Murder for Treasure

by David Williams

  No train out of Paddington had ever officially been designated the Fishguard Express; all trains beyond Swansea had been limited since the line opened. Indeed, had it not been the last Friday in May, preceding the Monday Spring Bank Holiday, this train would have gone no further than Swansea, and Treasure would have had to complete the journey by a local connection. Fishguard no longer rated a regular through service. Yet for small boys reared near wayside stations along the iron road to West Wales, there had been no other name to apply to the Irish boat-train that hurtled past, shaking the very rafters of the toothy-eaved platform roofs and rumoured to suck in Saturday train spotters who stood too near the edge. Treasure had been such a boy. He had since visited most parts of the world, but Fishguard—where he had never been —was still, for him, a name redolent of romance and adventure, his boyhood gateway to the west and the unimaginable excitements that lay beyond. The fact that what lay beyond was a slow boat to Rosslare and a rather roundabout route to Dublin had never been material.

  There was no hurry about boarding the train. Miss Gaunt had reserved a seat and also a place in the dining car. Pink, Treasure’s equally dependable chauffeur, had somehow contrived to complete the journey from Chelsea to Paddington in fifteen minutes less than the half-hour they had allowed, despite the exigencies of the rush-hour traffic. The usually monosyllabic Pink had even boldly waxed eloquent on the speed of their passage as he had drawn up the Rolls in the station yard, by way of adding emphasis to his earlier observation that Treasure would be better served in doing the whole trip by road: Pink had relatives who kept a pub in St David’s.

  Treasure drifted towards a Menzies bookstall. It being Friday, he bought a copy of the Spectator. He hesitated over the Economist: although he was an occasional contributor, he decided to wait to be informed by the corporate copy on his return. He reached for the new Morris West.

  ‘Would Mr Mark Treasure please report to the Manager’s office.’ The diction and the amplification of the message on the station’s loudspeakers left something to be desired; Brunei could scarcely be blamed for the vagaries of variable input impedance. ‘Would Mr Mark Treasure please . . .’ There was no mistaking the summons the second time, and Treasure found himself preternaturally ruffled by the fact.

  What could be the extent of the private disaster that warranted such public, indiscriminate pre-proclamation? He had talked to Molly on the telephone the night before: she had been well enough then. Had the silly girl—the adoring, adorable woman he couldn’t live without—tripped over a cable or tumbled off a gantry in that gadgety barn of a theatre? Of course she hadn’t; she would hardly be up yet. Then had her hotel taken fire? Where was the Station Manager’s office? And, in any case, shouldn’t it be Station Master? On enquiring he discovered he was standing beside the place and a notice reading ‘Area Manager’. ‘My name’s Treasure. You just broadcast . . .’

  ‘Ah yes, Mr Treasure.’ The young woman smiled brightly. Somehow he had expected to be confronted by an official in a frock coat and top hat, ready to impart bad tidings while preparing to see the Queen off to Windsor. The girl looked and sounded cheerful: it was bad news all right. ‘We have a package for Judge Nott-Herbert.’ She hesitated before continuing lightly. ‘Sounds like a quotation, doesn’t it. Judge not Herbert that ye be . . .’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Treasure, not too affably. He was relieved at the information, but daunted by the size of the parcel the girl pulled from the end of the counter that lay between them. It was about three feet long, like an oversized flower-box securely wrapped in brown paper and adhesive tape.

  ‘The messenger said you’d be delivering it to the Judge in . . . er . . .’ She glanced down at the label. ‘In Panty, is it?’

  ‘That’s right. At least, I’m staying with him there. I didn’t know about any parcel.’ Treasure loathed carrying parcels. He already had a suitcase, a copy of the Spectator and the new Morris West. Was there no end to people’s casual impositions. ‘Is it heavy?’

  ‘Just awkward.’ The girl laughed. ‘If you’d rather not take it, I’m sure we can arrange with the addressor to have it sent.’ She examined the label again.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Treasure, mollified. After all, he was staying under the fellow’s roof. ‘Perhaps a porter . . . ?’ The girl looked grave. ‘We don’t have porters any more, I’m afraid. Or rather we can only lay them on at two days’ notice. Silly, really, passengers are always complaining . . .’

