The boys were not primarily interested in either station, but the symbols showed bridges. It was their object to sit on bicycles propped against the wall of a bridge, and, from this vantage-point, to do a little engine-spotting. It was not until they reached the first of these bridges that John discovered the fact that the station a little beyond the bridge was no longer in use.
‘Philip,’ he said excitedly, ‘look! A ghost station! Let’s see whether we can explore it!’
It proved easy enough to do this. The up platform was bounded, where it left the roofed-in, sheltered portion of its length for an excursion into the open air, by a wooden fence very easy to scale. This open fence separated part of the platform from a field. It would have taken far less ingenuity than that possessed by a couple of active, lively children to find a means of admittance. In less than three minutes John and Philip were on the platform and were beginning to poke about.
The far-off sound of an approaching train – the line was only an unimportant branch affair, and trains were infrequent – caused the boys to take cover. There was no lack of hiding-places. Whatever the original purpose of the extraordinary specimens of ironwork which had been dumped on the deserted platforms, they certainly afforded shelter. Each boy dived behind a contraption which looked something like an old-fashioned cannon, and prepared to wait until the train had clanked by, for it was a goods train which was approaching.
Suddenly, from behind John, came a sound which had no connexion with the noise of the approaching train. It was a long, persuasive, pleading, heart-hungry whine. The train clanked through the station and rattled into the distance. John came out of hiding and beckoned wildly to his companion, who was dusting himself down.
‘Here, Philip!’ hissed John, continuing to beckon. ‘In the waiting-room! Quick!’
The waiting-room had been directly behind John’s hiding-place. It was a dilapidated ruin. The door had gone, and so had most of the ceiling, and the floor was covered in rubble. At one corner, however, the rubble had been cleared, and in the clearance, tethered to a staple fixed in the fireplace wall, was a gigantic dog.
Mrs Bradley and Laura would have recognized it at once as the spit and image of that same Hound of the Baskervilles which had put in such a mysterious appearance at the Sherlock Holmes ball. The boys, of course, had not seen the creature before. John went towards it. Philip said:
‘Mind how you touch him. He looks fierce.’
‘He ought not to show temper, that kind of dog,’ said John. ‘He’s just fed-up with being left alone and being tied up, I expect. Let’s undo him and give him a run.’
Philip looked doubtful.
‘Pretty silly we should feel if he ran off and we never saw him again,’ he rightly observed. ‘Wonder who his owner is? Wonder if he’s hungry? Wonder why they leave him here like this? It can’t be to guard the station because he couldn’t do much guarding if he was tied up all the time.’
‘Perhaps he’s a police dog, and the police are after some crooks, and will come and fetch him when they want him.’
‘Could be, I suppose, but he doesn’t look much like a police dog. They usually have Alsatians. This one isn’t an Alsatian. He looks’ – he studied the dog which had now stretched its great length along the floor and was taking no more notice of the boys – ‘I think he looks like a cross between a Great Dane and an Irish wolf-hound – ’
‘And a donkey,’ said John giggling. The dog looked at him and uttered a long, bored sigh.
‘Miss Campbell is afraid of dogs,’ said Philip. ‘She’s even afraid of spaniels. She says she was never brought up with dogs. They lived in a flat and weren’t allowed to have one. I think it’s silly to be afraid of dogs, but one isn’t supposed to pet them when they’re chained up. That’s only common sense. How long are we going to stay with him? Time’s getting on, and we promised to get back before dark.’
‘There’s time yet, and I don’t like leaving the dog. I think he’s lonely. Look here, let’s wait another quarter of an hour, and then, if there isn’t another train, we’ll go. I hope our bikes are all right. I think I’ll nip up and see.’ Before he could leave the platform, however, there came from the distance the sound of another train. ‘Perhaps the dog belongs to an engine-driver or someone,’ continued John. ‘If so, we’d better scram. He might pull up and jump off to have a look at the dog, or feed him.’
