Jamieson relished her pain. ‘Would you like the names of his other conquests?’ he taunted.
Dorothea reeled as if from a blow. Her romance with Ezra Follis had rescued her from long, lonely months when she was on her own. She had taken immense pains to be discreet. Yet not only had her infidelity been exposed, she now discovered that the man who claimed to love her had seduced a string of women before her. It was crippling.
‘Goodbye, Dorothea,’ said her husband, opening the door. ‘I’m going to London myself today so you’ll have to manage without any food until tomorrow. If,’ he added, ‘I decide to bring you any, that is.’
‘Where are you going, Alexander?’
‘I intend to look at his house for myself. I want to see where my marriage was ruined and make sure that no other trusting husband is cuckolded there.’
She grabbed his arm. ‘You won’t
‘I’ll do exactly that,’ he said, flinging her aside. ‘When I’ve destroyed his house, I’ll destroy him.’
Jamieson went out, slammed the door and locked it. Dorothea lay on the ground where she had fallen and wept. Her situation was hopeless. All that she could think of doing was to pray for forgiveness.
Seated in the hansom cab, Colbeck and Leeming were driven towards the house owned by Captain Alexander Jamieson. They felt that they at last had the evidence they required.
‘When I read out the names on that list,’ said Colbeck, ‘Mr Follis denied having heard of any of them. He even stuck to his denial when I showed him the telescope. Then you turned up at the hospital with a positive identification from Mrs Ashmore and that forced him to tell the truth. He
‘Why did he lie so stubbornly to you, Inspector?’
‘The rector had something to hide.’
‘If this Captain Jamieson is a suspect,’ said Leeming, ‘you’d have thought that Mr Follis would volunteer his name at the start.’
‘I’m sure he had good reason to deceive us,’ said Colbeck. ‘I’ll be interested to discover exactly what it is.’
The cab pulled up outside a big, white, detached Regency house standing on an acre of land. After ordering the driver to wait, Colbeck got out. Leeming followed him up the steps to the front door. They rang the bell several times but to no effect. Telling the sergeant to stay at the front of the property, Colbeck went around to the side. He peered over the fence into the garden.
‘Is anyone there?’ he shouted, cupping his hands. ‘We’re looking for Captain Jamieson. Is he at home?’
There was no response from the house itself but he heard a cry from the outhouse on the other side of the courtyard. The voice was too indistinct for him to hear the exact words but he could tell that a woman was in distress. He called Leeming and the sergeant bent down so that Colbeck could step on to his back and jump over the fence. Running to the outhouse, he tried the door and found it locked.
‘Who’s that inside?’ he asked.
‘I’m Mrs Dorothea Jamieson,’ she answered.
‘My name is Detective Inspector Colbeck and I was hoping to speak to your husband. Is he here?’
‘No, Inspector – can you get me out?’ she begged.
‘Stand back from the door.’
After trying to kick it open, he put his shoulder to the timber but it still would not budge. Colbeck looked around and saw a plank of wood nearby. Picking it up, he used it like a battering ram to pound away at the door. After resisting for a short while, the lock suddenly snapped and the door was flung back on its hinges.
Crouching in the corner by the mattress was the pathetic figure of Dorothea Jamieson. She looked up with a fear that was tempered with relief. Someone had rescued her at last. Bursting into tears, she got up and hurled herself into Colbeck’s arms.
He caught the first available train to London even though it stopped at various stations on the way. Finding an empty carriage near the front, Captain Jamieson sat down and opened the newspaper he had just bought. It was not merely something to divert him on the journey. It would act as kindling when he burnt down Ezra Follis’s house and destroyed the scene of his wife’s betrayal. Once that was done, he could seal the clergyman’s fate by hiring a more reliable killer. Only when his wife wept over Follis’s dead body would his vengeful feelings be appeased.
The signal was given, the locomotive started up and the train moved slowly along in a series of jangling harmonies. Jamieson was happy to be on his way to exact retribution. What he did not realise was that two men had just run along the platform beside the moving train and leapt into the last carriage.
‘That was dangerous,’ said Victor Leeming, breathlessly, as he sat down. ‘If I’m forced to travel by train, I at least expect it to be standing still when I get on it.’
‘We had to catch this one,’ said Colbeck, ‘whatever the risk.’
‘How can you be sure that he’s on it?’
‘You heard what his wife told us. Captain Jamieson left only minutes before we arrived. He’d have got to the station not long ahead of us. Since I’ve been travelling up and down to Brighton so much, I learnt the timetable by heart. This was the first possible train he could have caught.’
‘I bet he didn’t wait until it was moving,’ said Leeming.
The carriage was largely empty. Their only companion was an elderly man trying to read a book through his monocle. He ignored them studiously. Leeming leant in close to whisper to Colbeck.
‘Why do you think he locked his wife up, sir?’
‘I don’t know, Victor,’ replied the other, ‘but I wouldn’t advise you to do it to Estelle by way of a birthday present. It could never compete with a pretty new bonnet and shawl.’
The train chugged on until Hassocks Gate station came into sight. It gradually slowed down and ran beside the platform until stopping with a jerk. Colbeck got out alone, leaving the sergeant at the rear of the train to cut off any escape attempt by their quarry. Walking along the platform, Colbeck glanced into each carriage, searching for the bearded man whose description he now had. Since additional passengers had just joined it, the train was half- full. There were lots of faces to check. Colbeck saw a couple of men with beards but they were the wrong age and the wrong shape to be Alexander Jamieson.
It was a long train at a short stop. Before the inspector had checked every carriage, it began to move again. He trotted alongside it, peering into the few remaining carriages. When he spotted the man with the black beard, he knew that he had found his suspect. Pulling open the door, Colbeck dived in and closed it behind him.
‘Captain Jamieson?’ he asked.
‘Who the devil are you?’ demanded the other.
‘My name is Inspector Colbeck and I’ve come to arrest you.’
Jamieson’s reaction was immediate. He threw a punch that caught Colbeck on the chin and dazed him for a moment. Trying to get away, Jamieson opened the door to jump down on to the line, only to find that another train was coming towards them. In desperation, he instead climbed upwards on to the roof of the carriage, hoping to work his way back along the train so that he could leap off at the next station while Colbeck was still in the carriage near the front.
Having spent most of his life at sea, Jamieson had a sailor’s nimbleness and sense of balance. He felt secure on the roof of a moving train and safe from any pursuit. He had not taken account of the detective’s resolve and agility. Removing his hat, Colbeck followed him through the door and got a firm grip before pulling himself up on to the roof. Jamieson was already two carriages away from him but his movement was hampered by the luggage that had been stored on top of the train. Colbeck, too, had to clamber over trunks, valises and hatboxes while maintaining his balance on the swaying roof. Jamieson was amazed to see that he was being followed.
‘Give yourself up, Captain Jamieson,’ advised Colbeck, getting closer all the time. ‘There’s no escape. I have another man on the train to help me. You can’t elude the both of us.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ snarled the other.
‘We’re trained detectives, sir, well used to arresting violent suspects. We’re not a defenceless woman like your wife whom you can lock up in your outhouse.’
Jamieson was startled. ‘How do you know about that?’
