Silent Nights

by Martin Edwards

  “What’s this in aid of?” asked the Forward Piece, rather shrilly, as a hysterical outburst of huffing and puffing came from the engine.

  “Run into a drift, I reckon.”

  “He’s trying to back us out. No good. The wheels are slipping every time. What a lark!” Percy Dukes had his head out of the window on the lee side of the train. “Coom to Coomberland for your winter sports!”

  “Guard! Guard, I say!” called Mr Kilmington. But the blue-clad figure, after one glance into the compartment, hurried on his way up the corridor. “Really! I shall report that man.”

  Henry Stansfield, going out into the corridor, opened a window. Though the coach was theoretically sheltered by the cutting on this windward side, the blizzard stunned his face like a knuckle-duster of ice. He joined the herd of passengers who had climbed down and were stumbling towards the engine. As they reached it, the Guard emerged from its cab: no cause for alarm, he said; if they couldn’t get through, there’d be a relief engine sent down to take the train back to Tebay; he was just off to set fog-signals on the line behind them.

  The driver renewed his attempts to back the train out. But, what with its weight, the up-gradient in its rear, the icy rails, and the clinging grip of the drift on the engine, he could not budge her.

  “We’ll have to dig out the bogeys, mate,” he said to the fireman. “Fetch them shovels from the forward van. It’ll keep the perishers from freezing, any road.” He jerked his finger at the knot of passengers who, lit up by the glare of the furnace, were capering and beating their arms like savages amid the swirling snow-wreaths.

  Percy Dukes, who had now joined them, quickly established himself as the life and soul of the party, referring to the grimy-faced fireman as “Snowball”, adjuring his companions to “Dig for Victory”, affecting to spy the approach of a herd of St Bernards, each with a keg of brandy slung round its neck. But, after ten minutes of hard digging, when the leading wheels of the bogey were cleared, it could be seen that they had been derailed by their impact with the drift.

  “That’s torn it, Charlie. You’ll have to walk back to the box and get ’em to telephone through for help,” said the driver.

  “If the wires aren’t down already,” replied the fireman lugubriously. “It’s above a mile to that box, and uphill. Who d’you think I am? Captain Scott?”

  “You’ll have the wind behind you, mate, any road. So long.”

  A buzz of dismay had risen from the passengers at this. One or two, who began to get querulous, were silenced by the driver’s offering to take them anywhere they liked if they would just lift his engine back on to the metals first. When the rest had dispersed to their carriages, Henry Stansfield asked the driver’s permission to go up into the cab for a few minutes and dry his coat.

  “You’re welcome.” The driver snorted: “Would you believe it? ‘Must get to Glasgow tonight.’ Damn ridiculous! Now Bert—that’s my Guard—it’s different for him: he’s entitled to fret a bit. Missus been very poorly. Thought she was going to peg out before Christmas; but he got the best surgeon in Glasgow to operate on her, and she’s mending now, he says. He reckons to look in every night at the nursing home, when he goes off work.”

  Stansfield chatted with the man for five minutes. Then the Guard returned, blowing upon his hands—a smallish, leathery-faced chap, with an anxious look in his eye.

  “We’ll not get through tonight, Bert. Charlie told you?”

  “Aye. I doubt some of the passengers are going to create a rumpus,” said the Guard dolefully.

  Henry Stansfield went back to his compartment. It was stuffy, but with a sinister hint of chilliness, too: he wondered how long the steam heating would last: depended upon the amount of water in the engine boiler, he supposed. Amongst the wide variety of fates he had imagined for himself, freezing to death in an English train was not included.

  Arthur J. Kilmington fidgeted more than ever. When the Guard came along the corridor, he asked him where the nearest village was, saying he must get a telephone call through to Edinburgh—most urgent appointment—must let his client know, if he was going to miss it. The Guard said there was a village two miles to the north-east; you could see the lights from the top of the cutting; but he warned Mr Kilmington against trying to get there in the teeth of this blizzard—better wait for the relief engine, which should reach them before 9 p.m.

