Murder At Deviation Junction

shot rang out, quite deafening me for a space. In front of me were booths roughly made out of railway sleepers. Each booth corresponded to a target dangling from a wire stretching the width of the building at the far end, and the bullets flew to these targets through half a dozen columns of light from gas rings high in the roof. There was a balcony above the line of targets, and, set into the wall behind it, a vast clock with no hands, but the central spindle that had once held them remained, and it struck me that it must have made a tempting supplementary target for the riflemen.

    I walked along the line of booths, and they were all empty but the last one, in which the Chief sat at a low stool, hunched over with the rifle on the stone floor beside him. Evidently the contest hadn't started yet—that, or it had just finished.

    'Sir?' I called. 'Might I have a word?'

    The Chief seemed not to have heard; he wore a cravat against the cold, but no topcoat or jacket (to allow free movement to his arms, as I supposed), and he was bareheaded, allowing me sight of his scant strands of dirty yellow hair, which fell across his head at intervals of about half an inch, like the lines drawn on a globe.

    I heard a thin squeal of metal, and the targets fifty yards off began to moving to the right. They were being winched towards a hut made of old boiler plates in the right-hand corner of the building. The target marker sat in there, I knew.

    I called to the Chief again, and then I spied the ear defenders bundled into his earholes. He was still looking down at the floor, perhaps muttering to himself, but what he was saying I could not make out, just as I could never make out what the Chief was thinking. I couldn't make him out full stop, but I liked him, and I'd always felt he had a liking for me, though he'd given me the hard word on plenty of occasions.

    I had taken the photograph out of my coat pocket, and was advancing towards the Chief when an electrical bell sounded from the far end of the shed. This made enough din to rouse the Chief, who looked up in a daze as I passed him the photograph.

    'If you have a second, sir, I wanted you to see this.'

    'Eh?' he said.

    I passed him the photograph, and he looked at it with his ear defenders still in. Behind him, at the far end of the range, the marker had opened the door of his iron shelter, and was approaching us under the line of gaslights.

    'It's the Club,' I said.

    He knew the story of the Travelling Club in rough outline, but this was the first time he'd had sight of the photograph. He was studying it as the marker leant across the low timber barricade that separated the firing positions from the main part of the range; he passed the Chief a target that had been riddled with the Chief's bullets, and the Chief passed the photograph back to me as he received the target. It was about the size of a newspaper, and the Chief took a while getting to grips with it, which annoyed me, for it was a hard job to keep his mind fixed on a subject even without distraction.

    Indicating the photograph, I said, 'I believe they're all dead, sir - murdered. This one's Lee.'

    'Lame Horse man?' said the Chief.

    'That's it.'

    'Maybe the fellow that did for him did for all of 'em?'

    I shook my head.

    'Can hardly believe it. Sanderson was a burglar - no other burglaries have been reported touching the others.'

    'I know the one on the left,' the Chief cut in, and my heart began racing, but he'd gone back to studying the target along with the marker, who was leaning over the barrier. Both were shaking their heads.

    'My best bet would be to run at it with a bloody bayonet,' the Chief said to the marker.

    'You know this one, sir?' I said, holding up the photograph, and pointing to the handsome man in black.

    But the Chief was listening to the marker, who was grinning and imitating the Chief's firing position, saying, 'You're too much this way.'

    'Bloody left shoulder,' said the Chief, who was loading his rifle again from the kitbag at his feet.

    I pressed the photograph on him for a second time, and he took it as the marker returned to his boiler- plate hut.

    'Aye,' said the Chief, evidently a little riled at my persistence, 'this one. His name's Marriott, and I'm surprised you don't know him yourself.'

    He passed the photograph back to me, took up his rifle and adopted the shooting position.

    'Bloody left shoulder,' he said again, when he'd seemed to be set.

    He was looking away from me now, towards the target. Before he could start blasting away again, I asked:

    'Who is he, sir?'

    'Brief,' said the Chief, still eyeing the targets. 'Barrister; defender mainly. Name's Marriott. I went against him a couple of times at the Assizes.'

    'York Assizes?' I said.

    'Course bloody York,' said the Chief.

    'I don't see much of the Assizes,' I said, 'being forever in the police courts, prosecuting small fry.'

    That made the Chief turn round, and I was worried as he did so, but as luck would have it, he was grinning. He could be suddenly friendly in a way that was quite as worrying as his distant moods.

    'You put up a good show when you were last in the Assizes,' he said, and I coloured up with pride. The Chief was talking about the murder - my murder, the killer netted by my own efforts. I had been leading witness for the prosecution, and the Chief had twice taken me to breakfast at the Station Hotel in the course of the trial.

    'You're like me, lad,' he said, finally removing his ear defenders. 'Better outdoors - firing at the long range. You like a challenge.'

    'But Detective Sergeant Shillito wants me always in the office filling in reports.'

    The Chief gave me a look that might have meant anything.

    'Do you still see him about at the York Assizes?' I said, pointing to the handsome man.

    'I don't,' said the Chief.

    'I knew it, sir,' I said. 'Ten to one he's dead.'

    'Well, he wasn't one of the regular ones,' said the Chief. 'I mean to say, he wasn't from York chambers. The fact that I haven't seen him lately could mean nowt at all.'

    'Was he any good? Did you win against him?'

    'Ended in a tie between me and him. He won one; we won one. Company official - fraud case. We got that bugger sent down. But Marriott got a chap off a wounding charge.'

    'Wounding? What was the name of the accused?'

    'You and your bloody questions,' said the Chief, shaking his head.

    'Some of the fellows at the Assizes,' the Chief continued, 'they'll walk in holding the papers tied with the pink ribbon and you'll practically shit yourself. You'll think, 'It's all up - might as well chuck it in now.' Marriott was bright enough, but he wasn't in that company.'

    The Chief smelt a little of beer, as usual; perhaps he'd taken a drop to steady his arm before the contest. At the far end of the shed, the marker was hanging up another target for the Chief.

    'He was an arrogant sod, mind you,' said the Chief, who was picking up his ear defenders once again.

    'How do you mean?' I said.

    'I've nothing against barristers,' said the Chief, 'though they're all snobs and half of them are sodomites, but this bloke took the bun. Got up to the bloody nines. I mean, they're all that way, but I reckon half his money must have gone on tailoring - that and laundry bills. I was bloody determined to win both times we were up against him - just to take the gas out of him a bit.'

    'Shillito's warned me off the investigation, sir,' I said. 'He says Middlesbrough won't stand for it.'

    'They won't,' said the Chief. 'I've seen the letter from Williams.'

    This meant Shillito had seen the Chief only an hour or so since.

    'He's out to block my application for promotion as well,' I said. 'It's not right. It's not -' 'Sporting?' put in