The Necropolis Railway js-1

by Andrew Martin

  I walked over the road to the dining rooms and had a late breakfast at the table nearest the fire, which I had never been able to get to on any previous occasion. There were two policemen in there besides myself, and I waited until they'd cleared off before I came out of the dining rooms. I ran to the viaduct, climbed the metal ladder that was fixed to the side, and in a trice I was on the tracks. Then, with a heart beating fast for fear of meeting railway police, I walked into Waterloo, which was locked at all of its normal public entrances, so there was not a soul to be seen.

  I could not believe that at least one of the men who worked there – either in building the new platforms or serving those already existing – had not come back on this special day just so as to have the place to himself for a little while, but the station was different not just on account of its quietness: the snow on the glass roofs had changed the light. As I looked at all the silent signs, swinging in the cold air – 'Refreshments', 'Lost Property', 'Station Master's Office' – I felt as though I had entered into a secret with the station, and would never look at it in the same way again.

  All down Platform Four was a line of handcarts; I walked along beside it, and when I got to the end I looked out to see all the signals were at stop, which checked me for a second, but I leapt down nonetheless. Soon I was marching as if to Bournemouth, with no sound in my ears but the crunching of my boots in the snow and all the crows of London, or so it seemed. Every time I passed a sign saying 'Beware of Trains!' I laughed inside, for the men who had written those had forgotten about Christmas Day.

  I turned left after a while, and hit the spot where the Necropolis branch went off the main line, then I walked along it towards the Necropolis station, so I had come in a big upside-down 'V.

  The Necropolis was as dead as one of the bodies they sent out to Brookwood, but Twenty-Nine was there, though for some reason, with the funeral set coupled behind, as black and blind as the station itself. Making my second ladder-climb of the day – down, this time – I entered the empty courtyard. This I crossed before going under the arch to the main gates, which were locked as I had expected. But I was on the inside of them.

  I turned the handle of the door in the arch and it was open – probably it was always open, because they didn't bargain on anybody braving the tracks, but they too had forgotten about the one day when the world has a rest from trains.

  I opened the door and stepped inside the heart of the Necropolis station and outside the law. Well, if I was pulled in, nothing that any court could do would be worse than what the half-link had in mind.

  I climbed the stairs to the top two rooms: the one in which Mr Stanley gave his addresses and the Necropolis library. I entered the latter, making straight for the volumes marked in gold 'Necropolis Minute Book 1902' and 'Necropolis Minute Book 1903', which I laid on the floor, putting my own Lett's diary alongside. All the hatred that came from the half was tangled up with Smith, and I thought it might be tangled up with the Necropolis too. The books in the Governor's room had put me in mind of the books here, which were at least ones I could think of a way of looking at. There might be something in them that would illuminate all.

  Beyond the windows was nothing but greyness and the beginning of more snow. I had had the best of the day on my trek from Waterloo, and now I had to work fast because I did not want to put on the electric light. The first page of the first volume began: 'On Monday the sixth day of January, at a meeting of the Directors…' This was followed by the names of the directors, half a dozen in all, and I recognised 'Sir John Rickerby, Chairman', Erskine Long, and the name Argent -he was the tough-looking fellow I'd seen on the train at Smith's funeral, and was down in the book as 'Major Argent'. Beneath was written: 'The minutes of the last meeting were read and declared to be correct,' and then came notes as to business such as: "The secretary reported that the tenant of the bungalow New Copse, viz Samuel Welch, had become a bankrupt and it was ordered that he be served with a notice to quit… '; 'It was resolved that the request of the Woking Golf Club for a small alteration of the boundary on the south side could not be agreed to…'; 'In the matter of the payment over to the Company by the South Western Railway Company of the compensation for the removal of the offices, Messrs Long and Simmons are authorised to assist.'

  The Necropolis station had been moved from York Street to its present, smaller site only two years before, which I took to be another sign of the decline in its business. But as I turned the stiff pages of the great book, I at first found very little -aside from some regretful remarks on the poor health of Sir John Rickerby – to cast light on the various riddles before me, and I became quite tired of reading of the minutes being 'read and declared to be correct', wishing that just once they might have been read and declared to be correct.