  The passenger she was addressing stifled the memory of his own recent complaint that the railways were grossly overmanned. He grasped the parcel at what looked like the point of balance. ‘Thank you very much. I’ll take it.’

  ‘If you could sign here, sir?’

  The First Class compartment in which Treasure’s place was reserved already had Five of its six seats occupied by other travellers, one of them a small boy wielding a skateboard and in the charge of an indulgent-looking female. Treasure decided to give it a miss.

  It was obviously British Rail’s practice to connote foresight with gregariousness and to crowd together all those sensible enough to reserve seats in as few compartments as possible.

  Treasure found a whole unreserved carriage—the second from the engine — that at first sight seemed hardly occupied. On closer inspection, each compartment proved to contain one or two passengers. He chose one whose single occupant was a clergyman dozing in a window seat. He enjoyed the company of clergy. He did not enjoy imagining he looked like a refugee hung about with household chattels done up in brown paper parcels. In truth, he was unmistakably an affluent citizen in well cut tweeds, carrying a suitcase and one neat package.

  He closed the door from the corridor and distributed his impedimenta on the overhead racks on both sides, before taking the seat diagonally opposite the cleric. He stole a glance at his travelling companion—a large and muscular man, with a shock of white hair and a moustache which at first sight had belied his age: Treasure now put this at no more than forty.

  ‘Good morning.’ The clergyman’s eyes opened swiftly and in time disarmingly to catch Treasure’s appraising gaze. ‘You’re braver than most of your compatriots.’ The tone was deep: the accent distinctly Antipodean.

  ‘Good morning.’ Treasure replied. He smiled. ‘I’m not sure I follow your meaning.’

  ‘It’s my experience a dog collar scares people off.’

  ‘Some people, perhaps, and I doubt if it’s much different down under. You from New Zealand?’

  ‘Sydney, Australia, but that’s the gentlemanly way to find out.’

  Treasure chuckled. ‘I’ve never understood why New Zealanders are so outraged if they’re mistaken for Australians. In any case, I shouldn’t have assumed irrational susceptibilities in a clergyman. You an Anglican?’ The other man nodded after a just perceptible moment of hesitation. ‘My name’s Treasure, by the way. The Church of England in Australia,’ he added after a pause. ‘I’ve always thought that a rather ponderous title and inappropriate, in a way, since you could drop both our provinces into any one of your four—’

  ‘And still leave room for the sheep.’ The cleric had interrupted before Treasure had time to correct himself. The man glanced at his watch and then picked up a copy of The Times from the seat beside him, perhaps to indicate that the conversation had run its course.

  Treasure cleared his throat. ‘I met the Bishop of Victoria last year in Melbourne. Nice man . . . huh, name’s gone out of my head.’

  ‘Is that so.’ Treasure’s putative question had been ignored as he had suspected it might be, and not simply because the Australian church had five provinces nor even because there was no Bishop of Victoria.

  The banker had a very large number of friends in holy orders, some of them luminaries, some of them quite well off, but he could not think of one who, in addition to travelling First Class, wearing handmade shoes, a Savile Row suit, a platinum wristwatch and a well-Fitting wig, would also sport what to a tutored observer was a just perceptib
ly false moustache. Treasure accepted that there were any number of affluent clergy who might have trouble passing through the eye of the proverbial needle and that these might well include some who preferred to disguise premature baldness. It was only the moustache that raised doubt and probably irrational suspicion in the mind of one accustomed to expect total probity in clergymen and given to seeking out any shortcoming that made an actor’s performance less than flawless.

  Treasure’s deepening curiosity about his fellow traveller was not to be assuaged. After a further short exchange of pleasantries, the wealthy cleric had taken refuge behind his newspaper, and later occupied himself with a book. Although Treasure had volunteered his own name, the other man had deftly avoided offering his and indeed any further information about himself, save that he was on holiday. Three hours later, he declined Treasure’s invitation to join him for lunch and, as the banker moved along the train in the direction of the dining car, he reflected that he might have fallen in with a mountebank in the habit of harmlessly disguising himself as a clergyman for the express purpose of preserving his privacy on railway trains and who, on this occasion, had allowed his enthusiasm to run away with him.

