Murder on the Flying Scotsman

by Carola Dunn

‘He doesn’t seem frightfully happy now,’ said Miss Dalrymple.

  ‘Nanny thinks he’s teething. I’ll take him back in a minute. I only fetched him because Harold hoped Uncle Albert might take pity on the poor mite.’

  ‘He didn’t?’

  ‘We didn’t go after all, and after I’d walked all the way along the train to fetch him, and Tabitha insisting on coming, too!’

  ‘Why not?’ Miss Dalrymple asked.

  ‘Daddy started creating. He said a bawling baby was as likely to win Uncle Albert over as presenting the fox’s brush to a farmer whose fields have just been trampled by the hunt. Particularly as Baby was named for Grandfather, not him. He really is the most disagreeable old man. Belinda, dear, will you look after Tabitha for me while I take Baby back to Nanny?’

  ‘Of course, Mrs. Bretton.’

  Belinda was very soon sorry she had agreed. Tabitha was being difficult. She didn’t want to listen to stories, or look at pictures in School Friend, or undress her dolly and dress it again, or do any of the things Belinda had amused her with before. When Miss Dalrymple said it was time to go to tea with Mr. McGowan, Belinda was actually glad.

  ‘Just tidy your hair, darling. One of your ribbons is coming undone. Here’s a comb. I’ll keep an eye on Tabitha till Mrs. Bretton comes back.’ Miss Dalrymple looked as if she wished that would be soon! ‘Off you go, then, and I hope he gives you a good tea.’

  Remembering the shouting, Belinda thought she’d better knock on Mr. McGowan’s door. There was no answer – but he might not have heard over the noise of the train, and she had been invited. She opened the door.

  He was lying down. Belinda saw the yellowish, blotchy top of his head with its few strands of hair. His face was turned to the seat back so she couldn’t be sure if he was asleep. He had said she must be on time, though, because he needed to eat at the right time. Perhaps he wanted her to wake him up? Or should she just sit there till someone brought their tea?

  Stepping into the compartment, she conscientiously closed the door. Something moved on the floor and she bent down to pick up a feather. While she tried to decide what to do, she inspected it. It was quite a pretty one, curly and speckled white and brown, so she put it into her pocket to show Tabitha.

  Mr. McGowan hadn’t moved. His arm was hanging down off the seat, looking awfully uncomfortable. Granny always woke up with a stiff neck if she fell asleep in a chair in an awkward position. Belinda decided to make Mr. McGowan more comfy – if he woke up when she moved his arm, she could explain and he wouldn’t be angry.

  She took his hand. It was cold and clammy. His arm seemed very heavy, considering how skinny he was. She folded it across his chest so it wouldn’t fall again.

  He didn’t wake up, didn’t even stir. He must be awfully sound asleep. Leaning forward, she glanced at his face.

  His pale eyes were wide open, staring at her.

  But she could tell he didn’t see her.

  CHAPTER 6

  Belinda’s freckles stood out against her stark white face.

  ‘What is it, darling?’ Daisy asked, holding out her hand. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s him.’ The child’s whisper trembled.

  ‘Mr. McGowan? Is he ill?’

  ‘I think he’s dead.’ With a dry sob, Belinda launched herself into the shelter of Daisy’s arms. She was shaking all over. ‘His eyes are open, but . . . I touched him. I moved his arm, to make him comf’table, ’cause I didn’t realize . . . I feel sick.’

  Daisy stroked her hair. ‘Are you going to be sick?’ she enquired, deciding a matter-of-fact tone was most useful in the circumstances.

  ‘N-no, I don’t think so.’

  ‘I was sick once,’ Tabitha announced with unwarranted satisfaction, ‘when I ate too many sweeties.’

  ‘I’m cold,’ said Belinda.

  ‘Then let’s get your coat on.’ Taking it down from the rack, she steered Belinda’s arm into the sleeve. ‘He was a very old man, you know, darling. You’ve had a frightful shock, but it’s not really very surprising. Oh, Anne, thank heaven you’re back. Belinda’s found Mr. McGowan dead, or at least very ill. Could you . . .’

  ‘Dead?’ Anne shrieked, hands clapped to her horror-stricken face. Tabitha promptly began to cry.

  ‘For pity’s sake, pull yourself together! It might be a paralytic stroke, I don’t know. I must go and see, so could you please take care of Belinda – she’s had a nasty shock – and arrange for someone to go and find Dr. Jagai?’

