The Flying Scotsman

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  I heard a noise just outside my window and I swung round to see what might be its cause, for someone was shouting and there was a flurry of excitement among the porters. What kind of lout could be causing such a ruckus, I asked myself. A moment later I had my answer as Sir Cameron MacMillian, drunk as a proverbial lord, swaggered up to the car, his valet in tow, and a veritable school of porters behind them. I backed away from the window, my heart sinking into my shoes. “Good Lord,” I whispered at this terrible development. We had not planned on having anyone who actually knew us—and Prince Oscar—be aboard the train. And now, Sir Cameron was, and drunk. He could be disastrous for our purpose. I began to wonder how I was to warn Mycroft Holmes when I saw him come aboard, bowler at a jaunty angle on his head, a cigar in his mouth, a stylish cane in one hand, and his double-caped coat open enough to show off his expensive, if slightly garish, suit of dark mallard blue. He was the very picture of a successful traveler and journalist; Edmund Sutton had truly out-done himself.

  At Holmes’ instructions, a small trunk was put into the baggage section of the lounge car, and two valises were carried to his compartment by two porters, Mycroft Holmes coming grandly after them, handing each a shilling for their service, twice the customary gratuity, and for which the porters thanked him profusely. I had not been so generous, as we had planned.

  I was about to go out and warn him of the intrusive element in our plans when Sir Cameron saved me the trouble by reeling aboard, trudging along the corridor to his compartment—the first in the cars—wearing at his valet. I heard the porter leaving Mycroft Holmes offer an apology for this disturbance.

  “A great hero, Sir Cameron, but a great boozer, too, if you know what I mean,” he said as he prepared to leave the car.

  Holmes stopped him. “Is he going all the way to Edinburgh?”

  “Yes, sir. That he is.” The porter tipped his cap and departed.

  I wanted to step into the corridor and have a word with Mycroft Holmes but I hesitated, for if Sir Cameron was drunk enough he might not recognize me or Holmes. That was hoping for a lot, I knew, since Sir Cameron had been in our company for several hectic days when I first went to work for Mycroft Holmes. I remained where I was, waiting to hear the door of the first compartment slam—as I was sure it must—before venturing out to speak with Holmes. As soon as I heard the door bang closed, I slipped out and rapped on the door of compartment two, where Mycroft Holmes was. I did not wait for Holmes to open the door, but stepped inside quickly, taking care to shut it before I spoke.

  Mycroft Holmes was standing by the window adjusting the shades; he barely looked around as he spoke. “Yes, I know. It can’t be helped. We will have to keep Herr Schere in his compartment most of the time, for Sir Cameron will seize upon him and reveal him as soon as he catches sight of him. There is no turning back, Sir Cameron or no. We’re committed now and if we delay we lose all.”

  “But Sir Cameron knows Prince Oscar and—” I began.

  “Yes. Sir Cameron. We must pray he remains drunk or asleep from here until we reach Scotland. Something will have to be arranged. I must say, it is useful that he is in compartment one. We will not have to go past it except to use the lav, and we might do that in the lounge, as I recall.”

  “True enough,” I said, wishing I might share some of his remarkable composure. “What if he should recognize us? Or the Prince?”

  “You mean Herr Schere?” Holmes asked with mild incredulity. “Why on earth would such an important person as Prince Oscar travel in such an undistinguished way? No doubt Sir Cameron is too far gone to be relied upon for any identification.”

  “I hope you are right,” I said with feeling.

  “So do I, dear boy; so do I.” He patted my shoulder. “Speaking of Herr Schere, he should be here any minute. He is in compartment four, as I believe.”

  “Do you know who is in compartment five?” I asked, wanting to reassure myself that we had not just made a mull of our attempt to keep the Prince safe.

  “No, in the dispatch that came before we left the flat the compartment had not yet been reserved.” He began to twirl his watch-fob. “Perhaps it will remain vacant. That would serve our purpose very well.”

