Murder on the Brighton Express

by Edward Marston

  She was so distracted that she eventually abandoned her work and took the Bible from a bookshelf. The well-thumbed volume had been passed down through generations of the Andrews’ family and there was a long list at the front of all of her forbears. The name of her late mother had joined the list years earlier. Turning to the New Testament, she found the passage she had read in church and went through it again in search of a clue as to why Ezra Follis had chosen it. She could find none.

  Madeleine was still pondering when her father came home from work. Letting himself into the house, Caleb Andrews was surprised to see his daughter reading the Bible.

  ‘Is there something you haven’t told me, Maddy?’ he teased.

  ‘Of course not, Father.’

  ‘You don’t want to enter a convent, then?’

  ‘Heaven forbid!’ she cried, laughing as she realised that it was not perhaps the most appropriate exclamation. ‘I just wanted to look at something, that’s all. Could you read this for me, Father?’

  ‘No,’ he said, firmly.

  ‘But I’d like your opinion.’

  ‘The time for studying the Bible is on a Sunday. That’s why your mother and I always read bits of it to you when we got back from church. At this moment,’ he went on, hanging his cap on a peg and flopping into his armchair, ‘the only thing I want to read is the evening paper I’ve just bought.’

  Madeleine put the Bible back on the shelf, deciding that her father would, in any case, be unlikely to help. She went into the kitchen to prepare his supper. After a short time, a howl of rage sent her rushing back into the living room.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘This nonsense,’ he replied, shaking the newspaper violently. ‘There’s an article here, laying the blame for the crash on Frank Pike.’

  ‘But that’s untrue.’

  ‘I know it’s untrue, Maddy. It’s also unfair on a man who’s not here to speak up for himself. John Heddle was on the footplate with Frank and he told me the train was going at the proper speed.’

  ‘Does it say anything about Robert?’

  ‘It says rather a lot,’ he noted as he read through the rest of the article, ‘and none of it very kind.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘According to this, there was no crime involved.’

  Madeleine stiffened. ‘Who’s decided that?’

  ‘Someone called Captain Harvey Ridgeon – he’s the Inspector General of Railways and he has a lot to say for himself. What does he know about driving an express train? Precious little, I’ll wager.’

  ‘Let me see it.’

  ‘No, Maddy, I don’t think you should.

  ‘If there’s criticism of Robert, I want to read it.’

  ‘It would only upset you.’

  ‘Please, Father,’ she insisted. ‘I’m not a child. I want to see exactly what the article says about Robert and about the crash.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said, yielding up the newspaper with a long sigh, ‘but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I think you’d be far better off reading the Bible again.’

  Security at the house had been visibly improved. Colbeck arrived at Giles Thornhill’s estate next morning to find three armed men on duty at the gate as well as a policeman from the local constabulary. As the cab took him up the drive, Colbeck noticed a man patrolling the grounds with a mastiff on a leash. When he reached the front door of the mansion, he was asked for proof of his identity yet again before he was permitted to enter. Thornhill was in his library once more but this time he was reclining in a leather armchair, well away from the window. His black eye had faded a little and he had slipped his broken arm and its splint out of its sling to rest in his lap. There was a crackle of deep dissatisfaction in his voice.

  ‘You came on your own?’ he asked.

  ‘What did you expect, sir?’

  ‘At the very least, I thought you’d bring a team of detectives. Someone tried to kill me in my own home, Inspector. Doesn’t that merit a proper response?’

  ‘I represent that response, Mr Thornhill,’ said Colbeck, evenly. ‘Our manpower is very limited and is fully deployed fighting the tide of crime in London. Besides, you seem to be extremely well guarded here so additional men are not needed.’

  ‘I don’t expect them to guard me,’ Thornhill retaliated. ‘What I want is to see is the villain caught and arrested. In short, I require more resources than the service of a single detective.’

  ‘You’ll be surprised what one person can achieve, sir.’

