by Byron Craft
“Before the next major stop, I presume, where he would be out of his jurisdiction?”
Passworthy slowly nodded the affirmative; his head kept kangarooing up and down owing to a sudden jerk of movement. A whistle blew, there was a long, melancholy cry from the engine.
***
We were underway again, and Lady Blue still had not turned up. I hoped that she had not taken an unscheduled stroll outdoors like the boilerman. Several of the passengers came out of hiding whence the train started moving. Locomotion must have instilled well-being in some of the commuters. Out of sympathy for the kid and probably wanting to put distance between him and me, Conductor Passworthy volunteered to replace Alvin Nash shoveling coal.
“What can I do to help, your honor?” Alvin requested; his face as black as the anthracite he’d been shoveling.
“First off, go wash your face and second search every car for the lady in blue.”
“Who?”
“Tall lady in a blue silk dress reading Emily Brontë. When you find her, report back to me.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
He was gone in a flash. While he was tracking down Lady Blue, I was determined to locate the Rowley Line Company Dick and give him the once over. Out of habit, I checked to see if a .45 caliber slug was chambered in my 1911 Colt. There was; I forgot for the moment, that I had cocked my weapon when charging into the dining car lavatory. Remembering the john, I also recalled my conversation with Nigel Guest. Check the ladies’ room, dummy I told myself. The kid would probably not have the guts to look there. Well, on second thought, maybe he did have the gonads, then again, I’d better have a look-see before chasing after Rail Dick.
***
I don’t make a habit of entering ladies’ washrooms. This time I was going to make an exception. I was standing near the rear of the roped off dining car door summing up the courage to barge into the feminine boudoir next to it. I pushed the restroom door open ever so slightly, only a little more than a crack, with my shoe and politely enquired, “Hello, anybody in there?” No one replied. I raised my voice an octave or two and bellowed, “Anybody home?” Silence greeted me. I tipped toed in and cautiously looked about. The coast was clear. I let loose with a sigh and began inspecting the facilities. The first thing that came to mind was that the ladies’ washroom was a lot cleaner than the men’s. My wife would say that, “men can be such slobs.” I had to smile. I guessed she was right although I’d never admit it to her.
There were more toilet stalls than in the john for men due to the absence of any urinals. Rather than kicking every single one in, as I had done before, I squatted down to peer beneath the doors to make sure that none were occupied. All were empty, and I examined each. The one farthest down revealed an interesting clue. It told me that Nigel’s assumption was probably accurate. Someone, a quick-change artist, after washing the blood off, and in haste to dress and leave the premises left a tantalizing bit of evidence. A portion of a person’s attire clung to the inside of the stall’s door handle. A small torn fabric of blue silk.
***
I quietly exited the ladies’ washrooms into the adjoining hallway in hopes of avoiding attention. A fist slammed into the left side of my skull. I was down for the count. It was the Dick! I decided right then that it would be his name from then on. Before I could get up, he was on me with a two-handed choke hold. I returned the punch landing a right cross alongside his puss. The black bowler went flying, and his bald noggin vibrated back and forth. I was losing oxygen fast. He stared at me with ghost eyes. There were no pupils. Solid white orbs with a devilish glare. I swung hard again, and his head vibrated mocking a tuning fork. His lips parted, and I was staring at a mouthful of yellow canine teeth. I started to lose consciousness when I heard a loud metallic, "clang." Dick became a sack of potatoes slumping to the carpet.
I pushed his comatose form off me and got to my feet. Chef Ann Hoade stood over the fallen Dick, a cast iron frying pan in hand. She looked a little timid, overwhelmed, and repulsed by the outcome. At that moment she was extremely charming to me.
“What the hell!” I choked.
Ann backed away from the fallen Dick and leaned against the hallway wall. “At the risk of sounding ungrateful, what the hell were you doing here?” I asked continuing to catch my breath. “I thought you left the train along with Sarah Walker.”
“I came back to get my frypan,” never taking her eyes off the man on the floor.
I removed my fedora, straightened out the crease in the crown, and plopped it back on. “You crossed over into a crime scene to get a pan?”