  “Do you think so?” I could not rid myself of the conviction that something would happen, that someone would come and our planning would be for nought. The very presence of Sir Cameron shook me to my soles.

  “Try not to despair, Guthrie,” Mycroft Holmes said in heartening accents. “And go along to the lounge car in the next half hour, if you will, just to see what manner of company we have. You will know what to look for.” In his ostentatious clothes I felt as if he were trying to sell me optimism rather than inspire it. “Then we will meet, and you will remain Guthrie, and I will be Micah Holcomb. In fact, to all intents and purposes I probably am already.”

  “I’ll do my best, sir,” I said, and slipped out into the corridor and down to my own compartment where I ended up fretting until I heard Prince Oscar come aboard, coughing to make the most of his tutoring. I stepped out into the corridor as the Prince’s bags were carried on. The porter loaded his valise into compartment two and did not complain when the Prince tipped him half a crown, his hand closing on that lavish amount quickly, in case the Prince should change his mind. I noticed the activity around the train was more hectic as those riding in the second-class carriage strove to get on. A short while later the first warning whistle sounded, signaling the train would leave in five minutes. I became aware of a scramble at the end of this car as the porters struggled with the bags of a late arrival, and I swore under my breath. Compartment five would be occupied after all.

  “Would you let me join you?” Prince Oscar asked as he came into Mycroft Holmes’ compartment.

  “Of course, Herr Schere,” said Holmes with the appearance of enthusiasm I understood from my years in his employ was less than wholehearted.

  The bustle of porters and passengers made one last surge; then the departing whistle sounded and the big engine began to huff and chuff, and slowly the Flying Scotsman pulled away from King’s Cross Station, en route to Edinburgh where we expected to arrive in less than nine hours.

  It took some time for the train to pull out of the city. London sprawled for miles and it tended to extend along the train lines as well. Almost immediately after leaving the station, the train passed through the first of three small tunnels. None were so long that there was more than a momentary darkness, and our review of the route had prepared us for them. Even so, as the light disappeared briefly I was startled to see Mr. Holmes had moved silently from his seat to stand by the door to the corridor. After the third tunnel he sat down without a comment and stared out the window. The Prince and I exchanged glances and then smiles, his suitably nervous. We passed through the stations at Finsbury Park and Wood Green without pausing; the stations looked small after the grandeur of King’s Cross.

  The train halted at a third station near the edge of the city. Here the houses had thinned and the brown pall that often blanketed London had been left behind. Again my employer moved to look first out into the corridor and then the window.

  “A mail stop,” he observed, after a few seconds of studying the scene outside. “Most likely mail for the Far North gathered at the last minute. It should be no problem. Yes, three, four, five, all the gentlemen who entered with the bags have left again. One was likely a sergeant in the service. He has the walk and was more neatly dressed. Good solid yeomen are what make England great.”

  “All that for a postman?” Prince Oscar marveled, as much amused as shocked.

  After the stations we entered a deep cut and for quite a time the view was that of brown stalks and dirt.

  Realizing there was no time like the present, I decided to brave the lounge car, where Mycroft Holmes had suggested he and I might pass some of the time in the company of our fellow-passengers, not o
nly to assess them, but to keep an eye on Prince Oscar without seeming to be obvious about it. I remembered my portfolio and the box of drawing pencils Edmund Sutton had loaned me; it was to be part of my disguise. As I prepared to step into the corridor, I heard a commotion from the head of the car. “Sir Cameron,” I told myself with gloomy satisfaction: Sir Cameron MacMillian, son of the MacMillian, was drunk, and had been drunk, I suspected, since the debacle of a reunion with his German wife. Doubtless Holmes found his presence an annoyance, but would find a way to weave the sodden Scot’s presence into his plans.