  ‘It’s what you can’t achieve that concerns me.’

  Colbeck ignored the slighting comment and sought a full account of what had taken place. Thornhill provided every detail, including the position he was in when the shot was fired. Even though the bullet had been so perilously close, he had not lost his nerve. He had taken cover and waited until some of his employees had come to his rescue. The grounds had been searched but no trace of the attacker had been found.

  ‘What about the bullet, sir?’ asked Colbeck.

  ‘The bullet?’

  ‘Do you still have it?’

  ‘No, Inspector – I’m just grateful that it missed its target.’

  ‘So it must be here on the premises.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Thornhill, ‘I suppose that it must. It smashed through the drawing room window and ended up in there somewhere. I had the window boarded up immediately and have not ventured outdoors.’

  ‘May I see the drawing room, please?’

  ‘Is it really necessary, Inspector?’

  ‘I believe so,’ said Colbeck. ‘Could someone take me there?’

  Thornhill tugged on a bell rope beside the fireplace and a maidservant soon entered. Given instructions, she took Colbeck down the corridor and showed him into the drawing room. It was large, well-proportioned and filled with exquisite furniture. Since one of the windows was now blanked out, there was little natural light in that corner. Colbeck first unlocked the door and stepped out on to the terrace, sitting in the chair that Thornhill claimed to have occupied.

  He stood up again, turned sideways and tried to imagine a bullet shooting past his left ear. It gave him a rough idea of the angle at which it had smashed into the window. Going back into the room, he tried to work out where the bullet might have ended up. The only clue he found was a tear in the large tapestry on the far wall. When he lifted it up, he saw a hole gouged out of the wall itself and decided that the bullet must have ricocheted. Long, painstaking minutes of searching finally ended with success. After bouncing off the wall, the bullet had penetrated a thick cushion then embedded itself in the back of an ornate settee.

  Thornhill was waiting for him with growing impatience.

  ‘Well,’ he demanded as Colbeck came back into the library.

  ‘I found it, sir,’ said the other, showing him a bullet whose nose had been blunted. ‘I’ve afraid that your tapestry and one of the settees is in need of repair. The bullet was damaged when it struck the wall but I can tell you that it came from a rifle. That means it could have been fired from some distance away.’

  Thornhill sneered. ‘Is that supposed to make me feel safer?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re in any danger now. There are too many people on guard for anyone to risk a second visit here. What I’d like to do first is to establish exactly where he was when he fired the shot. Some clue may have been left behind.’

  ‘You’re wasting your time, sir. He could have been anywhere.’

  ‘I disagree,’ said Colbeck. ‘The trajectory of the bullet gives me a definite idea of the direction from which it came. All I require is your permission to search the grounds without fear of being attacked by that mastiff you have out there.’

  ‘Search if you must,’ said Thornhill, petulantly, ‘but you won’t find anything, I know that. The man must have fled as soon as he fired the shot.’

  ‘That’s what I’m counting on, Mr Thornhill. When people are in a great hurry to escape, they often make mist
akes.’

  The tender ministrations of his wife and a good night’s sleep had revived Victor Leeming and sent him back to work with renewed vigour. Dressed in his normal attire, he travelled to Chalk Farm by cab and rapped on the door of Josie Murlow’s hovel. There was no answer. After knocking even harder a few times, he accepted that she was not there. Leeming followed the route he had taken the previous day, turning into the main road and walking along it until he made a second turn. When the Shepherd and Shepherdess came into view, the bump on his head started to throb.

  He paused at the alleyway where he had been assaulted. Narrow and twisting, it ran through to the street beyond, giving his attacker a choice of two exits. Leeming went on to the public house. Its first customers of the morning had already drifted in. Standing behind the counter was the landlord, a tubby man of medium height with a bald head offset by a drooping walrus moustache. Leeming introduced himself and described the woman he wanted to find. The landlord guessed her name at once.