  Silence fell upon the compartment for a while; the incredulous silence of civilized people who find themselves in the predicament of castaways. Then the expansive Mr Dukes proposed that, since they were to be stuck here for an hour or two, they should get acquainted. The Comfortable Body now introduced herself as Mrs Grant, the Forward Piece as Inez Blake; the Flash Card, with the over-negligent air of one handing a dud half-crown over a counter, gave his name as Macdonald—I. Macdonald.

  “A fine old Scots name,” said Mrs Grant.

  “I for Ian,” said Mr Dukes. “Or would it be Izzy?”

  “Irving, if you want to know,” replied the young man. “Any objection? You like to make something of it?”

  “Keep your hair on, young shaver.”

  “So I’m a Yid, am I? That’s your idea, uh?”

  “If you get steamed up any more,” said Mr Dukes, “it’ll ruin that permanent wave of yours.”

  “It only remains for one of you to suggest a nice friendly game of cards, now we’ve had the preliminary patter,” said Henry Stansfield.

  This reference to the technique of card-sharpers who work the trains silenced even Percy Dukes for a moment. However, he soon recovered.

  “I see you weren’t born yesterday, mister. We must’ve sounded a bit like that. You can always tell ’em a mile off, can’t you? No offence meant to this young gent. Just P.D.’s little bit of fun.”

  “I wish somebody would tell me what this is all about,” asked Inez Blake, pouting provocatively at Mr Dukes, who at once obliged.

  “They must be awfu’ clever,” remarked Mrs Grant, in her singsong Lowland accent, when he had finished.

  “No criminals are clever, ma’am,” said Stansfield quietly. His rumin-ative eye passed, without haste, from Macdonald to Dukes. “Neither the small fry nor the big operators. They’re pretty well subhuman, the whole lot of ’em. A dash of cunning, a thick streak of cowardice, and the rest is made up of stupidity and boastfulness. They’re too stupid for anything but crime, and so riddled with inferiority that they always give themselves away, sooner or later, by boasting about their crimes. They like to think of themselves as the wide boys, but they’re as narrow as starved eels—why, they haven’t even the wits to alter their professional methods: that’s how the police pick ’em up.”

  “I entirely agree, sir,” Mr Kilmington snapped. “In my profession I see a good deal of the criminal classes. And I flatter myself none of them has ever got the better of me. They’re transparent, sir, transparent.”

  “No doubt you gentlemen are right,” said Percy Dukes comfortably. “But the police haven’t picked up the chaps who did this train robbery yet.”

  “They will. And the Countess of Axminster’s emerald bracelet. Bet the gang didn’t reckon to find that in the mail-bag. Worth all of £25,000.”

  Percy Duke’s mouth fell open. The Flash Card whistled. Overcome, either by the stuffiness of the carriage or the thought of £25,000-worth of emeralds, Inez Blake gave a little moan and fainted all over Mr Kilmington’s lap.

  “Really! Upon my soul! My dear young lady!” exclaimed that worthy. There was a flutter of solicitude, shared by all except the cold-eyed young Macdonald who, after stooping over her a moment, his back to the others, said, “Here you—stop pawing the young lady and let her stretch out on the seat. Yes, I’m talking to you, Kilmington.”

  “How dare you! This is an outrage!” The little man stood up so abruptly that the girl was almost rolled on to the floor. “I was merely trying to—”<
br />
  “I know your sort. Nasty old men. Now, keep your hands off her! I’m telling you.”

  In the shocked silence that ensued, Kilmington gobbled speechlessly at Macdonald for a moment; then, seeing razors in the youth’s cold-steel eye, snatched his black hat and brief-case from the rack and bolted out of the compartment. Henry Stansfield made as if to stop him, then changed his mind. Mrs Grant followed the little man out, returning presently, her handkerchief soaked in water, to dab Miss Blake’s forehead. The time was just on 8.30.

  When things were restored to normal, Mr Dukes turned to Stansfield. “You were saying this necklace of—who was it?—the Countess of Axminster, it’s worth £25,000? Fancy sending a thing of that value through the post! Are you sure of it?”