  I turned to the second volume and, in the minutes of the meeting held on Monday 6 July of that year, read: 'It was moved, seconded and carried unanimously that Rowland Smith Esquire be hereby appointed Agent of the Company.' There was then some difficult stuff over the next few lines as to what Smith was being brought on to do, and it boiled down to this: making economies. He had set about his work quickly, for in the minutes of the next meeting, held on Tuesday 4 August, I read for the first time of cemetery lands being sold: 'It was ordered that the seal of the Company be affixed to the conveyance of sixty-four rods at Brookwood to Mr P. Everett (builder) for?200…' and 'seventy-eight and a half rods to Mr Humphrey Warden (builder) for?220.' In all, there were above half a dozen sales reported in that month alone.

  At the meeting of Thursday 3 September, the death of Sir John Rickerby on Wednesday 12 August, at Brookwood, was recorded, the directors expressing their deep sorrow and regret that he had been unable to enjoy the years of well-earned repose that would have been so amply merited by his long service to the company, and so on. Later in September there was a further meeting – this one of a special sort – at which it was 'moved, seconded and carried unanimously that Mr Erskine Long be elected Chairman of the Company.'

  The smoothness of these words at first prevented me from seeing the sensational fact, but it came to me after half a minute: 12 August, the date on which Sir John Rickerby had stumbled at Brookwood, was also the date on which Henry Taylor had ridden out to the cemetery with Arthur Hunt and Vincent.

  I scribbled in the back pages of my diary. All doubts were gone now. In high excitement I turned to the pages recording the meeting of Monday 5 October. Further sales were recorded, and my eye got another jolt by news of the biggest sale of the lot: 'It was ordered that the seal of the Company be affixed to the conveyance of 300 rods to Mr Roger White-Chester (Company Director) for?650.' In the minutes of the meeting held on Monday 9 November, more sales were recorded – little else but these, in fact. All the sales so far amounted to but a tiny amount of the whole cemetery, but still, Smith was going at a fair lick. I turned to the minutes of the December meeting, the last in the volume, which occurred on Friday 4th, and here, among details of further sales, I came upon a queer little remark. "The Secretary read a letter dated 2nd inst from Mr Adrian Stanley, and it was voted to decline the request therein.'

  This set off a kind of echo in my head, and I flipped rapidly back through the pages until I landed once again on the first page of the minutes of the 9 November meeting, and there it was again, almost word for word: 'The Secretary read a letter dated 3rd inst from Mr Adrian Stanley, and it was voted to decline the request therein.' I went back further, to the minutes of the meeting held on 4 August. There again it was written that Mr Stanley had made a request, and that it had been declined.

  I picked up my own diary and made marks against dates as to the events that concerned me. What it totted up to was this: Stanley, the funny little fellow who gave the address, made a request to the directors at the meeting that took place early in August. The request was declined, and Sir John Rickerby died on 12 August at Brookwood; Henry Taylor was there, and he was first noticed missing from Nine Elms later in the same month.<
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  Stanley made another request of the directors at the meeting that took place in early November. The request was again declined, and Mike came to grief on 30 November. Stanley made a third request at the meeting held in early December, and was once more turned down. Smith was burned at his flat on 11 December. In September and October there had been no suspicious deaths, and no requests from Stanley either. But what of it?

  I had no notion of whether Stanley had actually been at any of the possible murder sites, whereas I had now learnt that Arthur Hunt and Vincent had been in Brookwood on the day of Sir John Rickerby's death. Hunt and Rose, I also knew, had certainly been at Nine Elms when someone put the kybosh on Mike, and close at hand to the Jubilee he'd been riding on to boot. These were big black marks against the half-link to set alongside all the others, including hatred of Mike and Rowland Smith. But now Stanley, that strange-eyed jack-in-a-pulpit, was in the picture too, and as I sat there in the gloom of the Necropolis library, the idea of little Stanley being the one seemed to grow more horrible by the second, for it might mean that Arthur Hunt, who had driven expresses and was most definitely a fellow of the right sort, really had got over his suspicions that I was Smith's man, and had brought the rest of the half-link around to the same way of flunking, only for me to throw his offer of friendship and instruction in all footplate arts straight back into his face.

