The Circus Train Conspiracy

by Edward Marston

  ‘Don’t believe a word of them.’

  ‘Probert didn’t like being questioned either. He was very evasive.’

  ‘What about Jake Goodhart?’

  ‘I couldn’t make much sense of what he said.’

  ‘The Tyneside dialect can be confusing to an outsider.’

  ‘Of the three of them,’ said Leeming, ‘I thought that Enticott was the most likely person to want to harm the NCR. He seemed to have a grudge. As for Goodhart, I was ready to rule him out at first because he doesn’t have the brains to plan a series of attacks like the ones we’ve seen. But I’ve changed my mind now.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘First of all, he has an injury that he keeps hidden and we know that a man caught watching the circus was shot in the hand. The other thing is that Goodhart was actually here not long ago, trespassing inside the camp. Why would he do that if he wasn’t intending to cause more harm?’

  ‘Stop going on about the damned circus!’ complained Darlow.

  ‘But this is where the man who derailed one of your trains will strike again, sir, and I’m starting to believe that his name might be Jake Goodhart. He’s only an accomplice taking orders from that man with the beard.’

  ‘I disagree. I can tell you who’s behind the derailment.’

  ‘Can you, sir?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve been doing your job for you, Sergeant. I looked at the employment records of the three men whose names I gave you and I chanced on an interesting piece of information.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Jake Goodhart had a cousin who worked for the NCR.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘His name is Geoffrey Enticott.’

  Having dined with them, Caleb Andrews had stayed well into the evening. While Lydia Quayle had retired for an early night, he and his daughter were now in the drawing room. Andrews was worried.

  ‘A young woman of her age shouldn’t be tired, Maddy.’

  ‘She isn’t tired.’

  ‘Then why did she say that she was?’

  ‘It was a polite way of leaving us alone together. Lydia feels that she takes up too much of my time and that you appreciate being with me and the baby.’

  ‘Well, I do.’

  ‘Also, she’s excited at the idea of taking a holiday.’

  ‘Is that wise?’

  ‘I think it’s very sensible. A change of scene will act as a tonic and she’ll be far away from whoever is making her life such a misery.’

  ‘Have there been any sightings of him?’

  ‘No, Father. He may have lost interest.’

  ‘Oh, I doubt that, Maddy. Men of that kind don’t give up easily. If he goes to the trouble of staying at the same hotel as Lydia, he’ll keep looking until he finds her again. I didn’t want to say that to Lydia,’ he went on. ‘I thought she seemed a lot less nervous this evening.’

  ‘Staying here has revived her.’

  ‘Ever since I took her for that walk, she’s started to improve.’

  ‘Lydia goes out alone now.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Andrews. ‘My only complaint is that Victor Leeming wasn’t able to do more to put her mind at rest.’

  ‘He did what he could. The real problem is Superintendent Tallis. If this was reported to him, he wouldn’t take it seriously.’

  ‘He would if Robert tackled him.’

  ‘Pretty young women are followed by men every day. It’s not a crime.’

  ‘It ought to be. And don’t forget that he stole her dress. That’s very upsetting.’

  ‘Very. I know how I’d feel if it happened to me.’

  ‘Well, it won’t, Maddy. You’re a respectable married woman.’

  ‘That’s no defence. A man with an obsession will take no notice of that. It’s not only single women who arouse unwanted attentions.’

  Andrews grimaced. ‘Yes, it happened to me once.’

  ‘That’s not the same thing, Father.’

  ‘It felt like it at the time. I was terrified.’

  The memory had been burnt into his mind. When he’d befriended a woman to whom he was attracted, her unscrupulous sister had intervened in the hope of wresting a marriage proposal out of him. He’d been lucky to escape.

  He got up. ‘Anyway, it’s time I went back home,’ he said, wearily. ‘Lydia may not be tired but I am. These old bones of mine are starting to creak.’

  ‘I’ll see you to the door.’

  They went into the hall and she took his hat from the peg to hand it to him. Before he put it on, he gave her a farewell kiss.