  ‘That man!’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Belinda said with a disdainful glance at Anne. Daisy scrutinized her, mistrusting her rapid recovery. ‘Honestly, Miss Dalrymple, I’m all right now, and I know where he is. It won’t take a minute.’

  ‘Bless you, darling. Don’t tell anyone else, please, Anne,’ Daisy added sharply. ‘Not until I’ve found out what’s happened.’

  When they reached the open door of Mr. McGowan’s compartment, Belinda turned away her head but she went on without faltering. Steeling herself, Daisy turned in.

  Albert McGowan certainly appeared dead. His chest was not rising and falling. Stretched out on his back on the seat, with his head towards the door, his body looked lifelessly limp, untenanted. Shoeless feet in black silk socks stuck out from the tartan lap rug which covered him to the waist. Daisy bent to see his face. The open eyes glared at her. The blind mask of fear and fury made her flinch.

  As she reached for his wrist to try for a pulse, a neat little man in black, carrying a tea tray, arrived in the doorway.

  ‘What’s up?’ he demanded. ‘’Ere, miss, what’s ’appened?’

  ‘You’re his manservant?’

  ‘Weekes is the name.’

  ‘I’m afraid Mr. McGowan seems to have died in his sleep.’ In spite of the ghastly eyes, it seemed the correct, soothing thing to say.

  ‘In ’is sleep? Not bloody likely, if you’ll excuse me saying so, miss. The master wouldn’t never’ve laid ’isself down flat like that without ’is pillow. Arsking for trouble that’d be, with ’is dyspepsia.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Sure as bloody eggs is eggs.’ The gentleman’s gentleman recollected himself. ‘Yes, miss, I’m quite sure. I took his pillow down from the rack for him myself, after luncheon, so’s he could nap whenever he wanted.’

  Daisy looked around the compartment. ‘Then where is it?’

  ‘That’s what I’d like to know, miss. Nor he wouldn’t have laid down with his head to the door. See the camp-stool there under the window? I put his medicine and that glass of water there for him with me own two hands. Bismuth, it is, for his stomach, He always had it within reach.’

  There was a small puddle on the floor beside the stool. Daisy moved to look at the glass, her hands be hind her back to avoid the temptation of touching it. Fingerprints on glass had played a considerable part in the dreadful business of the Albert Hall murder.

  The tumbler was upright but empty. She frowned.

  Her frown deepened as she felt the chilly breeze from the open window playing on her hair.

  ‘He was afraid of draughts’ she stated.

  ‘Gorlummecharlie,’ gasped Weekes, ‘the master wouldn’t never in a million years’ve opened that winder!’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘If you ask me, miss, there’s something fishy here!’

  ‘Positively piscatorial.’ The decision was easy. Yielding to the temptation of years, Daisy reached up and yanked on the emergency brake chain.

  Brakes squealed. Shuddering, the Flying Scotsman slowed.

  As the train came to rest in a jolting clash of buffers, Dr. Jagai entered the compartment.

  ‘So the poor old fellow’s gone,’ he said sadly, reaching for the bony wrist. ‘No sign of a pulse. Well, at his age it was to be expected. The heart simply wears out.’

  As he leaned forward to close his benefactor’s staring eyes, Daisy said sharply, ‘Don’t!’ She exchanged a glance with the manservant, w
ho nodded. ‘I’m afraid Weekes and I suspect dirty work. Nothing must be touched until the police arrive.’

  ‘Police!’

  ‘Where’s the master’s pillow, sir, I ask you? You know as well as I do he wouldn’t never have laid down flat like that, not with his stomach trouble.’

  ‘True.’ Dr. Jagai’s forehead wrinkled. ‘But why should anyone dispose of his pillow?’

  ‘The only reason I can think of,’ Daisy said tentatively, ‘is that he was smothered with it and the murderer disposed of the murder weapon in a panic. Is it possible?’

  The doctor’s frown deepened as he peered at the dead man’s face. ‘I don’t know. I’m no forensic expert. His lips are bluish, which could indicate asphyxiation, but could equally well be simple heart failure. An autopsy might be able to tell the difference. I imagine there will be an autopsy if there’s the slightest suspicion of murder.’

  ‘Murder?’ bleated someone in the corridor. The stout ticket-inspector was now neither florid nor cheerful.

