The Silver Locomotive Mystery

been a good influence on your son. In other ways, I fear, she has led him off the straight and narrow path. Who is she, Mr Voke?’

‘How should I know?’

‘This is your son we’re discussing.’

‘He never brought friends home because he knew I’d disapprove of them. He shut me out of his life, Superintendent.’ Something stirred in his memory. ‘What about the advertisement you put in the press? Did anybody come forward apart from his landlord?’

‘Not at first,’ replied Tallis. ‘Indeed, it took Mr Meyrick a while before he showed his face. Two other people did call on me but they were acquaintances of your son’s rather than friends. They used to drink with him at some hostelry or other.’

‘That’s all Stephen ever did at one time.’

‘Both of them told me the same thing – that your son wanted to move out of London altogether. Apparently, he kept talking about a holiday he’d had when he was much younger. It had made a big impression on him. The problem was,’ Tallis went on, ‘neither of them could recall the name of the place where you took him.’

Voke’s eyes glazed over. ‘I can tell you,’ he said, wistfully. ‘It was when Stephen was still a boy. My wife had a cousin who offered us the use of her cottage for a week. That was the only reason we went there. We had very few holidays after that. And yes,’ he added, touched by the thought of happier times. ‘Stephen did enjoy it. We were a real family then. We did things together.’

‘And where exactly was this cottage, Mr Voke?’

‘It was in Caerleon.’

Chepstow was a charming town that overlooked the River Wye near its junction with the Severn. Its forbidding castle was a reminder of the days when the Normans conquered England and extended their overlordship into Wales. Colbeck and Leeming were not detained there long. They spoke to three silversmiths and to the landlord of the town’s largest public house. All four confirmed that nobody else intended to open a jewellery shop. Of these witnesses, the landlord was the most unequivocal, assuring them that very little happened in Chepstow that escaped his notice. After thanking this local oracle, the detectives adjourned to the railway station to await the next train.

Leeming was beginning to lose heart. ‘Will we have any more luck in Newport, sir?’

‘Wait and see,’ said Colbeck.

‘The next stop after that will be Cardiff.’

‘They won’t stay there for obvious reasons, Victor. They’ll want to put a little distance between themselves and the scene of their crimes. They could, however, have moved further west to Swansea.’

‘Do we have to go that far?’ asked Leeming, worried that his hopes of returning home that night would disappear. ‘And why should anyone in their right mind want to live here when they don’t speak that peculiar language?’

‘You’ll find a lot of English people in South Wales,’ said Colbeck, ‘especially among the ironmasters and coalmine owners. They knew how to exploit the rich mineral resources there. Then, of course, there’s Jeremiah Stockdale, another Englishman who settled down on this side of the border. We could do with his help now. He knows Newport very well.’

‘I’m not surprised. He told me he was sent here a few years ago to quell riots during an election.’

‘I was thinking of a much earlier visit than that. In 1839 there was a Chartist demonstration in Newport. Violence broke out.’

‘That’s right,’ said Leeming. ‘The superintendent made his most famous arrest in Newport. I remember him telling us about it.’

‘The arrest was actually made in Cardiff. Zephaniah Williams, one of the Chartist ringleaders, escaped there and hid in the Sea Lock Hotel waiting for a ship to carry him to France. The superintendent disguised himself as a sailor,’ recalled Colbeck with an admiring smile, ‘and was rowed out to the vessel that would have taken Williams to safety. He made the arrest before the fugitive was fully awake.’

‘I wish that we could make an arrest,’ said Leeming, glumly.

‘The time will come, Victor.’

‘When?’

‘Very soon, I trust.’

‘Do we have to visit many more shops like the ones we’ve already been in? I find it so depressing, sir.’

‘Why is that?’

‘They’re full of things I could never afford to buy. That last place had a silver tankard worth more than my house.’

‘It was made in the reign of Charles II,’ said Colbeck, ‘and you have to admit that it was beautifully decorated. But I can see that that wouldn’t carry any weight with you.’

‘Tankards are to drink out of and not just to look at.’

‘I’ll spare you any more silverware in Newport. There may be another way to find what we’re after.’

‘And what’s that, sir?’

‘Well, I’ve been thinking about something that Miss Evans said to me. Stephen Voke made a ring for her but not while he was working at Solomon Stern’s shop. It was made at his lodging. In other words,’ Colbeck went on, ‘he was working on private commissions in his own time. Perhaps he has no intention of opening a shop at all. He may be able to earn a living by getting commissions and working from home. We must search for his house.’

‘How will we ever find it, Inspector?’ wondered Leeming as a train steamed towards them. ‘Newport is much bigger than Cardiff. They must have thousands of houses there.’

‘Granted, Victor, but they won’t all have changed hands recently.’ He raised his voice above the approaching roar. ‘We need to speak to someone who sells property in the town.’

There were times when Jeremiah Stockdale disliked his job because it gave him a disturbing insights into the depths to which human beings could sink. A week earlier, he had led a raid on a house in notorious Stanley Street where no fewer than fifty-four people were found crammed into four rooms. The pervading stink of poverty and degradation had stayed in his nostrils for days. Now, however, he was relishing his reign as the town’s police chief. He was brimming with optimism. He had forced Nigel Buckmaster to pay full compensation for the time wasted by his men on a pointless search for a supposedly missing actress. He had been able to return a stolen carriage and horses to Clifford Tomkins and earn a generous reward. He had endeared himself even more to Winifred Tomkins. And such was his unwavering confidence in Robert Colbeck that he knew the murder at the Railway Hotel would be solved in time, bringing with it lavish praise for Stockdale’s part in the investigation.

When he returned to the police station, therefore, he was in a cheerful mood. As he entered the outer office, he found a letter awaiting him on the desk. After exchanging a few jovial words with the custody sergeant, he opened the letter and read it with interest. An anxious look came into his eye and he read the missive again with more care. An expression of horror spread slowly across his face.

‘Inspector Colbeck needs to see this,’ he said. ‘Urgently.’

It took much longer than Colbeck had expected. A large number of properties in Newport had acquired new owners in recent months. None of the auctioneers and house agents they approached had ever heard of Stephen Voke, leading the detectives to wonder if he had changed his name. It was only after hours of trudging from door to door that they were eventually given the information they sought. Colbeck immediately hired a trap and they set off for Caerleon.

‘This is the way to travel,’ said Leeming, contentedly.

‘Only over short distances,’ argued Colbeck. ‘Had we set out from London in this trap, it would have taken two days to get here.’

‘What sort of a place is Caerleon, sir?’

‘We’ll find out before too long, Victor. It’s not all that far.’

‘That man said that we had to go on beyond the ruins.’

‘Yes, Caerleon was a Roman town. It was the headquarters of a legion so it must have been a place of importance. Now, it seems, it’s a trading centre through which iron and tin are shipped.’