  ‘You’re talking about Josie Murlow,’ he said.

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘I know her and that cock-eyed ruffian she lives with. They’re nothing but trouble, those two. I barred them from the Shepherd and Shepherdess months ago.’

  ‘Josie Murlow was standing outside here yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Then I’m glad she didn’t have the gall to come in.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you saw her,’ said Leeming, ‘or noticed which way she walked off.’

  ‘No, Sergeant,’ replied the landlord. ‘As long as she and Dick Chiffney keep away from here, that’s all I’m worried about. On the other hand,’ he went on, looking around the bar, ‘some of my regulars might have seen her through the window. Josie is not easy to miss. She’d make three of my wife.’

  ‘She’d make four of mine.’

  Leeming first spoke to a couple of men who had just entered but they were unable to help him. None of the other customers had even been there at the relevant time on the previous day. He was about to leave when he noticed an old man tucked away in a corner. Crouched over a table, he was playing dominoes on his own, moving from one seat to another and back again as he took turns, pausing only to quaff some of his beer. As Leeming came over, he fixed a pair of watery eyes on him.

  ‘Care for a game of dominoes?’ he croaked.

  ‘You seem to be playing well enough on your own,’ said Leeming with a grin. ‘Who’s winning?’

  ‘He is,’ said the old man, pointing to the empty chair.

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt the game, sir. I just wanted to ask if you knew a woman named Josie Murlow.’

  The old man cackled. ‘Everyone knows Josie.’ He sat back to appraise Leeming. ‘I wouldn’t have thought a gentleman like you would have any time for her. She’s beneath you, sir. Or is that what you want?’ he added, slyly. ‘Having Josie beneath you, I mean.’

  ‘No!’ denied Leeming, revolted by the notion. ‘That’s not what I want. I’m a detective from Scotland Yard and I wish to speak to her in connection with a crime.’ The old man gabbled his apologies. ‘Did you, by any chance, see her yesterday afternoon?’

  The old man thought hard. ‘I did, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Where was she?’

  ‘Standing outside, all dressed up in her finery.’

  ‘Did you see her through the window?’

  ‘No,’ said the other. ‘I was walking along the pavement outside. Josie was lurking at the door as if she didn’t know whether to come in or go away.’

  ‘Was she on her own?’ asked Leeming.

  ‘She was at first. Then that ugly devil of hers steps out of the alleyway and rushes her away up the road.’

  ‘In which direction did they go?’

  ‘Towards Camden,’ said the old man, ‘but I only saw them for a few seconds. Dick Chiffney stopped a cab and the both got into it.’ He cackled again. ‘I pity the poor horse, having to pull Josie along. She must weigh the best part of a ton.’

  ‘Are you certain that it was Chiffney?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Nobody else could be as ugly as that.’

  Dick Chiffney peered at his face in the mirror, twisting his head sideways as he used the razor to shave the last bristles from his chin. After washing the blade in a bowl of cold water, he dried it on a piece of cloth before closing the razor. Then he splashed his face with water and dabbed at it with the cloth. He viewed the results in the mirror. On the bed behind him, Josie Murlow slowly came out of her sleep.

  ‘Where am I?’ she said, drowsily.

  ‘You’re with me, Josie,’ he told her. ‘We’re staying at the house of my friend for a little while.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘I’d rather be in my own house.’

  ‘It could be watched.’

  ‘But there’s things I need, Dick.’

  ‘I’ll sneak back after dark and get them for you, my love,’ he said. ‘I can’t take that chance in daylight. He might’ve come back.’

  ‘Who’re you talking about?’ she asked, yawning.

  ‘The policeman I knocked out yesterday.’

  The reminder brought her fully awake. Josie struggled to sit up in bed, her naked breasts spilling out over the bed sheet like a pair of balloons filled with water. She rubbed a knuckle against both eyes.

