The Railway Detective

back to Whitehall, he shook his head. Why did you mislead him, Madeleine?’

‘Never you mind,’ she said, flustered.

‘But I do mind. This means a lot to me.’

Madeleine tried to move. ‘Father will be expecting me.’

‘You told me that he was asleep.’

‘I want to be there when he wakes up.’

‘Why?’ he challenged, obstructing her path. ‘Are you going to admit that you went out of your way to see Inspector Colbeck again because you like him so much?’

‘No,’ she retorted. ‘I am going to tell him that I do not want you in the house again. I’m ashamed of you for what you did, Gideon.’ She brushed past him. ‘I will not be spied on by anyone.’

‘Madeleine!’ he cried, suddenly penitent.

‘Leave me be.’

‘I did not mean to upset you like that.’

But she was deaf to his entreaties. Hurrying along the pavement, she reached her house, let herself in and closed the door firmly behind her. Gideon Little had no doubt what she felt about him now.

On the third night, Victor Leeming’s faith in the Inspector began to weaken slightly. It was well past midnight at the Crystal Palace and there had been neither sight nor sound of any intruders. Leeming feared that they were about to have another long and uneventful vigil.

‘Are you sure that they will come, sir?’ he whispered.

‘Sooner or later,’ replied Colbeck.

‘Let someone else take over from us.’

‘Do you want to miss all the excitement, Victor?’

‘There’s been precious little of that so far, Inspector. We’ve had two nights of tedium and, since the place is in darkness, we cannot even divert ourselves by looking at the exhibits. Also,’ he complained, shifting his position, ‘it is so uncomfortable here.’

Colbeck grinned. ‘I did not have time to instal four-poster beds.’

The detectives were in one of the massive exhibition halls, concealed behind Liverpool, a standard gauge locomotive designed for the London and North Western Railway by Thomas Crampton. Built for high speed, it had eight foot driving wheels and an unprecedentedly large heating surface. Having learnt its specifications, Colbeck had passed them to Leeming in the course of the first night, trying in vain to interest his Sergeant in the facts that the boiler pressure was 120 per square inch and that the cylinders were 18 by 24 inches. All that Leeming wanted was to be at home in bed with his wife, whose total ignorance of locomotives he now saw as a marital blessing.

‘I think that Liverpool has a chance of winning a gold medal,’ said Colbeck, giving the engine a friendly pat. ‘That would really annoy Daniel Gooch at the Great Western.’

‘I think that we deserve a gold medal for keeping watch like this,’ said Leeming, yawning involuntarily. ‘Mr Tallis had a feeling that we’d be chasing shadows.’

‘Try to get some sleep, Victor.’

‘On a floor as hard as this?’

‘In any surveillance operation, you have to make the best of the conditions that you are given. We are, after all, indoors,’ said Colbeck. ‘Would you rather be outside in all that drizzle?’

‘No, Inspector.’

‘Then cheer up a little. We could be on the brink of an arrest.’

‘Then again,’ said Leeming under his breath, ‘we could not.’

‘Go on, Victor. Put your head down.’

‘There’s no point.’

‘Yes, there is. You need some sleep.’

‘What about you, Inspector?’

‘I prefer to stay on duty. If anything happens, I’ll wake you.’

‘And if nothing happens?’

‘In that case,’ said Colbeck, beaming, ‘you’ll be able to tell your grandchildren that you once slept beneath one of the finest locomotives of its day. Good night, Victor. Remember not to snore.’

There were three of them. Having studied the plan that had been obtained for them by Sir Humphrey Gilzean, they were familiar with the layout of the Great Exhibition. Their leader, Arthur Jukes, a big bulky man in his thirties with ginger whiskers, had taken the precaution of visiting the site on the previous night to reconnoitre the area and to look for potential hazards. They were few in number. Security was light and the guards who patrolled the exterior of the Crystal Palace could be easily evaded. As he and his companions crouched in their hiding place, Jukes had no qualms about the success of the operation.

‘We should’ve done it last night,’ said Harry Seymour, the youngest of the three. ‘When it wasn’t so bleeding wet.’

‘This drizzle will help us, Harry. It will put the guards off. They’ll want to stay in the dry with a pipe of baccy.’

‘So would I, Arthur.’

‘You ready to tell that to Sir Humphrey?’

Seymour trembled. ‘Not me!’

‘Nor me,’ said his brother, Vernon, the third of the men. ‘It was bad enough facing Tom Sholto after that mishap at the Kilsby Tunnel. But Sir Humphrey was far worse,’ he recalled with a grimace. ‘I thought he was going to horsewhip us.’

‘He’ll do more than that if we fail,’ said Harry Seymour.

Jukes was confident. ‘No chance of that,’ he boasted, looking to see of the coast was clear. ‘Are you ready, lads?’

‘Ready,’ said the brothers in unison.

‘Then let’s go.’

Keeping low and moving swiftly, Jukes headed for the entrance to the north transept. Harry and Vernon Seymour followed him, carrying a barrel of gunpowder between them in a large canvas bag with rope handles. The three of them reached the door without being seen. Jukes had brought a lamp with him and he used it to illumine the lock so that he could work away at it with his tools. In less than a minute, it clicked open and he eased the door back on its hinges. The three of them went quickly inside. Jukes immediately closed the metal cover on the lamp so that the flame would not be reflected in the vast acreage of glass that surrounded them. Having memorised the floor plan, he knew exactly where to go.

Shutting the door behind them, they paused to take their bearings. In the gloom of the transept, everything was seen in ghostly outline. High above them, under a film of drizzle, was the magnificent arched roof of the transept, so tall that it allowed trees to continue growing beneath it, thereby providing an outdoor element in an essentially indoor space. Ahead of them, they knew, was the refreshment court and, beyond that, heard but not seen, was the first of the fountains that had been built. Harry Seymour remembered something else he had seen on the plan.

‘We go past the exhibits from India,’ he noted.

‘So what?’ said his brother.

‘We could look at that stuffed elephant they got.’

‘I saw enough real ones when we was over there, Harry.’

‘So did I,’ added Jukes, ‘and we’re not here to admire the place. We got orders. Let’s obey them and be quick about it.’

Followed by the two brothers, he swung to the right and took a pathway that led between statues, exhibits and the forest of iron pillars that supported the structure. They did not even pause beside the stuffed elephant with its opulent howdah. Their interest was in the section devoted to Railways and Steam. It was in between an area set aside for Machinery in Motion and one shared by Printing and French Machinery, and Models and Naval Architecture. By the time that the shape of the first locomotive emerged from the darkness, all three of them were feeling a rush of exhilaration. They were about to earn a lot of money.

After peering at the various exhibits, Jukes stood beside one of the biggest on display and ran a hand over it.