But the guard wasn’t made of stone. Dover pathetic was more effective than Dover rampant. ‘Here,’ he offered kindly, ‘have a sandwich. You’ll feel better with something inside you.’
And Dover did. By the time he’d finished off all the remaining sandwiches and got through a couple of crumbly jam tarts, he felt much better. He was able to regard his predicament with a certain amount of detachment. It was damned hard luck on MacGregor, of course, but even for him you could hardly call it the end of the world, could you? He’d learn to live with it in time. Lots of other people had. Dover sniggered to himself. Why, it might even turn out to be a blessing in disguise. The lad’d be able to concentrate on his job without dissipating his energies on a lot of external distractions. Dover chuckled.
The guard looked at him curiously. Gawd, you didn’t half meet ’em on his job. One minute they were blubbering all over you, sobbing out some blooming hard-luck story, and the next minute they were laughing their flipping heads off.
‘Feeling better, are you, mate?’
Dover wiped his eyes. ‘Eh? Oh yes!’ He swayed backwards and forwards as he tried to control his mirth. ‘ No good crying over spilt milk, is it? Like I say, there must be hundreds of people in the same boat, if you did but know it. I don’t suppose it even shows …’
The guard stopped ruminating on the imponderabilia of human nature and pricked up his ears as he caught a change in the rhythm of the train.
‘Craig’s Crossing!’ he shouted excitedly. ‘Come on, mate, you’re in luck! Look lively, now, you’ll only have a couple of seconds.’
Before Dover could say him nay, the guard had seized the suitcase and pulled it over to the door.
‘Here – what the blazes?’ squeaked Dover, scrambling to his feet and endeavouring to get his suitcase back again. He finished up in an untidy heap on the opposite seat as the train’s brakes slammed on. When, having floundered around like a stranded whale, he got himself into an upright position, he found that the guard had already got the carriage door open.
‘No!’ shrieked Dover.
He was ignored. As the train juddered to a halt the suitcase was tossed out regardless on to the line.
‘You bloody fool!’ screamed Dover, plunging clumsily towards the door in a futile effort to recover his property.
‘Come on!’ roared the guard, rejoicing that he was able to help his fellow man at no cost to himself.
‘No!’ howled Dover again, seeing what was inevitably coming.
It was no good. The guard, who did early morning exercises to keep himself fit, caught the Chief Inspector off-balance. Dover was already moving in the direction of the door. His effort to switch into reverse was thwarted by the guard’s grasp on his collar. Dover made the mistake of trying to strike the Good Samaritan in the stomach instead of grabbing hold of some immovable portion of the carriage. The guard laughingly side-stepped the foul blow and, with a cunning thrust, got Dover nicely poised in the open doorway. Then, still holding securely on to the collar of Dover’s overcoat, he applied his knee to the small of Dover’s back, and pushed. The bulk of Dover’s body was propelled through the doorway but the restraining grasp on his collar prevented him from being flung forwards on his face. He found himself on the track in a more or less upright position, having scraped his back nastily on the protruding step as he descended.
There was an ominous clanking from the front end of the train. Dover instinctively leapt clear. Before he had time to turn round and express his heart-felt opinion on the recent happenings, the train was already moving. The guard slammed his door shut and stood waving cheerily from the open window.
‘Your lucky day!’ he called.
Dover made some suitable reply. Then he stood impotently waving his fist at the departing train. When at last it disappeared from view, he turned to contemplate his surroundings.
‘’Strewth!’ muttered Dover. He looked round him again. ‘Population explosion!’ he grumbled. ‘Standing room only by 2010! Bloody well looks like it, doesn’t it?’ Some cows in an adjoining field stared moodily at him. He was just on the point of picking up a handy sized lump of stone and chucking it at them when a tiny fragment of civilization caught his eye. A cottage! It lay away in the distance across no less than three fields but, unless Dover’s eyes betrayed him, it was a cottage. Cursing profusely Dover picked up his suitcase and made his way gingerly across the railway line. By God, somebody was going to pay for this!
William Dibden and his sister, Wilhelmina, made a point of never opening their door to anyone after six o’clock at night. They’d heard too many stories of old-age pensioners being murdered in their beds to be caught napping themselves.
Wilhelmina clutched her tea-cup and huddled closer to the kitchen range. ‘You’ll have to do something,’ she said. ‘ They’ll kick that door down before long. You’ll have to do something.’
William wasn’t having any. He winced as the hammering on the door grew louder and more insistent. ‘There’s only one of ’ em,’ he muttered. ‘I told you that before. A great hulking brute. Looked a right ruffian.’
‘You’ll have to do something,’ said Wilhelmina. She was a great believer in constant dripping. ‘They’ll have that door down before long.’
‘I don’t know what you expect me to do about it.’
‘I thought you were supposed to be a boxer?’
William snorted. ‘That was over forty years ago, and I was a bantam.’
‘You knocked Tom Pritchard out, didn’t you?’
‘He slipped and hit his head on a post,’ said William grimly.
‘Oh? First I’ve heard of that. I always thought knocking Tom Pritchard out was your main claim to fame.’
William sighed. He should have kept his mouth shut. She’d never let it drop now.
‘You’ll have to do something,’