  But then why had Vincent been banging his stick in that way on walking towards me through the Old Shed? Why had they come at me in that death march?

  I used what remained of the light to fly back through the book looking for any other mentions of Stanley that I had missed. I came upon just one, during the June meeting: the Secretary had been requested to ask Mr Stanley to consider giving his Tuesday address on alternate weeks only, 'it having come to the attention of the Directors that the audience frequently consists of one or two people, and sometimes fewer' – but this, I knew, had not come about; the address had remained weekly.

  I closed the book for 1903, and returned it to the shelf. I then stood before the fireplace and looked up at the pictures on the chimney breast, searching for some sign of curiosity in the faces of the Necropolis chairmen, but all that happened was that the clock ticked and the darkness grew.

  Ten minutes later I was back on the tracks. The trains had not yet started up again but the lamps were on, showing me that the snow had been replaced by rain, which was coming down slowly. I could have gone into Waterloo in any old way but I marched in on the 'up' side so as to be quite correct, and to keep a little bit of order at least in my life. As I ran back along the great viaduct of Lower Marsh, I thought: I have solved nothing; all that has happened is that I have gone deeper into the mystery. I neared the ladder that would take me down to my lodge, and stopped. I was level with the roofs, and all about were the sleeping, streaming chimney pots, but there was a great clanging from somewhere.

  It was only the work of a second to identify the cause and, sure enough, as I walked across to the ladder, the thing was shuddering in time with the clangs. I looked down and there was the human bell, chiming away. I thought: yes, people do like to hit metal with metal; there isn't necessarily any harm in it.

  He was shocked to see me, because this was his ladder, after all, but he moved aside for me very meekly. I should have given him a 'Happy Christmas' as I climbed down, and would have done so had there not been so much on my mind and so much more to put in my diary, chiefly concerning Mr Stanley.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Friday 25 December – Tuesday 29 December

  At midnight the trains started up, and it was as though the world started turning again, although I just kicked my heels in the lodge for the next three days, my only excursions being across the road to the dining rooms. What requests had Stanley made? What, if anything at all, did they have to do with the deaths that came hard upon those meetings to which the requests had been put? And were the questions in some way connected to the men of the half-link? There was only one way to find out, and that was to wait for the following Tuesday and ask.

  At six in the evening on 28 December, the Monday, I walked from Hercules Court to the Necropolis station – by the usual route, this time – and there I saw the poster on the board propped outside the front: 'Extramural Interment: An Address'. It was to happen the next day at 8 p.m. Who wants to hear of cemetery schemes at Christmas? I thought, as I scurried back to my lodge, but it did not matter. I would be there, for one.

  The Tuesday ought to have been the day I went back to work, but I did not return, for fear of more meetings with the half-link, and I kept to my room at nine o'clock when there came an awful pounding on the front door of the lodge, in which I had been alone, with no sight of my landlady, since Christmas Eve. The call boy had been sent. He was certainly a great hand at knocking, and it was queer to think that the sound would have once represented to me the greatest nightmare of all.

  I took two pints at the Citadel before setting off to the address. They were meant to boost me, like the engine brake handle that was in my coat sleeve once again. It was just before eight, and the rain was coming down hard on my best suit as I walked once again to the Necropolis station. As I came within sight of the place, a black funeral van came swirling out through the gates and away – light and fast and free, having, I guessed, left a body behind. The traps and cabs were all rattling past at a great rate, and throwing out mud onto my suit as they went.