  ‘I remember now,’ she said with annoyance. ‘I was followed.’

  ‘As I guessed you would be,’ he bragged. ‘You have to keep one step ahead of the police, Josie. I know the way they work.’

  ‘Does that mean I can never go back to my house?’

  ‘You may never need to, my love.’

  She yawned again. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘It’s time for me to go.’

  ‘You’re not going to leave me here alone, are you?’ she protested.

  ‘I have to,’ he explained. ‘There’s breakfast waiting for you in the kitchen downstairs and I’ve left money if you want to send out for drink. My friend’s name is Walter, by the way. Ask him for anything you need. Walter will look after you.’

  ‘I’d rather you did that,’ she grumbled.

  Josie looked around the room with a mixture of interest and distrust. It was bigger, better furnished and very much cleaner than her bedroom at home. They were obviously in a sizeable house. The bed was extremely comfortable. She and Chiffney had tested the mattress to the limit. She watched him as he put on his jacket and did up the buttons. The new suit made him look so much smarter. She wanted to believe that the two of them were going up in the world but she was haunted by doubts.

  ‘Everything is going to be all right, Dick, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Put your faith in me, my love.’

  ‘I want to come with you.’

  ‘No, Josie,’ he said, restraining her as she tried to clamber out of bed. ‘I’ve got business I can only do on my own. In any case, I don’t want us to be seen in public again.’

  She bristled. ‘Are you ashamed of me, then?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘Have you got someone else, Dick?’ she said, accusingly.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I’ve got a gentleman who’ll pay me more money than I’ve ever earned before to do one small job. You’ll be fine here, my love,’ he said, jokingly. ‘If you have any fears for your virginity, there’s a rifle under the bed. I don’t need that today.’

  He picked up the pistol that lay on the table and opened his coat to tuck the weapon into his belt. Slipping some ammunition into his pocket, he reached for his hat. Josie was concerned.

  ‘How long will you be?’ she asked.

  ‘I could be away for most of the day.’

  ‘Why – where are you going?’

  ‘Brighton,’ he said.

  Robert Colbeck was away for such a long time that Thornhill assumed that he was not coming back to the house. He was already composing a letter of complaint to Scotland Yard when the detective was finally shown ba
ck into the library.

  ‘I thought you’d abandoned me, Inspector,’ he said.

  ‘I’d never do that, sir,’ Colbeck told him. ‘There was a large area to search but it was worthwhile. I found the exact spot from which that shot was fired at you.’ He held up a tiny piece of cloth. ‘Your attacker was hiding behind a bramble bush some fifty yards away. His jacket must have caught on the spikes.’

  ‘There’s no guarantee that the material came from his clothing,’ Thornhill contended. ‘It might have come from anyone else who’d walked that way – from my gamekeeper, for instance.’

  ‘I think your gamekeeper would have more sense than to stand in a bramble patch, sir. Besides, there are clear footprints there. From that position, he had a good view of the terrace.’

  ‘What use is that information now?’

  ‘I thought it might reassure you.’

  Thornhill was perplexed. ‘How could it possibly do that?’

  ‘It proves that your would-be assassin was no marksman, sir,’ said Colbeck. ‘From fifty yards away, a trained rifleman would have been confident of hitting you when you were sitting down. This man waited until you got up so that you presented a larger target – and yet still he missed.’

  ‘Only by a matter of inches,’ said Thornhill.

  ‘Someone who knew how to handle a rifle could have shot you dead from hundreds of yards away. This man had to get close and even then he failed. In your position,’ said Colbeck, ‘I’d draw comfort from that fact.’

  ‘The only comfort I get is when the house is properly guarded and I’m locked up safely inside.’

  ‘I meant to speak to you about that, sir. After today, I suggest that you stand down some of the men at the gate and those patrolling the estate.’

  ‘That’s an insane suggestion, Inspector.’

  ‘If you want the man caught, it’s the best thing to do.’