  This amusing speculation occurred to Treasure again as he was returning to his compartment after consuming an unexpectedly agreeable plate of steak and kidney pie washed down by a passable half-bottle of claret, albeit at a fairly early hour, and an accelerated pace. He had barely had time to consume his coffee before the table was unceremoniously denuded of everything save the bill. There being few objects so depressingly bare as an unclothed restaurant-car table top, Treasure had decided to take the hint and remove himself. Lunch had begun compulsorily at twelve-thirty. It was now only a little after one-fifteen: an early finish which was later to assume some significance. At the time it had compounded irritation. He had taken his suitcase and what he thought had been all his other belongings to the diner, believing the train might reach its destination while he was still there. He had forgotten the Judge’s parcel until half way through the meal. Thus he had had to carry his bag both ways to no purpose.

  The train had stopped at Llanelli, on schedule, and Treasure wondered idly whether the Australian had alighted there at what was an unlikely holiday resort. Although famous for its steel industry, Llanelli happened also to be the home of Rigley & Herbert Ltd. Albert Crutt was no doubt somewhere close by, unwittingly confounding the onward march of modem marketing, while continuing to bank the growing profits of Rigley’s Patent Footbalm.

  It was as the banker negotiated the swaying concertina tunnel that led to the corridor of the carriage next to his own that he heard the sharp crack of the explosion. It was a common enough railway noise, and consistent with the bang given off by the warning devices fixed to the line when track repairs are in progress. The train was crossing points prior to entering Whitland Station—a minor junction, but a popular stopping place, judging by the numbers of passengers with baggage in the corridor waiting to get off.

  The explosion registered only momentarily with Treasure as he concentrated on keeping his balance and attempted to find his way around the press of people. Since this was as difficult as it was pointless, he decided to wait in the corridor.

  Whitland Station disappointed. It was not a characterful country junction with bits of shining brasswork, iron-cast cautionary notices, and flower-beds on the platforms. It was modem and grey with a prefabricated look to ail its adjuncts, purposefully arranged for the needs of holiday-makers and others en route to the seaside area served by its branch line.

  Numbers of passengers having now disgorged themselves on to the platform, Treasure made to proceed through to the corridor of his own carriage. To his surprise, the connecting door was locked: not simply stuck but immovably secured.

  The guard was blowing his whistle from the rear of the train. Although this was intended as a signal to the driver, departure was not imminent since some carriage doors were still standing open: even so, officials were making some haste to close them.

  ‘I can’t get through to the next carriage.’ Treasure addressed the uniformed man with the cheerful countenance who was just about to slam the door in front of him. ‘The door’s locked. Could you open it, please?’

  ‘Can’t be locked, sir. Must be stuck. This way then. Have to be quick, like.’

  The official grabbed Treasure’s case, and taking him by the arm, bundled bag and passenger on to the platform and in again through the door of the next carriage. He slammed both doors as the train moved off. ‘All right?’ he mimed amiably through the glass, nodding self-approval, and stood back from the train wearing the triumphant expression of an old hand who had proved yet again that where there’s a will there’s a way.

  Treasure remained unconvinced that the door in question was merely stuck and not locked unofficially by someone for whom a locked door would, at this stage in the journey, save work while only inconveniencing passengers. This was an uncharitable and unsupported conclusion, but it fitted with the times—like grey railway stations. He tried the door. It felt to be as firmly locked as it had from the other side.

  He moved along the corridor, noting that the three compartments he had to pass before reaching his own were now completely empty. At first sight it appeared the fourth one was also. As he slid open the door he glanced involuntarily upwards at the luggage rack. The Judge’s parcel had gone, as had the clergyman’s case. The disquiet thus sparked was to be quickly increased.

