‘The one that I’d put first is Shanklin. Before he lost his job, he had a senior position in the company and had held it for a number of years. It must have been galling to be fired from such a well-paid post. Shanklin’s mistake was to fall out with one of the directors.’

Colbeck’s ears pricked up immediately. ‘Do you happen to know which director it was?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir,’ replied Leeming. ‘It was Horace Bardwell.’

Horace Bardwell still had no idea where he was and what had actually happened to him. Having suffered compound fractures, he lay in the county hospital with an arm and a leg in splints. Because of a severe head wound, his whole skull was covered in a turban of bandaging and his podgy face was largely invisible. Bardwell was a corpulent man whose massive bulk made the bed look far too small for him. Most of the day had been passed in a drowsy half-sleep. Whenever he surfaced, he was given a dose of morphine to deaden the pain. He began to believe that he had died and gone to Hell.

Someone sat beside his bed and leant in to speak to him.

‘Good evening,’ said Ezra Follis. ‘How are you feeling now?’

‘Are you a doctor?’ murmured Bardwell.