“It was my grandmother’s. It was well seasoned for frying chicken.”
“A family heirloom, huh?” I had to smile.
“Yes. I didn’t disturb anything. I was careful to step around the . . . evidence. I put your rope and sign back in place when I left.” She maintained her downward stare and sighed convulsively, “I guess I kind of hit him pretty hard.”
“Hard enough,” I answered, feeling for a pulse on his neck. “He’s out for good.”
The pallor left Ann’s cheeks, and she appeared light-headed. I took her by the arm and escorted her toward the Pullman Car. She motioned for me to stop when on the connecting platform and gulped deep breaths of the cold outside air. Her heavy exhales hushed the “tchjk tchjk” of the train’s wheels bouncing along the rails. Chef Ann regained her composure and announced, “I’ll find Alvin and send him to you.”
It went without saying why she was going to send the kid my way. We had another body to move. I watched her enter the Pullman and returned to the fallen Dick.
I was examining more corpses in one day than I would in a month of Sundays back in Arkham. It was becoming routine on the Arkham Express. The life had gone out of the Pennsylvania Railroad Cop when Chef Ann beaned him, so you can imagine my surprise when I detected movement about the Dick’s head. The left side of his skull began to pulsate when I bent over for a closer look. As before there was no pulse, but something inside that cranium was laboring to get out, and my cop sense told me it wasn’t a blessed event. A tiny piece of flesh, hair, and bone discharged onto the carpet. I recoiled startled and landed on my butt. A pencil sized hole materialized in his skull. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. A white finger, more like a worm, squirmed halfway through the opening, wiggled around as if sampling the air, and then turning in my direction slipped back inside. Had it seen me? Did I frighten it back into its hole? I wasn’t going to wait around and find out. I ejected a .45 caliber round from my colt and did the next revolting thing. With thumb and forefinger, I wedged the oversized bullet into the orifice, widening the opening plugging it up.
***
It was a struggle for Alvin Nash and me to get the remains of the Rowley Line Security Dick to cold storage. The guy easily topped two-hundred pounds. I placed his black bowler over the plugged-up hole in his head until we tied him up in a mailbag. It would be tough to explain to Alvin. Plus, I didn’t want to scare him off. I was losing compatriots right and left, and I needed to keep him around. The kid came in handy. After that white worm played peek-a-boo with me, it was imperative that an autopsy on one or all of the dead guys were essential. I mentioned as much to Alvin, leaving out the creepy worm stuff.
“There is a doctor on board, your Honor. He has a seat in the day coach.”
***
Doc Winfield was an old country doctor, a General Practitioner, with white hair and a bushy mustache to match. He was the type you could trust to give you two aspirins and call him in the morning. Winfield didn’t practice surgery too much; occasionally a tonsillectomy, an appendectomy or two and the like. The Doc was traveling to Providence to visit his sister. He carried the obligatory black bag with the usual meds, tongue depressor, hypodermic, and scalpel. None of which was useful in hacking open a skull for a postmortem. Alvin Nash came through again. The kid rifled through the Engineer’s toolbox and came up with a hacksaw. A fair substitute for a bone saw.
Doctor Winfield took some convincing but after plying the kind old gentleman with a series of pleas for his assistance he acquiesced. I bid him bring his overcoat and follow. It was colder in the reefer than outdoors.
Donald Wheatcroft, the dining steward’s decapitated head, seemed the likely subject, to begin the autopsy. When I untied the bag holding his remains the old doctor did a step back and muttered a few biblical verses.
“That wound in his head, Doctor,” I said. “It appears to be made by a bullet, but as you can see, there is no exit wound.”
Old Winfield frowned. “It puzzles me,” he answered. “Of course, it was made by a bullet, but the wound should have partially closed up. Also, if it went right into the brain and lodged there, the cranium should be swelled. The authorities should be notified.”
“Right now, Doc, I’m the only law on this train until we reach Providence.”
He paused, paced slowly back and forth, pulled on his mustache and added, “Curious, there is no clotted blood around the wound. Did you dress it before laying him to rest?”