  ‘I know I’ve said it before, Maddy,’ he told her, ‘but having a detective inspector as a husband isn’t as useful as it ought to be. Robert is never here when you really want him.’

  ‘That’s because he’s sorting out a crisis somewhere else.’

  ‘His family should come first – every time.’

  Opening the door, he was about to step out when a figure walked towards him. Andrews was astounded. Hand to his heart, he stepped back sharply. Madeleine was equally amazed. Emerging out of the gloom was her husband.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said, raising his top hat in greeting. ‘How did you know I was coming?’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Victor Leeming was beginning to entertain doubts that the kinship between the two men was anything more than coincidence. Darlow, however, was convinced that he’d unmasked the villains behind the derailment. He wanted them taken into custody at once. Before he went off to confront the suspects, the sergeant first changed into his normal apparel, then he recruited Cyrus Lill.

  ‘I couldn’t arrest them as a labourer,’ he explained. ‘They wouldn’t take me seriously.’

  Lill issued a quiet warning. ‘We may not have to arrest them at all.’

  ‘That’s my feeling, Inspector, but Mr Darlow insisted. He thinks that he’s solved the case and wants to take all the credit for doing so.’

  ‘What he really wants is to see his name in the newspapers.’

  ‘Well, I fancy that he’ll be disappointed this time.’

  They were sharing a cab that was taking them to the home of Geoffrey Enticott. Since the circus now had its security guards in place alongside some uniformed policemen, they felt they were leaving it in safe hands. Leeming had been at first delighted when a close link between two of the suspects had been established. On reflection, however, he was less than persuaded that Darlow had reached the right conclusion.

  ‘I can see why Goodhart might want to cause trouble for the NCR,’ he said, ‘and it’s possible that Enticott did so as well. What I can’t see is why either of them would want to stop the circus from getting to Newcastle.’

  ‘I agree. All that Mr Darlow thinks about is his railway company. He simply won’t understand that the real target was not the NCR but Moscardi’s Magnificent Circus.’

  ‘Inspector Colbeck has told him that a dozen times.’

  ‘What was Goodhart doing at the camp?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Was he searching for something?’

  ‘Whatever it was, he stood no chance of getting it. Brendan Mulryne threw him out on his ear.’

  ‘Years ago, Goodhart would have fought back.’

  ‘Only a moron would try to fight Brendan.’

  ‘Goodhart is a moron,’ said Lill. ‘Well, you’ve met him, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I have. I’m still trying to work out what he said to me in that foreign language of his.’

  ‘We’ve cleared up one mystery, anyway. I always wondered how he managed to hold on to a job with the NCR when he was so unreliable. The answer is obvious now. His cousin spoke up for him.’

  ‘I didn’t like Enticott at all,’ said Leeming. ‘He looked down on me and nobody gets away with that. I’m hoping that he resists arrest so that I can clap a pair of handcuffs onto him.’

  When the cab reached the house, Lill asked the driver to wait until they came out. As it happened, they never even g
ot inside the house. The servant who answered the door explained that Enticott and his wife were over fifty miles away, inspecting their new home before spending the night there. Since one of the suspects was beyond their reach, they concentrated on the other one and told the cab driver to take them on to another address. Eventually, they drew up outside the tenement where Goodhart lived. He, too, was not at home. There was no need to use the knocker this time. Mrs Goodhart stood outside the front door with her arms folded and her nostrils flared. She was a tall, stringy woman, her once appealing features hardened into stone. She had a rasping voice. She told them that Goodhart had dared to return to the bosom of his family with the smell of beer on his breath. It was enough to get him ejected by his wife with the warning that he wouldn’t be allowed back in again until he was sober.

  The two men felt sorry for him. He’d obviously committed what was, to his wife, a heinous domestic crime. Dire retribution would follow. Since her husband was unlikely to be back for hours, the detectives postponed the arrest until the following day and climbed into their cab once more.

  ‘Mr Darlow is going to be very upset,’ said Lill.

  ‘That’s his problem.’

  ‘With respect, Sergeant, I reckon that it’s yours.’