  “The value? Oh, yes.” Henry Stansfield spoke out of the corner of his mouth, in the manner of a stupid man imparting a confidence. “Don’t let this go any farther. But I’ve a friend who works in the Cosmopolitan—the Company where it’s insured. That’s another thing that didn’t get into the papers. Silly woman. She wanted it for some big family do in Scotland at Christmas, forgot to bring it with her, and wrote home for it to be posted to her in a registered packet.”

  “£25,000,” said Percy Dukes thoughtfully. “Well, stone me down!”

  “Yes. Some people don’t know when they’re lucky, do they?”

  Dukes’ fat face wobbled on his shoulders like a globe of lard. Young Macdonald polished his nails. Inez Blake read her magazine. After some while, Percy Dukes remarked that the blizzard was slackening; he’d take an airing and see if there was any sign of the relief engine yet. He left the compartment.

  At the window, the snowflakes danced in their tens now, not their thousands. The time was 8.55. Shortly afterwards, Inez Blake went out; and ten minutes later, Mrs Grant remarked to Stansfield that it had stopped snowing altogether. Neither Inez nor Dukes had returned when, at 9.30, Henry Stansfield decided to ask what had happened about the relief. The Guard was not in his van, which adjoined Stansfield’s coach, towards the rear of the train. So he turned back, walked up the corridor to the front coach, clambered out, and hailed the engine cab.

  “She must have been held up,” said the Guard, leaning out. “Charlie here got through from the box, and they promised her by nine o’clock. But it’ll no’ be long now, sir.”

  “Have you seen anything of a Mr Kilmington—small, sandy chap—black hat and overcoat, blue suit—was in my compartment? I’ve walked right up the train and he doesn’t seem to be on it.”

  The Guard pondered a moment. “Och aye, yon wee fellow? Him that asked me about telephoning from the village. Aye, he’s awa’ then.”

  “He did set off to walk there, you mean?”

  “Nae doot he did, if he’s no’ on the train. He spoke to me again—juist on nine, it’d be—and said he was awa’ if the relief didna turn up in five minutes.”

  “You’ve not seen him since?”

  “No, sir. I’ve been talking to my mates here this half-hour, ever syne the wee fellow spoke to me.”

  Henry Stansfield walked thoughtfully back down the permanent way. When he had passed out of the glare shed by the carriage lights on the snow, he switched on his electric torch. Just beyond the last coach, the eastern wall of the cutting sloped sharply down and merged into moorland level with the track. Although the snow had stopped altogether, an icy wind from the north-east still blew, raking and numbing his face. Twenty yards farther on, his torch lit up a track, already half filled in with snow, made by several pairs of feet, pointing away over the moor, towards the north-east. Several passengers, it seemed, had set off for the village, whose lights twinkled like frost in the far distance. Stansfield was about to follow this track when he heard footsteps scrunching the snow farther up the line. He switched off the torch; at once it was as if a sack had been thrown over his head, so close and blinding was the darkness. The steps came nearer. Stansfield switched on his torch, at the last minute, pinpointing the squab figure of Percy Dukes. The man gave a muffled oath.

  “What the devil! Here, what’s the idea, keeping me waiting half an hour in that blasted—?”

  “Have you seen Kilmington?”

  “Oh, it’s you. No, how the hell should I have seen him? Isn’t he on the train? I’ve been walking up the line, to look for the relief. No sign yet. Damn parky, it is—I’m moving on.”

  Presently Stansfield moved on, too, but along the track towards the village. The circle of his torchlight wavered and bounced on the deep snow. The wind, right in his teeth, was killing. No wonder, he thought, as after a few hundred yards he approached the end of the trail, those passengers turned back. Then he realized they had not all turned back. What he had supposed to be a hummock of snow bearing a crude resemblance to a recumbent human figure, he now saw to be a human figure covered with snow. He scraped some of the snow off it, turned it gently over on its back.

  Arthur J. Kilmington would fuss no more in this world. His brief-case was buried beneath him: his black hat was lying where it had fallen, lightly covered with snow, near the head. There seemed, to Stansfield’s cursory examination, no mark of violence on him. But the eyeballs started, the face was suffused with a pinkish-blue colour. So men look who have been strangled, thought Stansfield, or asphyxiated. Quickly he knelt down again, shining his torch in the dead face. A qualm of horror shook him. Mr Kilmington’s nostrils were caked thick with snow, which had frozen solid in them, and snow had been rammed tight into his mouth also.

