The Railway Detective

given an audience with Prince Albert himself. His Royal Highness was not the only one to approve of the design. Paxton managed to win the support of no less a personage than Robert Stephenson.’ He arched an imperious eyebrow. ‘The two of them met — appropriately enough — during a train journey to London.’

‘The railway has a lot to answer for, Humphrey.’

‘More than you know,’ returned the other. ‘In the early days, when we were doing our best to oppose the scheme, it looked as if the Great Exhibition might not even take place. It was dogged by all sorts of financial problems. Then in steps Mr Peto, the railway contractor, and offers to act as guarantor for the building by putting down ?50,000. Once he had led the way,’ said Gilzean, ‘others quickly followed. Mr Peto also put his weight behind the choice of Paxton as the architect.’

‘At every stage,’ noted Sholto, ‘crucial decisions have been made by those connected with the railways. You can see how they stand to reap the benefit. When the Exhibition opens, excursion trains will run from all over the country. Railway companies will make immense profits.’

‘Not if I can help it, Thomas.’

‘The men are in readiness.’

‘They had better not repeat their failure at the Kilsby Tunnel.’

‘After what you said to them, Humphrey, they would not dare. They are still shaking. You put the fear of God into them.’

‘They deserved it.’

‘I agree,’ said Sholto. ‘Have you chosen the day yet?’

‘Thursday next.’

‘I’ll give them their orders.’

‘No, Thomas,’ said Gilzean, folding up the floor plan, ‘I’ll do that myself. I intend to be at my town house in London this week. I want to hear those locomotives being blown apart.’

‘They’ll take a large part of the Crystal Palace with them. That glass is very fragile. It will shatter into millions of shards.’ Sholto laughed harshly. ‘A pity that it will happen in darkness — it should be a wondrous sight. Farewell to the Great Exhibition!’

‘Farewell to the Lord of the Isles and all those other locomotives,’ said Gilzean, bitterly. I’ll never forgive the railways for what they did to me. My ambition is to act as a scourge to the whole damnable industry.’

The meeting was not accidental. As she came out of the shop, Madeleine Andrews was confronted by Gideon Little, who pretended that he was about to go in. Since he lived half a mile away, and had several shops in the vicinity of his house, there was no need for him to be in Camden at all. After greeting Madeleine, he invented an excuse.

‘I thought of calling on your father again,’ he said, diffidently.

‘He is asleep, Gideon. It is not a good time to visit.’

‘Then I’ll come another time.’

‘Father is always pleased to see you.’

‘What about you, Madeleine?’

‘I, too, am pleased,’ she said, briskly. ‘I believe that any friend of Father’s is welcome at our house, especially if he is a railwayman.’

‘I am not talking about Caleb,’ he said, quietly.

‘I know.’

‘Then why do you not answer my question?’

There was a long and uncomfortable pause. When she walked to the end of the street to buy some provisions, Madeleine had not expected to be cornered by a man whose devotion to her had reached almost embarrassing proportions. She had tried, in the past, to discourage him as gently as she could but Gideon Little had a keen ally in her father and a quiet tenacity that drove him on past all her of rebuffs. Madeleine had the uneasy feeling that he had been lurking outside the house in case she came out.

‘Why are you not at work?’ she asked.

‘I was on the early shift today.’

‘Then you must be very tired.’

‘Not when I have a chance to see you, Madeleine.’ He offered a hand. ‘Let me carry your bag for you.’

‘No, thank you. I can manage.’

He was hurt. ‘Will you not even let me do that?’

‘I have to go, Gideon.’

‘No,’ he said, stepping sideways to block her path, ‘you have walked away from me once too often, Madeleine, and it has to stop. I think it’s time you gave me an answer.’

‘You know the answer,’ she said, seeing the mingled hope and determination in his eyes. ‘Do I really have to put it in words?’

‘Yes.’

‘Gideon — ‘

‘At the very least, I deserve that. It’s been two years now,’ he told her. ‘Two years of waiting, wanting, making plans for the two of us.’

‘They were your plans — not ours.’

‘Will you not even listen to what they are?’

‘No,’ she said with polite firmness. ‘There would be no point.’

‘Why are you so unkind to me? Do you hate me that much?’

‘Of course not, Gideon. I like you. I always have. But the plain truth is — and you must surely realise this by now — that I can never see you as anything more than a friend.’

‘Never?’ he pleaded.

‘Never, Gideon.’

Madeleine did not want to be so blunt with him but she had been left with no choice. Her father’s condition gave Gideon Little an opportunity to call at the house on a regular basis, and he would try to urge his suit each time. The prospect dismayed Madeleine. It was better to risk offending him now than to let him harry her and build up his expectations. Wounded by her rejection, Little stared at her in disbelief, as if she had just thrust a dagger into him. His pain slowly gave way to a deep resentment.

‘You were not always so cruel to me, Madeleine,’ he said.

‘You asked for the truth.’

‘We were real friends once.’

‘We still are, Gideon.’

‘No,’ he said, glaring at her. ‘Since Caleb was injured, something has changed. You no longer have any interest in me. A fireman on the railway is beneath you now.’

‘Let me go past, please.’

‘Not until we settle this. You’ve met someone else, Madeleine.’

‘I have to get back.’

‘Someone you think is better than me. Don’t lie,’ he said, holding up a hand before she could issue a denial. ‘Your father has noticed it and so have I. When you went to see Inspector Colbeck for the second time, I followed you. I saw the way you looked at him.’

Madeleine was furious. ‘You followed me?’

‘I knew that you wanted to see him again.’

‘You had no right to do that.’

‘Caleb told me how you behaved when the Inspector came to the house. He said that you put your best dress on for him. You never did that for me, Madeleine.’

‘This has gone far enough, Gideon,’ she asserted. ‘Following me? That’s dreadful. How could you do such a thing?’

‘I wanted to see where you were going.’

‘What I do and where I go is my business. The only reason I spoke to Inspector Colbeck again is that he is investigating the train robbery in which Father was injured.’

‘Yet you never even mentioned it to Caleb,’ said Gideon, hands on his hips. ‘When I asked him if you had been