  A moment later my suspicions were confirmed as I saw his valet hasten past in the corridor; I decided to follow along and learn what I could. The corridor of the second-class carriage was very like the one in first class, but there were eight of them instead of five and the seats did not make up into beds; which were instead fitted with curtained bunks at the end of the car. Sir Cameron’s valet was still ahead of me, his body moving with the kind of restless urgency of one fearful of punishment, which working for Sir Cameron encouraged. The connecting platform from one car to the next was swaying from speed, and I saw the valet steady himself; I followed his example. In the dining car the napery was in place and the silverware set, but there were no other signs of readiness to serve. We went through it quickly, passing the galley where the sound of banging indicated that preparations were underway for meals; across the next swaying platform we went, the valet six or seven paces ahead of me. I held the door as it began to swing shut and stepped into the lounge car.

  The far end of the lounge car that I entered narrowed to provide a large storage area for supplies and baggage. The door was outlined by a brass strip that contrasted with the heavily stained wood panels that lined the car; the full luxury of the lounge was now visible. While studying the lounge’s other occupants and trying to determine if any were potential threats, I began to enjoy the opulence of my surroundings. There were curtains on the windows of the lounge car, blocking off the view of the fields beyond the tracks. These curtains matched the fine linen that covered the seven tables lining one side of the car. Near the window adjoining each table was a small vase containing a spray of blue flowers. The train swayed around a curve and I wondered how the tall, thin, cut-glass vases remained upright. Then I noticed a small collar had been fitted to each table to contain the fixtures and that the linen cloth stopped just short of it. Certainly those who engineered the marvels had forgotten nothing. Absently I wondered if any of the Race to the North runs had included a lounge car in their configuration.

  I approached the bar that occupied the last several yards of one side of the car; two men tended it. The wall behind them was lined with shelves, each containing an array of the finest liquors; I was particularly impressed by the brandies, including a bottle that was seventy years old. There was also, not surprisingly considering our destination, a selection of Scotch whiskies, including a single malt I knew to be superior but I rarely had the opportunity to enjoy. I stood a moment studying the selection.

  I watched Sir Cameron’s valet take a bottle of brandy from the barkeep, and a snifter, then turn around to leave the car, presumably bound for compartment one in the first-class car. I nodded to him and received no response whatsoever from the harried gentleman’s gentleman. I let my attention wander.

  The valet’s departure left only five of us in the lounge car. The two men behind the elegantly outfitted bar, myself, and two others, seated at the window table, apparently strangers, for they were discussing the weather and the new extravaganza at the Hippodrome, as those who are chance-met do. One man was stoutish, square-faced, between forty and forty-five, of moderate height, with short, blunt fingers that were stained with ink. His companion was somewhat older, an angular chap in good Scottish tweeds, with a subtle air of success about him that his table-partner lacked.

  “—don’t hold with cutting women in half. I don’t think it’s seemly,” said the stouter man, his accent a nice mix of Northumberland and London.

  “But it isn’t as if anyone were really hurt,” said the Scotsman.

  “Still. If anything went wrong, think of the scandal,” the first persisted.

  “If anything went wrong, the police would set it to rights in a trice, with an audience of witnesses.” He reached into his pocket and extracted a pipe and a pouch of tobacco. He went about the task of filling the bowl and tamping down his mixture with the absentminded ease of long practice. His face was calm. “Cutting a woman in half, done by a fine magician, is a harmless entertainment.”

  “But with those horrible murders of eight years ago, and it still unsolved,” the first man exclaimed. “If nothing else it is poor taste to have such a performance until the Ripper is brought to justice. Better to catch a bullet with one’s teeth than remind the public of those murders.”

  I went to the bar and signaled the ’keep. “Quinine, if you please.”

  “And what in it?” the barkeep asked, as he lifted a glass. “Gin?” He was in his thirties, sandy-haired and hale, his moustache neat and turned up with wax. He looked as if he fancied himself a dashing sort.

  “Nothing just yet. The sun’s too high in the sky.” I held out payment and a generous tip. “I need a steady hand in my work.”

  “And what would that be?” The barkeep had asked this so routinely that the words were almost without sense. He was bored but knew what was expected of him.

