The Railway Detective

she herself had used in the past. There was an oil lamp in the corner but it had been turned down so that it gave only the faintest glow. Polly turned up the flame in order to see more clearly. A hideous sight was suddenly conjured out of the dark. When she realised that she was not alone in the room, she let out a cry of horror. On a bed in the corner, lying side by side as if they were asleep, were William Ings and Kate Piercey. Their throats had been cut.

Polly began to retch and her first instinct was to run from the scene. Self-interest then slowly got the better of fear. Though Ings was dead, she might still get what she wanted. She breathed in deeply as she tried to compose herself. Averting her gaze from the bed, she used the lamp to illumine the corners of the room as she looked for Ings’s leather bag so that she could take the money that she felt was hers. But she was too late. His belongings were scattered all over the floor and the bag was empty. In desperation, she grabbed his jacket and felt in the inside pocket but his wallet was no longer there. Not a penny of his money was left. Whoever had murdered them, had known exactly where to look. She gazed ruefully at William Ings. Her hopes of escape had bled to death. Polly Roach was condemned to stay in the Devil’s Acre forever.

CHAPTER SEVEN

When word of the crime reached him, Inspector Robert Colbeck took an immediate interest. Murder was not a rare phenomenon in the Devil’s Acre and, ordinarily, he would have been content to let someone else lead the investigation. But the fact that one of the victims was a middle-aged man alerted him and he persuaded Superintendent Tallis to let him look into the case. After collecting Victor Leeming, he left Scotland Yard and took a cab to the scene of the crime.

Policemen were already on duty, guarding the room where the victims lay and questioning other occupants of the building. There was no sign of Polly Roach. Additional lamps had been brought in so that the attic room was ablaze with light. When the detectives entered, the grisly scene was all too visible. In spite of the number of times he had seen murder victims, Leeming was inclined to be squeamish but Colbeck had no qualms about examining the dead bodies at close range. Both were partly clothed, their garments spattered with blood. The sheets and pillows were also speckled.

After inspecting the corpses for some time, Colbeck stood up.

‘At least, they did not suffer too much,’ he observed.

‘How do you know that?’ asked Leeming.

‘Both of them have wounds on the back of their heads, Victor. I think that they were knocked unconscious before their throats were cut. One neat incision was all that it took. The killer knew his trade.’

‘So I see, Inspector.’ He looked at the face of the dead man and quailed slightly. ‘Do you think it’s William Ings?’

‘Yes,’ said Colbeck, sifting through the items on the floor. ‘He matches the description that Mrs Ings gave me and nobody who lives in the Acre dresses quite as smartly as he did. This man is an outsider.’ Picking up a jacket, he searched the pockets and found a small brown envelope. ‘This confirms it,’ he said.

‘What is it?’

‘An empty pay packet from the Post Office. His very last wages.’

‘Does he have a wallet on him?’

‘That appears to have been taken,’ said Colbeck, putting the jacket aside. ‘It must have contained money. Judging by the way that it was emptied all over the floor, so did that bag.’

Leeming was annoyed. ‘We’ve lost one of our suspects to a thief.’

‘This was not the work of a thief, Victor.’

‘It must have been. They were obviously killed for the money.’

‘Not at all,’ contradicted the other. ‘The young lady died because she had the misfortune to be with Mr Ings at the time. He was the target. In my opinion, the murder was directly connected to the train robbery. He was silenced because he knew too much. Since Ings no longer had any need of it, his paymaster took the opportunity to repossess the hefty bribe that must have been paid to him.’

‘These men are more dangerous than I thought,’ said Leeming.

‘They’ll go to any lengths to cover their tracks.’

‘Does that mean the other accomplice is at risk?’

‘Yes, Victor,’ said Colbeck. ‘Unless we can find him first.’

‘And how do we do that?’

‘To be honest, I’m not sure.’ He glanced at the policeman by the door. ‘Who discovered the body?’

‘A woman named Polly Roach, sir,’ replied the man.

‘I’ll need to speak to her,’ said Colbeck, recalling that Mulryne had mentioned her name. ‘I’ve reason to believe that she knew at least one of the victims. Where is she?’

‘Being held at the station, Inspector. I must warn you that she’s very jittery. Walking in on this has upset her badly.’

‘I daresay that it has. A lot of people are going to be upset when they learn what happened here tonight. The person I feel sorry for is the man’s wife,’ said Colbeck with a sigh. ‘I’m not looking forward to breaking the news to Mrs Ings.’

Maud Ings was about to retire to bed when she heard the click of her letterbox. Taking the lamp, she went to the front door to investigate and saw a small package lying on the doormat. Puzzled as to what it might contain, she picked it up and read the bold capitals that ran across the front of it — FROM YOUR HUSBAND. She was even more mystified. She put her lamp on the hall table so that she could use both hands to open the package. As she peeled back the brown paper, she found, to her utter astonishment, that it was covering a sizeable wad of five pound notes. The arrival of such unexpected bounty was too much for her. Overcome with emotion, she burst into tears.

‘I want results, Inspector,’ shouted Tallis, rising angrily to his feet. ‘I want progress, not this incessant litany of excuses.’

‘We could not foresee that William Ings would be murdered.’

‘Perhaps not, but you could have prevented the crime by reaching him before anyone else did.’

‘That’s what I attempted to do, sir,’ said Colbeck.

‘Yes,’ snarled Tallis, ‘by employing that Irish maniac, Mulryne. Whatever possessed you to do that? The fellow is a confounded menace. When he was in the police force, his notion of making an arrest was to beat the offender to a pulp.’

‘Brendan was simply too zealous in the execution of his duties.’

‘Zealous! He was uncontrollable. I’m told that it took four officers to subdue him this evening. Was that another example of his zeal?’ asked Tallis with heavy sarcasm. ‘Why ever did you turn to him?’

‘Because he knows the Devil’s Acre from the inside.’

‘He’ll know a prison cell from the inside before I’m done with him.’

‘There were extenuating circumstances about the brawl,’ said Colbeck, ‘and, when the time is ripe, I’d like to speak up on Mulryne’s behalf. The reason that I engaged him is that he’s a good bloodhound. He did, after all, find the woman with whom William Ings had been living. Her name was Polly Roach. She was the person who raised the alarm tonight.’

‘What did she have to say for herself?’

‘She was very bitter when I questioned her earlier. Mr Ings had promised to take her away from the Acre to start a new life with him. Polly Roach offered him something that he could not find at home.’

‘I was in the army, Inspector,’ said Tallis, darkly. ‘You don’t need to tell me why married men visit whores. Our doctor was the busiest man in the regiment, trying to cure them of their folly.’ He sat down again behind his desk. ‘Now, tell me in detail what this Polly Roach said.’

Standing in front of him, Robert Colbeck gave him a terse account of his interview with the woman who had found the dead bodies and who had provided confirmation that one of the victims was William Ings. Wreathed in cigar smoke, Tallis listened in stony silence. His eye occasionally drifted to the newspapers that lay on his desk. When Colbeck finished, the Superintendent fired questions at him.

‘Do you believe this woman?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Did you find any witnesses?’