The Silver Locomotive Mystery

‘Not if I can help it,’ said Jack Grindle, gruffly. ‘There’s barely enough work to keep the rest of us going.’

‘This looks like a fairly prosperous town,’ said Colbeck.

‘People don’t always want to spend their money on jewellery, Inspector. When farmers make a profit, they buy more stock and their wives have little desire for my handiwork. New dresses and pretty bonnets are what they prefer. There’s over 17,000 people living in Gloucester and most of them work in the docks, the foundries, the timber mills, the flow mills and such like. You won’t find much interest in silverware there. It’s a luxury they can’t afford.’

It was a small shop but the silverware on display was of a high quality. Grindle had an apprentice and an assistant in the back room so he clearly had enough work to justify their wages. He was a big, raw-boned, hirsute man in his forties with the build of a blacksmith yet his hands were small and delicate. He blinked constantly.

‘Where would you go, Mr Grindle?’ asked Leeming.

‘I’m staying right here,’ rejoined the silversmith, truculently. ‘This is my shop and nobody will turn me out of it.’

‘That’s not what I meant, sir.’

‘Then why not say so?’

‘What the sergeant is asking,’ explained Colbeck, ‘is only a hypothetical question.’

Grindle was baffled. ‘And what’s that when it’s at home?’

‘Supposing that you did want to move elsewhere and start afresh, which part of the country would you choose?’

‘It would have to be London. That’s where the money is.’

‘The person we’re interested in has just left the city. We think that he might have headed in this direction.’

‘Then he’d better not show his nose in Gloucester.’

‘Is there anywhere in the area that might attract him?’

Grindle scratched his head. ‘I can’t name a place, Inspector,’ he said with a sniff, ‘but I can tell you this. If I was starting up again, I’d choose somewhere that was close to rich folk in large country houses. It’s the aristocracy and the gentry that like silver tableware. Find someone who wants plate and cutlery and you find a good living.’

‘Where would you suggest that we look?’ said Colbeck.

‘Anywhere but here,’ was the blunt reply.

‘And you’re sure that nobody has made enquiries in the city?’

‘If they had, I’d have got to hear about it. We stick together for our own protection in this trade. We won’t let any Tom, Dick or Harry stroll in and open up a shop just because he likes to hear cathedral bells on a Sunday. No,’ said Grindle, ‘the people you’re after never came near Gloucester. You’ll have to look somewhere else.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Colbeck. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’

He and Leeming left the shop and closed the door behind him.

‘I don’t think he was any help at all,’ said Leeming. ‘If he’s as rude as that to customers, he won’t keep many of them.’

‘Mr Grindle is exactly what we need, Victor.’

‘Is he?’

‘Yes – he guards his own territory and bristles at the slightest hint of a fresh rival. In five minutes, he saved us the trouble of looking anywhere else in the city.’

‘So what do we do now, sir?’

‘We go on to Chepstow,’ said Colbeck, happily, ‘and we find someone exactly like Jack Grindle, Silversmith.’

Leonard Voke had been a principal victim of the crimes and despair had eaten into his soul. Since his safe was ransacked, he had had neither the confidence nor the need to open his shop. Without his tools he could make nothing. He spent most of the day sitting in his back room amid the ruins of his livelihood. Edward Tallis called on him and discovered Voke more demoralised than ever.

‘There is no God,’ said the silversmith, despondently. ‘If there had been, I would never have had to suffer like this. My assistant has been murdered, my safe has been emptied and my ungrateful son is responsible for both crimes. Where is God’s mercy in all that?’

‘This is not the time for a theological discussion,’ said Tallis, ‘but I can assure you that there is a heaven. God looks down on us all with true pity.’

‘I’m not aware of it, Superintendent.’

‘You are still dazed by the shock of what happened to you.’

‘Dazed?’ echoed Voke. ‘I’ve been smashed into pieces.’

Feeling that the old man deserved to be informed of the latest developments, Tallis had made the journey to Wood Street. There was no hope of cheering the silversmith up but he felt able to tell him that his detectives were closing in on the culprits. Voke listened to it all without comment. His mind was elsewhere.

‘It’s in two days’ time,’ he murmured.

‘What is, Mr Voke?’

‘The funeral – the arrangements have been made though there’ll be precious few of us to see dear Hugh lowered into the ground.’

‘There’ll be his sister,’ said Tallis, ‘and I’m quite certain that his landlady, Mrs Jennings, will be there. Mr Kellow must have friends who need to be informed of the details.’

‘I’ve put a notice in the newspapers.’

‘That should bring some people in. Did his sister make any special requests for the service?’

‘No,’ said Voke, ‘she was grateful to leave it all to me. After all that’s happened, the poor creature can’t think straight.’

‘The sudden death of a loved one can have that affect. When that death is of such a violent and unnatural kind, of course, the agony is more searing.’

‘Oh, I know all about agony,’ groaned the old man.

Tallis did not let him wallow in his misery. He still felt that Voke, unbeknown to him, might have information tucked away at the back of his mind that could be of use in the investigation. The silversmith had so far refused to talk about his son unless it was to unleash a stream of vituperation. Hoping to provoke him into a more considered discussion, Tallis decided to tell him something about Stephen Voke that his father did not know.

‘When your son left your employment, he changed somewhat.’

‘Yes – he began to plot my destruction!’

‘I was talking about his work,’ said Tallis. ‘I know that you thought him lazy but he seems to have applied himself to his craft. Not, I should add, when he was at Mr Stern’s shop. This was when he was on his own. According to his landlord, Mr Meyrick, your son would spend almost all his spare time working on commissioned items for private customers.’

Voke was roused. ‘Is this true?’

‘He was so dedicated that he worked on into the night until there were complaints about the noise he was making with his hammer. Evidently, the walls in the house are rather thin.’

‘I knew it!’ yelled Voke. ‘He stole my clients from me. I often wondered why people who had been very pleased with our work suddenly went elsewhere. Stephen must have poached them.’

‘He could only do that by offering lower charges. The point is that he was not the complete wastrel you described to me. Your son obviously had a new incentive in life and it must be linked to the young woman who came into his life.’

‘Which young woman, Superintendent – there were many.’

‘This one concentrated his mind.’

‘Yes,’ said Voke, ‘on how to abuse his father.’

‘If he was prepared to run away with the lady, he was clearly committed to the liaison.’ Tallis pulled a face. ‘I’m bound to tell you that it’s something I frown upon. Young men and women should not be allowed such free access to each other. It leads to depravity. There are social rules to obey. Unmarried couples should never be allowed to set up house wherever they choose. In some ways,’ he conceded, ‘this young woman seems to have