  Passing Mr Stanley's sign, I walked through the gates and stood looking into the courtyard, lit by its gas jets, some trembling high up on the walls, some low down, like fireflies that had settled themselves in any old way. I turned towards the door in the arch and saw the board where the forthcoming funerals were posted up. Underneath large black letters spelling out 'In Memoriam' were the details of the burials at Brookwood on the following day – the last ones of the year, I supposed – of a Mrs Lampard and a Mrs Davidson-Hill. Both were to ride out in 'first', as were their mourners, and it struck me that this was why Twenty-Nine had been standing ready on Christmas Day.

  I climbed the stairs, passing the trapped flowers, and walked through the double doors on the fourth floor marked 'Address'. Mr Stanley was there under an electric light, sitting at a table upon which were some papers, his bowler hat, a tumbler and a glass jug of water. His big head was dangling down and there was a gap in the black hair on the top of it -but it was not as if his hair had fallen out; it was just as though some of it had been worn away as part of the overall sadness of his life. Before him was a cluster of chairs – every one empty. There was a palm in the corner this time, fluttering in the wind and rain that was flying in through an open window. Stanley looked up as I entered, and I saw the long brown face and wide golden eyes. I took a chair at the front.

  Stanley sat still for the next ten minutes while he waited, or pretended to wait, for a crowd to come in. I sat there and did the same, looking, I hoped, like a man without a care; but it was only those two pints and the brake handle that enabled me to pull it off. (I'll take two more besides, I thought, when this business is over.)

  It was ten minutes, then, as I say, before I called out: 'Will you carry on with the meeting?'

  Stanley made no answer, but rose to his feet and immediately commenced booming in that very unexpected voice: 'As it is appointed unto "all men once to die,'" he began, 'the subject of interment is one of universal interest.'

  He looked at all the empty chairs for a while, and I looked at him, gladder than ever of the Red Lion inside me.

  'It comes home to every human breast, not only with a solemn but an emphatic closeness,' Stanley continued in his surging voice. 'Whatever, or whosoever, the head of a family in this vast population of London may be – whether high or low, rich or poor, young or old – he knows that sooner or later himself, his wife, his children, his domestics, his associates, must each in rotation pay the great debt of nature and descend into the silent mansions of the tomb.'

  He paused here, seem
ing to shrink rapidly as he did so, and when he next spoke it was in that fast, pernickety mutter he came out with when not speechifying; this mingled with the clattering of the jug against the glass as he poured himself some water.

  "These words were written by the founder of our Necropolis Movement some sixty years ago.'

  (Stanley might have given out a name for this founder, but I had not caught it.) 'In the same year he also wrote the following…' He breathed in and came out with the big voice again: 'Within numerous and loathsome decomposing troughs, for centuries past in the heart of the capital of a great Christian nation, the most depraved system of sepulture has existed that has ever disgraced the annals of civilisation.'

  As Stanley spoke he would rotate a few degrees in one direction then back, his whole huge body – too big for any work it was ever called on to do – rocking gently as he came to rest facing one way or the other. He reminded me of some seaside automaton that I had seen, but his eyes were alive – as beautiful and sad as any woman's.

  He took a short drink, put the glass down hard. 'Our founder calculated,' Stanley went on, resuming his rocking, 'that within the first thirty years of his life, one and a half million corpses had been partly inhumed, partly entombed, within the metropolis. During that time the amount of poisonous gases evolved from putrefaction into the civic atmosphere, beyond that absorbed by the soil, exceeded seventy-five million cubic feet. And further, this system, which whether as regards public health, public morals or public decency, is the most gigantic abuse that has ever -'

  'You needn't continue with the full address for my sake,' I said.

  Stanley stopped and looked at the blackness beyond the windows for a while; then he took a step towards me. "The address, once begun,' he said, using his ordinary, smaller voice and facing towards the windows, 'has never been abandoned for any reason.' He shifted his head slightly so that he was looking at me from the sides of his eyes, and all of a sudden he looked like a slugger. "The first Mr Gladstone, when he came to hear the Tuesday Address, said that he had never heard the case for extramural inhumation put with such eloquence since the days of our founder.' "That is something,' I said, and I thought: he's off his onion.