  Leeming stiffened in protest. ‘Mine? ’

  ‘You were the one to whom he gave the order,’ reasoned the other, ‘so you’re duty-bound to report back to him. When he gets angry, by the way, he can be quite caustic. My advice is that you stand well away from him.’

  Colbeck’s unheralded return had transformed the atmosphere in the house. Madeleine was overjoyed. When she met him the following morning, Lydia was at once startled and reassured. For his part, Colbeck had the delight of seeing his child again and of lying with his wife in his arms after what seemed too long a time. Everybody was happy. The general excitement, however, was short-lived. As soon as breakfast was over, he set off for Scotland Yard.

  Taken aback by his sudden arrival, Edward Tallis quickly recovered and castigated him for sending few accounts of his progress in Northumberland. Colbeck stepped forward to place a detailed report on the superintendent’s desk, then he supplemented it with an account of what he’d learnt in Shropshire and what Leeming was now doing. Tallis was appalled.

  ‘The sergeant has joined the circus?’

  ‘It’s a necessary disguise, sir.’

  ‘In what capacity will he appear in front of the public? Is Leeming to fly daringly on a trapeze or will he continue to draw his pay from the Metropolitan Police while walking a tightrope in Newcastle?’

  ‘The sergeant is not a performer. He’s there solely as a guard.’

  Tallis read the report with a practised eye and kept Colbeck waiting until he’d finished it. He gave a grudging snort of approval.

  ‘You seem to have made some advances.’

  ‘We’ve made several, sir. After my visit to Mrs Pulver’s home, I have a clearer idea of how she came to be so far away from home when she was killed.’

  ‘But you still don’t know who murdered her.’

  ‘It’s not impossible that I may already have met the man.’

  ‘Is it this solicitor – Mr Underhill?’

  ‘He must remain a suspect and so must Mr Probert.’

  ‘Which one snuffed out the poor woman’s life?’

  ‘I can’t be certain,’ confessed Colbeck. ‘Neither of them may be guilty. The killer may be someone else altogether.’

  ‘At least I’ve been spared one of your famous theories,’ said Tallis, gratefully. ‘You’re amassing evidence properly before making your usual wild guess.’

  ‘My theories are neither wild nor based on guesswork, sir.’

  They traded verbal blows for a few minutes before Colbeck recalled that he had a train to catch north. Before he left, however, he was determined to honour his promise to Lydia Quayle.

  ‘I wish to bring another crime to your attention, sir.’

  ‘What does it concern?’

  ‘It concerns the theft of a woman’s dress from a hotel.’

  Tallis was apoplectic. ‘A woman’s dress …?’

  To the relief of all involved in it, the circus had passed an uneventful night. The animals had settled in quickly and there were no reports of interlopers. Mauro Moscardi toured the camp to speak to all his artistes in turn in an attempt to raise their spirits. Their first performance was that evening. He wanted everything to be perfect. When he entered the marquee, he saw that several people were rehearsing in there. In one part of the ring, his brother had set up the board he used during his performance as a knife-thrower. Unable to perform any longer as an acrobat, Gianni had trained himself to hurl knives at a board against which a young woman bravely stood. As he practised, he was using a dummy instead of a human being.

  Brendan Mulryne watched the rehearsal. Moscardi joined him.

  ‘You did a good job last night, Mulryne.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘We had no trouble at all.’

  ‘My men saw to that – Sergeant Leeming among them.’ He looked at Gianni. ‘Those knives are getting closer and closer to the body. Is his assistant safe?’

  ‘My brother knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘He’s talking about using hatchets as well.’

  Overhearing them, Gianni threw a gleaming hatchet that stuck in the board only inches above the head. Pulling it out again, he walked over to the two men.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing is happening,’ replied Moscardi, ‘and it’s the reason we are so relieved. It’s a beautiful day outside and we’re being allowed to get on with our work. That hasn’t happened for days.’

  ‘He’ll be back,’ warned Mulryne.

  ‘Then he’s all mine,’ said Gianni.

  ‘We’ll have to devise a plan to keep him at bay.’