“Nope, this is the state I found him in.” I wasn’t going to tell him about the white worm in Dick’s head either, the same type of opening in the skull. Didn’t want to scare the crap out of him just yet or have him think I was a raving lunatic.
“This is truly incredible.” The Doc paced back and forth again. “Self-infliction is obviously out of the question.”
“Goes without saying.”
“We must operate here. Could you hold the lamp for me?”
I brought one of the engineer’s kerosene lanterns with me. I cleared a spot off a case marked “Frozen Beets” and managed to place Wheatcroft’s noodle on top without throwing up my cheese sandwich.
The doctor washed his hands with a preparation he took from his bag and proceeded to hacksaw Wheatcroft’s forehead.
“Now then,” said the doctor as I held the lamp. “You must hold this steady and move this poor unfortunate man’s head as I direct.”
I did as he said, but I did turn my head. When he stopped his sawing, I turned and looked. I trembled at what lay before me. I stood there and gazed into the brain that the doctor relentlessly laid bare. Even in the still fidget air of the car, there was a dreadful smell. It had the odor of freshly turned earth and death. As I stared, I had the impression that the doctor was on the verge of collapse. He made a groaning sound, and I was certain that he had made a horrible discovery.
“Lower the lamp,” he instructed. His voice was harsh, and it came from far down in his throat.
I lowered the lamp. In my career on the force, I have witnessed many gruesome things. Even a dame’s brain splattered on the concrete. Until that evening I thought I’d seen it all. My experience told me how brain matter should look. Doctor Winfield suddenly straightened up and looked wildly about him, “It is a burning shame!” he cried out. “It’s evil that has no shape, formless, yet it does have shape.”
Winfield seized his bag and crossed to the door. With white, shaking fingers he drew back the steel latch to the exit platform. For a moment his tall, lean figure was silhouetted against a door opening of swirling vapor, and then he was gone. He retreated to the open platform and out of sight.
I stared after him for a few seconds that seemed much longer. Below the sallow glare of my kerosene lantern was the opened skull of poor Wheatcroft. Things moved. Squirmy things. As I rotated the light for a better look, some vanished while new ones took shape restlessly twitching, glistening in the yellow light. Even under the buttery color, they stood out as stark white against the remains of the pallid brain matter. And there was very little left to call a brain. The ashen remains of gray cells devoured to the size of a peach. The wiggling things reminded me of bulky larva. Creepy-crawly maggots, white worms. In an instant I realized that the shape-changing waning worms were, in actuality, one wrapping itself around the soft nervous tissue. When I grasped the nature of the thing, it leaped from the skull and grasped me about the wrist. I believe it was aiming to latch onto my head as well. However, my instincts kicked in and I blocked it midair with my right arm. It was soft, and it felt like a wet rag. I had a tight grip on one end with my fist, and a mouth materialized wide open as if I was choking it. I smashed my fist down on the case of beets and picked up the doctor’s discarded hacksaw. I swung continuously like a butcher chopping meat at the long entrails that slithered out from Wheatcroft’s cranium. Once in a dozen or more pieces, it became limp, and I dropped the last portion of it clasped in my hand to the refrigerator floor. It had to be ten degrees below zero in the car but sweat ran down my temples.
***
I was back in the deserted dining car going through the personal effects I took off the stiffs. They’d been piling up. Wallets, railway passes, Fraley’s hipflask, and a small caliber automatic, a woman’s gun to be sure, I had to smile, because I removed it from the Dick’s overcoat. I checked, and it was loaded. I stuck it in my sock. When home I decided to get an ankle holster for it. I used to carry a small .22 revolver as a backup to my Colt, but years ago I gave it to a Catholic priest that needed it more than me.