  And here he would have stayed, reflected Stansfield, in this desolate spot, for days or weeks, perhaps, if the snow lay or deepened. And when the thaw at last came (as it did that year, in fact, only after two months), the snow would thaw out from his mouth and nostrils, too, and there would be no vestige of murder left—only the corpse of an impatient little lawyer who had tried to walk to the village in a blizzard and died for his pains. It might even be that no one would ask how such a precise, pernickety little chap had ventured the two-mile walk in thin shoes and without a torch to light his way through the pitchy blackness; for Stansfield, going through the man’s pockets, had found the following articles—and nothing more: pocket-book, fountain pen, handkerchief, cigarette-case, gold lighter, two letters and some loose change.

  Stansfield started to return for help. But, only twenty yards back, he noticed another trail of footprints, leading off the main track to the left. This trail seemed a fresher one—the snow lay less thickly in the indentations—and to have been made by one pair of feet only. He followed it up, walking beside it. Whoever made this track had walked in a slight right-handed curve back to the railway line, joining it about 150 yards south of where the main trail came out. At this point there was a platelayers’ shack. Finding the door unlocked, Stansfield entered. There was nothing inside but a coke-brazier, stone cold, and a smell of cigar-smoke…

  Half an hour later, Stansfield returned to his compartment. In the meanwhile, he had helped the train crew to carry back the body of Kilmington, which was now locked in the Guard’s van. He had also made an interesting discovery as to Kilmington’s movements. It was to be presumed that, after the altercation with Macdonald, and the brief conversation already reported by the Guard, the lawyer must have gone to sit in another compartment. The last coach, to the rear of the Guard’s van, was a first-class one, almost empty. But in one of its compartments, Stansfield found a passenger asleep. He woke him up, gave a description of Kilmington, and asked if he had seen him earlier.

  The passenger grumpily informed Stansfield that a smallish man, in a dark overcoat, with the trousers of a blue suit showing beneath it, had come to the door and had a word with him. No, the passenger had not noticed his face particularly, because he’d been very drowsy himself, and besides, the chap had politely taken off his black Homburg hat to address him, and the hat screened as much of the head as was not cut off from his view by the top of the door. No, t
he chap had not come into his compartment: he had just stood outside, inquired the time (the passenger had looked at his watch and told him it was 8.50); then the chap had said that, if the relief didn’t turn up by nine, he intended to walk to the nearest village.

  Stansfield had then walked along to the engine cab. The Guard, whom he found there, told him that he’d gone up the track about 8.45 to meet the fireman on his way back from the signal-box. He had gone as far as the place where he had put down his fog-signals earlier; here, just before nine, he and the fireman met, as the latter corroborated. Returning to the train, the Guard had climbed into the last coach, noticed Kilmington sitting alone in a first-class compartment (it was then that the lawyer announced to the Guard his intention of walking if the relief engine had not arrived within five minutes). The Guard then got out of the train again, and proceeded down the track to talk to his mates in the engine cab.

  This evidence would seem to point incontrovertibly at Kilmington’s having been murdered shortly after 9 p.m., Stansfield reflected as he went back to his own compartment. His other fellow-passengers were all present and correct now.

  “Well, did you find him?” asked Percy Dukes.

  “Kilmington? Oh yes, I found him. In the snow over there. He was dead.”

  Inez Blake gave a little, affected scream. The permanent sneer was wiped, as if by magic, off young Macdonald’s face, which turned a sickly white. Mr Dukes sucked in his fat lips.

  “The puir wee man,” said Mrs Grant. “He tried to walk it then? Died of exposure, was it?”

  “No,” announced Stansfield flatly, “he was murdered.”

  This time, Inez Blake screamed in earnest; and, like an echo, a hooting shriek came from far up the line: the relief engine was approaching at last.

  “The police will be awaiting us back at Tebay, so we’d better all have our stories ready.” Stansfield turned to Percy Dukes. “You, for instance, sir. Where were you between 8.55, when you left the carriage, and 9.35 when I met you returning? Are you sure you didn’t see Kilmington?”