  Another railway official elbowed him aside. ‘All right, all right, all right, what’s going on in here now? I’m the guard. Who was it stopped my train?’

  ‘I did.’ Daisy squeezed past Jagai and Weekes.

  ‘Are you aware, madam,’ the burly guard enquired, scowling down at her, ‘that to engage the emergency braking system without good cause is a punishable offence under the Railways Act?’

  ‘I have good cause.’ She drew herself up to her full height, wishing she were as tall as Lucy, and as capable of withering hauteur. ‘A man has died, and I am very much inclined to believe it was murder.’

  ‘Murder!’ Daisy heard the horrified murmur run down the corridor, by now crowded with curious travelers. She wished she had spoken more quietly.

  ‘Murder, madam?’ The big man gazed sceptically over her head. ‘I don’t see no blood.’

  ‘For a number of reasons, which I shall be happy to relay to the police,’ she said in a hushed voice, ‘his manservant and I fear Mr. McGowan was smothered to death. Dr. Jagai – this gentleman is a doctor – agrees that it’s possible. I happen to know there are a number of people on this train who may hope to benefit by Mr. McGowan’s death.’

  No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Daisy appalled, realized their truth. That was why she had taken Weekes’s qualms seriously. In the back of her mind had lurked the knowledge that the Gillespies especially, but also the Smythe-Pikes and Brettons, all had their hopes of wealth from Alistair McGowan vastly increased by his brother’s death.

  She must have paled, for the guard asked with concern, ‘You all right, madam?’

  She nodded. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Well, madam,’ he said, resigned, ‘if you claim it’s murder I’ve got no choice but to call in the busies. Seeing the old gentleman died in England, I reckon we’ll have to stop in Berwick, afore we cross the border. Ah well, my schedule’s already all bug . . . shot to pieces.’ He gave a martyred sigh.

  ‘Don’t let anyone get off the train. And no one must touch anything in here.’

  ‘Right, madam. You’d better find yourself a seat elsewhere in this carriage, and these gentlemen, too. I’ll lock this compartment and all the exit doors.’ He turned to the corridor. ‘All right, all right, all right, ladies and gentlemen! There’s nothing to see. Everyone return to your seats if you please.’

  Daisy took Dr. Jagai and Weekes back to her compartment. They were both down in the mouth, and she was glad to think poor Albert McGowan had at least two genuine mourners.

  Anne had gone, thank heaven. Belinda sat huddled in a corner, white and frightened. The sangfroid she had displayed in fetching the doctor had vanished.

  ‘They said it’s murder.’ She looked at Daisy with imploring eyes. ‘They won’t think I killed him, will they?’

  ‘Of course not, darling.’ Sitting down beside her, Daisy put her arm round the child’s thin shoulders. ‘Do you know, I bet they have to call in Scotland Yard, because they can’t be sure which county poor Mr. McGowan died in. And your daddy – Belinda’s father is a detective, Dr. Jagai – as he’s already in Northumberland, he’ll be in charge of the investigation.’

  Belinda let out her breath a shuddering sigh. ‘I hope so.’

  She seemed slightly reassured, but still – not unnaturally in the circumstances – frightfully pale. Daisy tried to distract her. Fortunately the Flying Scotsman had stopped at an interesting spot, close to the sea. There were sand dunes, and then miles of sands crossed by watery channels, with a long, low, rocky mound beyond.

  ‘Look at that island,’ she said, pointing past Belinda at the window. ‘Or perhaps it isn’t an island, what do you think? The beach goes all the way there.’

  ‘That’s Lindisfarne.’ Dr. Jagai, seated opposite, exchanged a glance of understanding with Daisy. ‘Also known as Holy Island. At low tide, one can drive there on a causeway across the sands.’

  ‘Have you been there?’ Belinda asked with more politeness than interest.

  ‘No, but I have read about it. I like to know something of the places I pass. There are ruins worth a visit, a monastery nine hundred years old replacing an earlier monastery destroyed by the Danes. St. Cuthbert was buried there and when the Danes attacked, the monks fled the island, taking his coffin. . .’ The doctor pulled himself up as Belinda flinched. ‘Look at all the seagulls. They must have good fishing in the shallows when the tide begins to cover the sands.’

  ‘Miss Dalrymple, do trains sometimes hit birds?’