Going through James Fraley’s stuff, I came across his driver’s license. Now things were beginning to make sense. Well, a little bit. Fraley was an alias. According to the license, his name was Russell K. Woodruff. The same last name as the Lobo I escorted to the hoosegow in New York. They were around the same age, probably brothers. I guessed that six-fingers ran in the family. Why was he on the train for the return trip? Did he see his brother off, said “goodbye,” and headed north? Or was he following me? Was it a revenge thing? Could be but he’d have to sneak up from behind to get me because he was small in stature and didn’t present much of a challenge. I tossed his wallet on the pile with the others and decided that his fate would probably remain a mystery.
Ann Hoade and Alvin Nash were winded when they ran into the dining car. “There’s been another murder, Detective!” declared Ann, swallowing hard, leaning against one of the tables. It was after midnight. Was I ever going to get time to myself? Oh well, no rest for the wicked.
***
The two ran ahead, and I followed. Out to the dining car, through the Pullman, and into the first-class hallway. Ann and Alvin stopped dead in their tracks. Curled up in a fetal position was the crumpled form of Doctor Winfield. His left ear had been torn loose, and it looked like someone had bashed his skull repeatedly against the steam radiator. Another purpose of the train’s boiler was to supply comfort by piping steam into the compartments. In the case of the Doc, “comfort” became an oxymoron. I got down on all fours and examined the corpse. There was a considerable amount of blood on the right side of his head and, naturally, a pencil size hole in the left side. It had become a habit I wanted to distance myself from; a good thousand miles would do. I ejected another round from my Colt and plugged the hole in his noggin. If this keeps up, I thought, I’m gonna run out of ammo.
“What are you doing?” protested Ann, revulsion in every syllable.
I looked up at her from my crawl, “I’ll explain later.” I hadn’t won her over. Alvin eyeballed me with mistrust. “Trust me; this is a needed procedure. I’m afraid there is a greater danger on this train beside these murders. Something, as of yet, I am unable to explain. At our next stop, we need to evacuate this caboose. In the meantime, both of you are going to have to trust me.” They were as silent as the dead man on the floor. My explanation, or lack of one, seemed to do the trick. They both relaxed some and considering that they were standing over the battered corpse of a kindly old gentleman, was a feat unto itself.
From my position, regarding my two compatriots, I detected movement along the ceiling. The intricate scrollwork on the massively patterned crown molding slithered. In an instant I spied a meandering snake the color of coffee, it zipped hurriedly along the carvings and vanished. I tightly closed my eyes then quickly opened them. There was nothing more than the stilled ornamented relief of the various wildlife and ic
ons. The left side of my noodle was bruised and swollen from the punch I received from Railroad Dick. My head was throbbing. Was I punch drunk? Maybe my bifocals distorted the view, a smudge on a lens?
“What’s the matter, Detective?” asked Ann noticing my dismay.
“Nothing,” I said rising to my feet. “Too much mayhem and confusion and not enough rest.”
“Maybe you should get some sleep,” she offered.
“Oh no,” I answered. I removed my fedora, ruffled my hair, and put the hat back on. “I never sleep until all’s well with the world. One thing is for certain. The evidence is piling up, and I’m pretty sure I know who is responsible for all this.”
“Who?” asked Kid busboy.
“Lady Blue.”
“It can’t be her,” asserted Ann.
“That’s right, your Honor.”
“How do you know?”
“I found her like you asked,” stated Alvin.
“She was in her compartment when the murder was committed,” Chef Ann attested.
Alvin confirmed her statement with a nod. “Ann and I found her resting in her compartment right at the time old Doc Winfield cried out for help.”
“You saw her for sure?”
“No question about it, Detective,” Ann verified. “There was no mistaking her. She was asleep, her eyes were closed, but she was sitting on the sofa bench facing the opened door to her compartment.”
“The door was opened?”
“Yeah,” answered Alvin. “She probably forgot to lock it.”
I was back to square one, and my head hurt worse than ever; another dead body and no suspects. This time the three of us bagged up the corpse and lugged it to the reefer. Once at the door to my newfound morgue I bid the other two to wait on the opened platform while I carried the sack with the frail remains of Doc Winfield inside. Wheatcroft’s divided noodle still laid on the frozen beets and I didn’t think it was fitting for them to lay eyes on their sliced and diced fellow worker.