They hid again behind some of the junk on the platform, but nobody got off the train, so they sneaked back over the fencing, the way they had come, and were soon on their homeward road.
‘An adventurous afternoon, I trust?’ said Mrs Bradley, who had joined the party at tea. The boys, who were not old enough to keep much knowledge to themselves, opened up and told her everything that had happened, repeating all their own conversation verbatim, and, in fact, several times. Mrs Bradley listened with flatteringly close attention. Hers was only a flying visit. She was back in Kensington by six o’clock, for she and Laura had tickets for a theatre.
‘The Hound of the Baskervilles, you think?’ said Laura, when the tale was unfolded at dinner. ‘And Linda Campbell is afraid of dogs, so she isn’t likely to be the practical joker – or is she? Hardly, I should say. But I can’t understand chaining the dog up like that. He seemed such an excellent animal, I thought. It’s bad for him if he’s kept tied up in that dismal place, and perhaps not properly fed. I say, how would it be if I tazzed down there and had a look at him? The kids can show me where he is.’
Mrs Bradley thought this an excellent idea. All told, the dog was a mysterious factor, and she knew how much Laura loved to – exercise what she mistakenly thought of as her detective faculties. Besides, she had been worked hard since the beginning of the autumn, and a week-end on the farm, even at that time of year, and the society of Alice, with whom Laura had been closely associated at college, would do her no harm at all, Mrs Bradley decided.
Laura arrived at the farm on the Friday afternoon in time for tea, and found the household in its usual flourishing condition. She heard at first-hand the tale of the dog at the station, played with the boys, told them a lurid bedtime story, and then settled down for further gossip and reminiscence with Alice, who had not altered much from the self-effacing, wiry, whip-cord creature that she had been at college except that she had filled out a little, and was inclined to boss the so-far unmarried Laura.
‘What are you really here for, Dog?’ Alice enquired affectionately when her husband had gone off for his Friday evening couple of pints at the local inn. ‘You’re not here just to find out how Philip and John are going on.’
Laura explained that Mrs Bradley was interested in the dog which the boys had encountered at the ghost station.
‘Oh, yes, they told Mrs Bradley all about it,’ said Alice. ‘I can’t think who owns it, but it’s very cruel, anyway, to shut it away like that. Do you really think it’s the dog you saw at this Sherlock Holmes party?’
Laura had described the party in some detail.
‘I don’t know,’ Laura replied. ‘Anyway, I’m going to investigate to-morrow. I shall have to ask the boys how to get there, but I don’t really want to take them with me. I’ll be much better off on my own.’
‘Oh, I can tell you how to get there,’ said Alice. ‘The ordnance maps are all on that shelf. I’ll get the one you want and show you the way.’
She and Laura pored over the map, spending far more time than was necessary to identify the ghost station, and then, when they had picked out Sir Bohun’s house and the spot on the edge of the heath where the Queen of the Circus stood, Laura told Alice more about the Sherlock Holmes party than she had so far recounted, and finished up with a character sketch (as she saw him) of Manoel Lupez.
‘Why did he want to kiss you? You aren’t the kissable type, Dog,’ commented Alice with comradely honesty.
‘I know,’ answered Laura, with equally agreeable frankness. ‘I think he was just plain bored. However, I smacked his face for the good of the cause, an
d he complained about me to Sir B.’
‘Why? What did he expect you to do?’
‘I’ve been thinking things over,’ Laura replied, ‘and putting my detective faculties to work. (Don’t groan! I know you don’t think much of them, but let me tell you that I’ve been of inestimable service to Mrs Croc. more than once by applying my brainpower to her problems.) Anyhow, the conclusion I’ve come to is that Manoel, for some reason best known to himself, wanted to get me, and therefore Mrs Croc. and Gavin, out of that house at that time. He thought that if I were flung out, Mrs Croc. would go, too, in support of her P. Sec., and that Gavin (having, possibly, poked him in the nose first) would follow suit. It may be that he was keener to get rid of the boy-friend than of anybody else, and, of course, if Gavin had hit him, there would have been nothing for it but the final leave-taking, apologetic or at daggers drawn as might transpire.’