  ‘No, I want him to come into the marquee when I’m performing. Then I can do this to him.’ Swinging around, he flung the hatchet at the board with great force and it split the head of the dummy in two. ‘That’s all he deserves.’

  ‘You’d end up being hanged for murder, Gianni.’

  ‘It would be worth it.’

  Sauntering back to the board, he pulled out the hatchet and tossed it into the sawdust. Moscardi watched him with an affection tempered by concern.

  ‘My brother is aching to get revenge,’ he said.

  ‘We all are, Mr Moscardi, but we have to be careful. I’m hoping that the man who’s been dogging us will be caught very soon.’

  ‘Do they know who he is?’

  ‘They have the name of a man I caught trespassing in the camp yesterday. He looked dangerous. Sergeant Leeming said that they know who his accomplice was. He’s working with his cousin.’

  ‘Then why doesn’t he arrest both men?’

  ‘That’s exactly what he and Inspector Lill have just gone off to do, sir. With luck, your brother won’t need to keep that hatchet of his sharpened. The villains will soon be in custody and your circus will be safe.’

  On their second visit to the tenement, the detectives didn’t need to knock on the door in order to ask if Goodhart was at home because he was curled up in the passageway. Cyrus Lill brought him awake with a gentle kick. Goodhart opened a pair of bleary eyes and squinted at him.

  ‘Get up, Jake,’ said Lill. ‘We need to speak to you.’

  ‘Ah’m tired, man.’

  ‘We don’t care about that.’

  By way of reply, Goodhart first yawned then broke wind. He closed his eyes and settled into a sleeping position again. After a stinging rebuke from Darlow the previous night, Leeming was in no mood for delay. Irritated by Goodhart’s response, he grabbed hold of him and pulled him upright.

  ‘You heard the inspector,’ he said. ‘We need to ask some questions.’

  ‘Haad yer rotten tongue or I’ll borst yer gob,’ yelled Goodhart.

  Leeming blinked. ‘What’s he saying?’

  ‘
Let me do the talking,’ suggested Lill. ‘I understand him.’

  Now fully awake, Goodhart wallowed in self-pity. He claimed that he’d had a first alcoholic drink in years and been thrown out of the house by his wife. Even when he came back sober, she refused to let him in. Sleeping outside the door was his punishment. No husband, he wailed, had ever been treated so badly.

  ‘We might have to treat you far worse,’ said Lill. ‘You’re under arrest.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We believe you might be involved in a conspiracy to attack the circus.’

  ‘It started when you helped to derail that train,’ said Leeming. ‘You were working with Geoffrey Enticott, weren’t you?’ Goodhart was befuddled. ‘He is your cousin, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yer deed reet, man.’

  ‘The two of you were working hand in glove.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Talking of hands,’ said Lill, ‘we think you got that injury when someone fired a shotgun at you and made you drop a telescope.’

  Goodhart was such a picture of injured innocence that both detectives began to wonder if they were not making a big mistake. Their doubts increased when Goodhart pulled off the glove he was still wearing and tore off the bloodstained bandage to reveal a long gash on his hand. It was clearly no gunshot wound. As for his cousin, Goodhart explained, he was no friend. Sacked from his job with the NCR, he’d gone to see Enticott and pleaded for him to use his influence to get him work for the NER. His cousin refused. He gave him a small amount of money and told him never to come back. Goodhart was embittered.

  Leeming had no difficulty believing the account of Enticott’s behaviour. It was characteristic of him. Instead of working with his cousin to disable the NCR, Enticott had treated him shamefully. The only thing of which Goodhart was guilty was drinking beer in defiance of his wife’s orders. One mystery remained.

  ‘What were you doing at the circus yesterday?’ asked Leeming.

  He found Goodhart’s answer so garbled that he had to turn to Lill for a translation. The explanation had a simple honesty about it. Short of money, Goodhart could not afford to take his children to the circus. Almost all of their friends would be going and they would be left out. Goodhart had gone to the camp to see if he could scrounge some tickets off someone. Before he had the chance to approach anyone, he was chased away by a big Irishman.