yes it is a cravat pin, a stickpin.’
Dilip Gopal again holds up the object to the audience, most of whom have to twist in their seats or crane forward to have a glimpse. But it does indeed appear to be a cravat pin, a rather fine one topped with a pearl. The Indian returns it to the man in the stalls. They look at each other. The man smiles in a way that Mr Gopal could only describe as mirthless.
The Railway Station
For at least the tenth time that morning Constable Bert Humphries completed a casual patrol along the down-line platform of Durham Station. He paused at the southern end and stared at the graceful curve of the double lines as they crossed the Flass Vale viaduct. It was a fine June morning and the sun was gleaming on the tracks. Humphries glanced across the valley separating the railway line from the peninsula dominated by castle and cathedral. A light breeze had blown away the haze that usually hung over the city.
Like a sentry at the end of the platform, Humphries performed an about-turn in a military fashion before remembering that this was not the way he was meant to be doing things. Fortunately there was no one to watch him.
Constable Humphries was wearing not his uniform but civilian clothes. He did not mind much the fact that he had been deprived of his police helmet or his brass-buttoned dark blue greatcoat — since these were the obvious and visible signs of his office — but he missed the comfort of the truncheon and rattle. Lacking these made him feel naked. If the fellow they were after was half as dangerous as old Harcourt and the Scotland Yard man had claimed during the briefing at the police-house, then he might well need to summon help with the rattle. But Harcourt insisted that none of them should carry any item which might give away who they were.
Furthermore, Humphries and the rest had been instructed to forget their training and years of experience. They were not to behave like policemen on the beat. Not to stride along with authority. Not to gaze around with suspicion nor to act as if they had the weight of the law behind them. Altogether, Constable Bert Humphries felt like a truanting schoolboy while he mingled with the ordinary travelling folk who were waiting for trains or getting off them.
Humphries took out his watch. Nearly half an hour until Constable Makepiece replaced him at midday. A Newcastle train was due in ten minutes. Humphries had been on duty since the first train at five o’clock that morning, and the mere thought of the early hour caused him to yawn. He glanced at the opposite platform, the up- line, and saw his counterpart, Constable Atkins, avoiding his eye while trying to look inconspicuous. Did he, Atkins, have the appearance of a policeman in his civvy garb? Humphries thought not. But then he’d never thought Atkins had the appearance of a policeman even when he was wearing the uniform.
Bert Humphries was growing increasingly dubious about this business. Inside his jacket was a picture of the man they were searching for, Doctor Anthony Smight. He looked a bit of a villain, true enough, and was supposed to have committed a couple of murders in London and was presently under suspicion for what the local papers were calling ‘The Riverbank Murder’. And they said he was looking to carry out a spot more homicide. Beyond that, Humphries had not been told very much. Why this doctor should be travelling by train to or from Newcastle to commit his murders in Durham had not been explained. Seemed it was some theory of the Great Scotland Yard fellow. Still, theirs not to reason why. Simply do what you’re told.
It took a lot of manpower though. Two police on duty, one per platform, to check the trains arriving in both directions. Inspector Traynor must have plenty of pull to demand the services of half a dozen men a day. Humphries worked out the figures. Six men amounted to about a tenth of the entire City of Durham force. Yes, that represented a lot of pull from the Great Scotland Yard man.
The southbound train appeared in the distance, announced by a smudge of dark smoke and the sudden arrival of a knot of porters and a general air of renewed alertness among the passengers on the platform. The rails quivered and sang as the 11.45 from Newcastle slid into the station and slowed before jerking to an abrupt halt, trailing smoke and steam. Constable Humphries rubbed his eyes and positioned himself at the rear of a group of travellers waiting to board the second-class carriages.
Rapidly the constable dismissed most of the new arrivals. Two ladies descended gracefully from first-class, ready for a day’s shopping or sightseeing in the city. A trio of clergymen from the same section helped each other to clamber arthritically on to the platform. Some unaccompanied children got out of second-class and a gaggle of labourers together with some women who looked like factory-hands swept from the third. The women were talking loudly, the men were silent. Shift-workers, Humphries guessed. There was a rotund person with a bag who looked like a salesman. A well-dressed gent was loudly requiring two porters to manhandle his luggage from a first-class compartment. Humphries wondered why anyone would need to travel with so much gear.
Then he saw him! A man was coming from the tail-end of the train. Tall but stooping slightly, shabbily dressed, his face largely obscured by a wide-brimmed hat but sallowish. He was carrying a small bag. It must be Anthony Smight! Humphries felt a tremor of intuition. The constable automatically turned his gaze away but kept the newcomer in the corner of his eye as he headed for the booking-hall and station exit. His heart beating fast, Humphries recalled what he’d been told. ‘If you see this man do not accost him. Follow him discreetly and keep your distance. Do not arouse his suspicions. Mark where he goes. As soon as he is established somewhere — be it at a lodging-house or a chop-house or a pub — report at once to the police station.’
Humphries decided to give the man half a minute to clear the station. He risked a single look and saw the back of the tall stranger disappearing into the booking-hall. He took a couple of steps in the same direction. He was so absorbed that he collided with another alighting passenger, a second man.
‘Pardon,’ he said instinctively.
The man glanced at him but said nothing and swept past. Bert Humphries’ heart thudded even louder. My God! This individual too had the appearance of the wanted person. He was of more than average height, he had a creased, jaundiced-looking face and he too was moving with a determined air.
Resisting the temptation to get the artist’s impression of Smight from his pocket, Humphries counted to ten and then followed this second individual through the booking-hall and station entrance. On the forecourt were several carriages waiting for fares. The two elegant ladies were boarding one and the trio of clergymen another. The artisans and the factory hands were walking in separate groups away from the station area. As were the two men. From the back they looked quite similar, although the second — the one Humphries had bumped into — wasn’t wearing a hat nor was he carrying anything. The two had nothing to do with each other but were walking separately, yards apart.
The railway station was set high on a hill. The area beyond the forecourt, on which Humphries now stood facing the city, fell away steeply. Any traveller to the centre of Durham who could not afford a cab or who preferred Shanks’s pony had two choices. Either he followed the main road as it looped downward, echoing the path of the railway overhead, or he took a short cut which branched off this road from a kind of lookout point about two hundred yards to the left. This path made a zigzag course down several flights of steps overshadowed by trees and shrubs. An individual walking from the station at night might prefer to take the better lit route by the road but the stepped path was safe enough by day.
Constable Humphries moved off, watching the two men as they headed down the road, each of them keeping to a stretch of pavement in a law-abiding manner. The group of artisans and the female hands were straggling across the road, the women noisily oblivious to the carriages which would shortly be rolling downhill. Humphries was very glad that there were other people on foot. They helped to hide his presence.
The first man he’d seen, the one with the hat, was in advance of the hatless one. Neither looked behind him. Both were walking with a sense of purpose. And, as Humphries had half feared and expected, each proceeded to pick a different path towards Durham. The individual with hat and bag didn’t hesitate but turned off at the lookout point and went down the steeper route. A few seconds after him the other man, the hatless and bagless one, continued down the curve of the roadside with scarcely a glance at the first who was already out of sight down the steps. This split seemed to confirm that neither had anything to do with the other.
But it presented Constable Humphries with an acute dilemma. Which should he follow? The one who’d chosen the short cut or the one who was taking the road? He had only a matter of seconds to resolve the problem or face the possibility of losing both of them.