  The Australian clergyman was struggling to lift himself from the floor of the compartment. He had one hand to his forehead. Thin rivulets of blood were escaping between the fingers. What Treasure could see of the top half of the face was smudged with black. There was an acrid smell in the air.

  The banker heaved the stricken man on to the nearest seat. ‘Tell me what’s happened. Are you badly hurt?’

  Despite first appearances, the victim seemed more dazed than physically injured. Treasure moved the man’s hand away from his forehead, revealing a wide but not deeply scarred area of bloody skin. This was framed with smears of the black substance which had mingled with the blood. The shock of white hair was not so much disturbed as relocated. Incongruously it had moved backwards and sideways, revealing here and there a kind of underthatch of short brown stubble: it was also singed at what should have been the front but which now roughly surmounted the wearer’s right ear.

  ‘The bastards tried to shoot me.’ It was an excusable enough statement in the circumstances whatever the speaker’s calling. ‘Right in my face . . . but godammit they missed.’

  The incongruities were now coming thick and fast. The clergyman’s accent had undergone a fundamental change.

  ‘If you can look after yourself for a minute, I’m going to get help.’ Treasure was not clear from where help might be forthcoming, but the consoling offer seemed appropriate. ‘D’you have a clean handkerchief for your forehead?’ He was reluctant to part with one of his own unless it was entirely necessary: it was not, and the man was beginning to come out of his daze.

  ‘I’m OK . . . OK . . . the grip.’ He glanced upwards as he began applying the handkerchief to his brow. ‘They stole my grip, the crazy goons . . . two guys . . . got away back there.’ He pointed not very accurately in the general direction of Whitland Station.

  Treasure was reminded that on the evidence he had also been relieved of some baggage. ‘Right,’ he said firmly, ‘hold tight, I’m stopping the train.’

  The victim nodded. His companion reached across the carriage to succumb to one of life’s most resisted but familiar temptations. Grasping the communication cord he pulled down hard, noting fleetingly the printed stricture that the penalty for improper use had been increased to £50.

  With much grinding and jolting, the train came dramatically to a halt.

  CHAPTER 4

  Treasure had established the carriage was empty except for himself and the afflicted cleric: it was also locked at both ends. There being no alterna
tive, he had opened an outside door and dropped down awkwardly to the track. There was no logical reason why he had chosen to complete this manoeuvre with suitcase in hand, but thus encumbered he set off at a brisk pace towards the rear of the train. Whitland Station he judged to be about three hundred yards beyond.

  Few windows were opened because few train windows are now made to open. Treasure was treated to glances through fixed glass: without instruction, most viewers were deeply inured to the concept of waiting for normal service to be resumed.

  Treasure had hoped for human contact with someone who without the need for delaying explanation could be despatched to tend the assaulted: none such appeared. The dining-car staff was having its lunch as planned— undisturbed by customers and to all appearances unaware the train had stopped. A small boy—the one with the skateboard—was standing on a corridor window-ledge, his head thrust through the narrow aperture of a ventilation window. ‘Mummy,’ he called, probably ineffectively, ‘It’s a man who’s missed the station.’

  The guard was Firmly of the same opinion.’

  ‘Ere,’ explained that worthy as Treasure drew within hailing distance of his van.’

  ‘Ere, did you stop this train? You can’t . . .’

  ‘A clergyman has been shot in the second carriage from the front.’ Treasure had halted before the open door of the guard’s van, the better to impress the import of his message: he was also keen to lighten his burden. ‘Look after this will you?’ He put down his suitcase. ‘Get someone to take care of the parson. I’m going for a doctor and the police.’

  There was no purpose in further explanation although it was clear the guard meant to demand some. Treasure made off at a creditable jog. It was three or four minutes since the train had pulled away from Whitland.

  As he approached the concrete gradient leading up to the platform, it became obvious that the business part of the station was opposite, on the up platform. The main buildings were there, and behind them he could make out a narrow, sloping yard with cars parked. On the down platform there was only a siding and a coal yard. The station had an overhead footbridge and beyond that a level-crossing with the gates now closed to trains and very much open to traffic and pedestrians. It seemed the station was near the centre of town. Treasure crossed the line.