‘Why should he want to get rid of Robert?’
‘Policeman, chump.’
‘Oh, Dog! Why shouldn’t he want a policeman in the house?’
‘Curiously enough, dear, because people don’t when they’re up to N.B.G. and, if you ask me, that’s just exactly what that Manoel is up to. I’d like to know how often he sleeps in that house o’nights.’
‘Nonsense! You’ve got nothing whatever to go on in saying that!’
‘I feel it in my Highland bones.’
‘Time your Highland bones had more sense. You’re prejudiced against Manoel just because he’s a foreigner!’
‘I’m not, either! I hate racial prejudice, and all that, just as much as you do. More, in fact, because I’ve got more imagination than you have. No, it’s nothing to do with his being a Mexico-Spaniard (and a bull-fighter to boot). It’s because he’s definitely anti-Bohun, and I know he means to do something about him. Sir B. is terrified out of his life. For some time he’s been expecting something to happen to him, and he really had us and Gavin there to guard him.’
‘But you told me yourself, when we were talking about the party the other day, that Sir Bohun is a little bit mad,’ argued Alice reasonably, ‘and the first thing mad people do is to get a persecution complex.’
‘All right, all right. Well, look here, I’d better get off while the boys are out of the way and can’t pester me to tag them along.’
‘You can borrow the car – or there’s a horse. It’s by-roads nearly all the way.’
‘I’ll walk, thanks. I can think better when I’m walking, and, anyway, I need the exercise. Back in time for tea. Doing more of those potted-meat sandwiches? – Good! I hoped you were. So long! Be seeing you again by the time it’s dark.’
CHAPTER 8
THE GHOST STATION
‘ “You are not afraid, are you?”
“Not in the least,” I answered’
GUY BOOTHBY – Doctor Nikola
*
LAURA STILL RETAINED something of her childhood sense of adventure and romance. the ghost station fascinated her, with its dumps of heavy iron objects to which she could assign no name. welded on to her original bias towards the strange and the bizarre were the essays of that interpretive and poetic genius Paul Jennings, and, because of his extraordinary and prodigal vision, she saw more in the ghost station than was actually, pedestrianly, there.
Apart from being unable to name any of it, she could not imagine what was the reason for, or the function of, most of the discarded ironwork she saw about her on the two deserted and dirty platforms. Strange objects on wheels, stranger objects without wheels but having rusty, unconventional rollers, objects with large handles and a kind of amphibian frightfulness as though they were alligators prepared to look like logs, or logs prepared to look like alligators, smothered both sides of the station, a nightmare collection of junk to which she could ascribe no possible purpose, either in the past, present, or future.
The dog was there, all right. Laura made it her first business to establish that as a fact. He whined at her approach, and as she spoke to him he backed away, timid and mistrustful. She continued to talk, and proffered the meaty bone with which she had come provided. The dog wagged his tail (he was indeed a hybrid animal, she thought), looked up at her, then took the bone delicately between his teeth and retired to a corner. At the same time Laura heard the sound of an approaching train and, her business with the dog being satisfactorily concluded, she went out to see it go by.
As, however, she was undoubtedly trespassing, she decided that to take cover while she watched might be prudent if somewhat inglorious, and glanced round for a sniping post. As it happened, the station was approached by a considerable bend in the direction from which the train was coming, so that she had plenty of time to leave the ruined waiting-room, and take up a strategic position behind some Emmett apparatus before the train entered the station.
The train passed through at about thirty-five miles an hour, and Laura was about to emerge when an unusual sight caused her to go hastily back into hiding. This apparition was that of a girl on a bicycle who was riding along the yard-wide flattened verge at the side of the railway track.