  ‘Oh dear, I expect they must, but hardly ever I should think. The engine makes such a noise, they can hear it coming a long way off.’

  ‘Yes, I s’pose so. Only, I found a feather on the floor in . . . there.’ Belinda took a small, curly plume from her pocket and showed it to Daisy.

  Daisy caught Weekes’s eye. Mr. McGowan’s pillow, it said. He opened his mouth. She frowned at him.

  ‘Birds are always leaving feathers around,’ she told Belinda, ‘like dogs shedding hair. You know how one finds them on the ground. I expect the wind blew it in.’ She held out her hand and Belinda automatically gave it to her. ‘I’ll keep it safe for you.’

  She tucked the feather into her handbag. It didn’t seem likely to be a significant bit of evidence, but one never could tell.

  The train started off again, rumbling slowly northwards. Belinda remained alarmingly subdued, and Daisy started to worry about her. She hoped it was true that Alec would be called in on the case. She would suggest it to the Berwick police, and ask them to try to get in touch with him even if they didn’t request his help.

  Chandra Jagai continued to talk to Belinda, asking questions about school and home in an evident effort to divert her thoughts from Albert McGowan’s death. She answered politely but listlessly, not to be diverted until he said, ‘May I beg a favour? You beat me handily at draughts and I’d like my revenge.’

  She gave him a proper smile. ‘I only won because you let me. I’ll play another game if you promise not to.’

  ‘I promise,’ he said, laughing, and she went to sit beside him.

  As Belinda turned her serious attention to the game, Daisy silently blessed the kind young man.

  She moved over to the window, and to give the players more room, Weekes crossed to sit next to her. The small manservant sat stiffly upright, looking uncomfortable, his gaze fixed on a rather wishy-washy sepia print of Durham Cathedral on the opposite wall. Daisy decided she could talk to him as long as they spoke in low voices and she kept an eye on Belinda to make sure she was concentrating on the game.

  ‘Had you been with Mr. McGowan long?’ she enquired softly.

  ‘Ever since he came home from India, miss, and that’s going on twenty years. It’s not right, miss,’ he burst out. Daisy, expecting a peroration on the wickedness of doing away with an aged gentleman, put her finger to her lips and glanced at Belinda. But he went on, ‘I know my place. I didn’t ought to be sitting here with my betters
whatever that guard said.’

  ‘Bosh, of course you ought,’ Daisy soothed him. ‘The police will want everyone associated in any way with Mr. McGowan to stay in this coach, I expect, so that the rest of the train can proceed to Edinburgh. The suspects won’t want to do without their servants so we’ll all have to squeeze as best we can.’

  Weekes relaxed a bit, then looked nervously over his shoulder at the door to the corridor. ‘The suspects, miss – who d’you reckon they are?’

  Daisy pondered. Not Weekes, or he would not have drawn attention to the possibility of murder. Not Chandra Jagai, who stood to gain a great deal if Albert had survived Alistair. But all the Gillespies, Smythe-Pikes, and Brettons had both motive and opportunity, and she rather thought even the women must be strong enough to overwhelm a feeble old man.

  ‘All his relatives, I should think,’ she said, ‘though it’s for the police to decide. Just how frail was he?’

  ‘There was nothing wrong with his heart, miss. Dr. Jagai wasn’t his doctor, so he wouldn’t know. Dr. Frost in Harley Street he went to. “The old ticker’s still going strong,” he used to tell me when he came back from an appointment. Which isn’t to say he was uncommonly spry for his age, though he did walk to his club most days, with a cane and slow, like. “Slow and steady” he used to say.’

  ‘What about his arms?’ Daisy asked. His arms would be more important than his legs in fighting off an attacker, she thought.

  ‘He had a touch of trouble with rheumatics in his hands, and a bit of a tremble recently. Couldn’t manage an umbrella anymore. That bothered him, but the worst was the dyspepsia. Made him suffer something dreadful, it did. He wouldn’t have laid down flat on his back, miss, nor yet so he couldn’t reach his tablets.’

  ‘I believe you. You liked working for him, I take it, or you wouldn’t have stayed so long.’

  ‘Very particular he was. I won’t say he didn’t have a temper when things weren’t done quite to suit him, or if he was crossed. But he never took it out on you for things that weren’t your fault – like a shirt gone missing at the laundry, as it might be. He knew what he wanted and he was willing to pay for it. You couldn’t ask for a more generous master.’