  “I illustrate travel guides,” I said. “For Satchel’s.”

  “Travel a lot then, do you?” said the barkeep, marginally more interested than he had been. “A job like that, I think you would do.”

  “A fair amount. I was in Constantinople a few years ago. I’ve been to Bombay, as well.” I salved my conscience with the reminder that I had, indeed, been in Constantinople in 1889, but for Mycroft Holmes, not for Satchel’s Guides.

  “You couldn’t pay me to go there, either one,” said the barkeep. “Not with all the wogs and heathens. No, thank you.” He opened a bottle of quinine water. “Dare say you need this because of your time in the East.”

  “Thank you,” I said, taking the glass and holding it carefully as the train rattled and swayed in response to its increasing speed. I went to sit down at the end of one of the upholstered benches, keeping my portfolio with me. I listened to the two men continue their sporadic conversation and waited for more of the passengers to drift in. Despite Mycroft Holmes’ assurance, I doubted I would automatically recognize anything or anyone who came into the lounge as suspicious.

  “They say it will rain again tonight,” the stout man said suddenly with authority. “There isn’t much in the sky to make that likely.”

  “We’re bound north,” the Scotsman reminded him. “It’s wetter in the North.”

  “So it may be,” the stout man said, and reached for a copy of The Scotsman from beside him on the stool. He opened it and began to read with the determination of one trying to remove the print from the page with the power of his eyes.

  The Scotsman lit his pipe at last and the smell of port-soaked tobacco filled the air. He was content to sit and drink his “wee dram,” as my Uncle Bethune used to say when he had his.

  In very little time, a Glaswegian in clothes more appropriate to bird hunting than travel came along from the rear of the train, his dour expression daunting for anyone but a fellow-Scot. He leaned on the bar, glowering forbiddingly down at its surface, and ordered Scotts’ whiskey neat, lifted it, announcing, “To the ruddy Queen, save her,” tossed his drink back, had it refilled and went to a seat as far from the three of us as he could get in the lounge, and proceeded to demonstrate his unsociability by pulling the curtain aside and pointedly staring out the window. I had rarely seen such an unappealing man as he, in his buckskin breeches and high boots. I could understand why the Scot and the Englishman would try their hand at conversation—as you do when you travel with strangers—but
I could not imagine anyone trying to strike up any talk with this Glaswegian.

  I continued my observation, making the quinine last as long as I could, waiting for the luncheon chime. My lack of sleep very nearly caught up with me, for the rocking of the train was soporific and the sound of the wheels became as soothing as the babble of a brook. Were it not for the grim certainty that we were not safe, I might have dozed off. As it was, I tried to clear my head by opening my portfolio and pulling out a few of the sketches Edmund Sutton had so obligingly provided to lend verisimilitude to my role. He had included a few new ones, half done, of buildings of interest along the North Eastern tracks, so that I could claim I had works in progress.

  “Not bad,” said the barkeep, as I held up a fine drawing of the front of Durham Cathedral. “Not bad at all.”

  “Thank you,” I said, changing for one of the incomplete ones, of Stanford Hall in Leicester. The basic form was recognizable, but almost all the details were absent. The Hall was near where that dare-devil Pilcher kept trying to emulate a bird; most often his efforts in powered flight had so far resembled that of the dodo or the ostrich.

  “Have to do some work on it while I have the chance.”

  “While the train’s in motion?” The barkeep was much astonished.

  I realized my mistake as soon as I made it. “Not the finished work, of course; in my business, you often have to work while traveling.”

  The barkeep grunted a kind of acknowledgment and busied himself polishing the bar while the lounge fell silent again, but for the click of the wheels and the rattle and engine bellow of the train. I took out one of the pencils and did what little I could to make it appear I was working on the illustration, but as soon as the luncheon chime sounded, I was johnny-on-the-spot to put away my pencils and drawings and buckle my portfolio closed.