When she drew level with the ramp which formed the end of the platform, the girl dismounted, pushed the bicycle up the slope and along the platform, and then propped it up against the wall. From the carrier she unstrapped a petrol can, and from a basket on the handlebars she extracted a parcel.
Laura, startled, recognized her as Celia Godley, Sir Bohun Chantrey’s twenty-two-year-old niece. She did not know what to do. She did not want to spy on the girl, but she did not intend to disclose her own presence. She found that there was nothing for it but to watch what Celia did, and it was soon clear that the object of the girl’s visit to the ghost station was to feed the dog and give it something to drink. These humanitarian activities concluded, she came out of the waiting-room, looked about her, then walked back to where she had left her bicycle. She carried the petrol can, swinging it easily, strapped it on to the carrier, put a screwed-up piece of paper in the basket on the handlebars, and soon was pedalling back by the way she had come.
Laura came out of hiding and dusted her skirt with her hand. She could make nothing at all of the incident.
‘Hm!’ she said aloud. ‘Doesn’t look as though my bone will be as good an introduction to a beautiful friendship as I’d hoped. However, this is most intriguing. If it’s her dog, why did she streak away from him with the rest of them at the ball? – and why does she keep him in such a peculiar place as this? And if it isn’t her dog, who’s she stooging for?’
She marched up and down the platform for a bit because she was cold. Then she went into the waiting-room to see what the dog had done with her bone. The dog was lying down. His bowl of water, supplied, she felt certain, from the petrol can, was half-empty. Laura glanced round for the bone. A tail wagged half-uncertainly, and the bone was disinterred from beneath an old sack. The dog then lay with it between his paws and looked at her with sagacity. Satisfied that the fresh-looking bone had not been allowed to betray her presence, Laura left the station and walked back to the farm. It was a considerable distance away, and the walk allowed time for thought, but the more she thought, the more puzzling became the whole affair.
Mrs Bradley listened in silence over the telephone to the tale when Laura rang her up that evening, but that she was interested Laura had not the slightest doubt. When the brief narrative was ended, Laura asked the obvious question.
‘What do you make of it all?’
‘Only one thing seems clear at present,’ Mrs Bradley replied. ‘The dog does not belong to Celia, but she helps to look after it by taking food and water. It is a mystery, this dog. I should like to find out more about it, I confess. Since, however, it is not our business, I think we shall have to leave matters as they are. The dog has been a mystery from the time of his appearance at the party.’
‘I am going there again to-morrow, at the same time, to see what happens. It won’t be much trouble to keep away from Celia, and as soon as she has
gone I’m going to let the dog loose for a bit. It’s cruelty to keep him tied up in that beastly waiting-room. He isn’t savage, he’s only puzzled and lonely.’
‘Well, kindly remember that if he eats you I disclaim all responsibility. However, if I really believed he was dangerous, I should forbid you to go there again. When next I see Sir Bohun I will find out what I can about Celia, but I shall not mention the dog,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘How is Alice? Quite well? And how are the little boys? … Excellent. Good-bye, then. Robert is going to drop in on you when his duties permit. He dined here last night and thinks the Gunter case is breaking very nicely. They are pretty sure of a conviction. Once they had interpreted correctly the clue of the dining-club tea-cloth, everything fell into place. Good night, dear child. Sleep well.’
Laura slept as well as she usually did – that is, for the three to four hours which seemed all that was necessary to restore the energy she used up during her day. For the rest of the night she turned over and over in her brain the extraordinary matter of the railway-station Hound of the Baskervilles, but this proved to be a waste of time, for she could come to no conclusion at all which made any kind of sense.
She put the matter out of her mind on the following morning, and took the boys out for a ride. The boys were anxious to visit the disused station again, and expressed deep disappointment when she refused to go there with them. Alice backed her up firmly.
‘It’s no business of yours,’ she said, ‘and you’ve no right to poke about where you’re not wanted.’
‘We could take it a bone when we’ve got one,’ said Philip hope-fully, when they got back after their ride. ‘When will there be another bone, Aunt Alice?’
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