tangle of candelabras and a stack of thick yellow candles laid on their sides. Underneath the table was a pile of long dried rushes and two clocks of black marble that reminded me of tombs. In the corner of the room was another table, and at this one a small, worried-looking man of about seventy was reading a book while eating what must have been an early supper. It looked like chops, but where they came from I could not guess. From the door next to him, another man entered, and I at once had a feeling of great danger when I saw that it was Rowland Smith. He had on more business-like togs to the ones I'd seen him in at Grosmont, but they were still exquisite. Half-hiding at the edge of the doorway I listened.
'That's a very good mixture you have there, Erskine,' he said to the worried-looking man.
'Mmm,' said the man, because he was eating – and very fast. 'Now, on the Underground Railway, Rowland -' he continued, before stopping to pour salt onto the side of his plate. 'On the Underground Railway,' he began again after a while, 'which is the nearest station to the Temple?' 'Temple,' said Rowland Smith.
'Yes,' said the worried man. 'Which is the nearest station to it?' 'The nearest station to Temple is Temple itself.'
'This is where my spy glass comes in,' said the worried man, and he put down his knife and fork and picked up a lens on a stick. He looked through the glass at the book of maps that was before him. 'There is no station close to the Temple at all except… Oh, yes, I do see now. When did they build that one?'
'I don't know exactly, Erskine. It's been there for some time, I believe. On the matter of the fifty poles that are to be conveyed tomorrow to Palmer -'
But the worried man was not having this. 'Is Stanley preaching the gospel?' he asked instead, pushing his book away. 'I saw you speaking with him earlier.' 'The address is shortly to begin.' 'Good attendance?' 'There will be the usual number, I expect. If that. He says the room is too cold, and not swept.' 'Yes, he seemed very agitated.' 'He is always in that condition.'
'Indeed, and I fear the matter goes deeper than an unswept room,' said the worried man, going back to his chops. 'The difficulty is the manner of the address.'
'And the subject,' said Smith. 'But it would look amiss, I think, after all, to drop it or even reduce the frequency.' 'That is your settled view?' said the worried man. 'Yes.' 'You have no thoughts of bringing him into your scheme of economy?' 'No.' These two are not the greatest of pals, I thought. 'Have you moved yet?' said the worried-looking man, chewing ten to the dozen. 'Yes,' said Smith. 'Last week.' 1 have not had notification of the change of address.'
'It is not much changed' said Smith. 'I'm still in the same mansion block.'
'Then why the deuce did you move?' said the worried-looking man. 'It is a better flat. It is on the lower floor, giving on to the garden, and it is to the rear, so it is quieter.' 'A southerly aspect, I trust?'
'Easterly,' said Smith, at which he looked up and saw me in the doorway.
'You know, as to the poles to be conveyed to Palmer,' the worried man said, 'I must, as Chairman, take heed of the points raised by Mr Argent -'
'Excuse me, Erskine,' said Rowland Smith, and he came hurrying across the room towards me.
He was very friendly, as before; and when he lifted his hat his hair sprang up, also as before. 'How are you settling in?'
'Tolerably well, sir, thank you,' I said, for I was at least man enough not to say I was having an awful time of it. 'And the lodge is a pretty good one?' 'Quite all right, really,' I said.
'You've come in on the footplate?' He pointed to Thirty-One, and I nodded. 'Just for a jaunt, or have they got you firing all ready?'
'Just for the jaunt,' I said. He really seemed to know nothing at all of railways. 'Mr Smith,' I said, 'when you were good enough to take an interest in me before, I was given to… I was… I formed the impression that you were connected to the London and South Western Railway.'
Rowland Smith was always able to bring out the best from me, in a roundabout way. It had taken a lot for me to say that, just as it had taken a lot for me to ask him to take me on in the first place.
He smiled and nodded. 'As you might know, this and that company are closely interconnected, the South Western running the trains to Brookwood by contractual arrangement with the Mausoleum Company. Some five months ago I found myself in the position of being able to do some work, advisory in nature in the main, for the board here, and I put myself forward. On finding I had been succesful, I of course resigned my seat on the board of the South Western so as to avoid any collision of interests.'
I thought: it is not normal for a man like this to speak to a man like me in this way.
Smith suddenly laughed, and in a most amiable manner. 'You yourself would have stayed at the South Western?' I could not help but nod, crimson-faced I should imagine.
'But then you speak as a lifelong subscriber to The Railway Magazine,' said Smith, seeming to bow at me as he did so.
The worried-looking man appeared at the doorway. 'If you must talk to me about those poles, Rowland -'
'Yes, Erskine. I'm just saying hello to this young fellow here: Mr Jim Stringer. He is a very hard worker, entitled to every possible encouragement. He works with the chaps that drive for us, and he's always after footplate runs, so we'll be seeing a fair bit of him.'
This obviously did not excite the elderly gentleman all that much; in fact it made him look very sad. As he looked on, Smith asked, 'Will you meet me, in order to let me ask you some questions?' 'Questions as to what, sir?' 'Oh, concerning the life at Nine Elms.'
'Where?' I said, and I must have fairly gasped out the word.
'My flat. The address is on the letters.' He reached into his jacket and a pocket book flopped open in his hand. 'You must come to my place,' he said again, 'and you must come by cab.' He held out his long, fine right hand, and I saw a ten shilling note there.
I shook my head and took a step back; a cab (with an honest driver) could be had for sixpence a mile. I was young but I was not stupid, and it seemed to me plain that he wanted me to sneak on my fellows and would pay me to do so.
'I'll write to you,' he said, putting the note back into his pocket as though quite used to having his offers refused. 'Do carry on with your tour,' he said. 'It's quite an interesting setup we've got here.'
Chapter Nine
Tuesday 24 November continued
I could not stop thinking about what Rowland Smith had in mind for me in his flat in the Northern Division of London, but if anything could have taken my mind off it, the little Necropolis Station was the thing. It certainly was a very interesting show.
I walked around the buffer stops to the second platform, where there was another row of low, dull buildings. I had been given permission to look about, so I opened one of the doors and there was a coffin. Above it, an electric light swayed on a chain that had a black cable entwined in its links. The coffin lid was off and, stepping forward, I saw a white face -1 could not say whether a man's or a woman's – with a mass of blackness below. There were chairs like thrones on either side, and I marvelled to think that this place was a waiting room of sorts. I looked again at the mighty electric light, thinking: all this modernity for the dead. But I longed for the roaring of gas, and I stepped out of there in double-quick time.
I walked around the block of buildings on that platform and saw what from my side looked like a low wall but was in fact the top of a twenty-foot drop. At the bottom was a dazzling white courtyard with, on the far side, a fancy pink-brick building with a big arch cut through it. As I looked down, a black coach-and-four shot through the arch into the courtyard. The driver got down, and when he removed his black top hat I expected more blackness, but there was no hair there at all. It was as if he was letting me know: just between you and I, my unknown friend above, I am completely bald. He put the hat back on, left the carriage in the middle of the courtyard, and everything went still again save for the hot horses, stomping now and again in the shafts.
Two minutes later a door on the right-hand side of the court opened, and two men in black came through it. Three more men in black came out from the tunnel, and one of these was talking all the time, but I couldn't see which one. The men stood still for a second; but their shadows, which were like the hands of clocks, kept growing.
