The Case of the 'Hail Mary' Celeste

by Malcolm Pryce

  ‘Damn fool was supposed to take care of her.’

  ‘I said shut it.’ He turned to me. ‘Your girl is fine, she just slipped, that’s all.’

  Old mumbled into this whisky glass. ‘Slipped.’

  Young flinched. ‘In fact, she was jolly lucky she was with me, and not him. He’s a fine one with the ladies.’

  Old laughed, the way a man does sometimes when words hit home.

  ‘Yes, why don’t you ask him what happened to Sister Beatrice?’ He raised his voice, addressing Old. ‘Tell him what you did to her.’

  Old made a sigh of contempt.

  ‘She’s here, you know. You can see her if you like. But you’ll have to dig. He buried her deep . . . isn’t that right?’

  I cast a glance at Mr Old.

  ‘Mr Old gave her a lift in his car, didn’t you? Always the gentleman.’ He returned his attention to me. ‘By the way, if you were looking for her, you were digging in the wrong spot.’

  ‘My supposition was that you people did something terrible to her so that it could appear she had gone missing. And you could blame her for the fire.’

  ‘Bravo,’ said Young.

  ‘I didn’t want to believe such a thing.’

  ‘Too bad, as the Americans say.’

  I turned to Old. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, Mr Old, I think you are . . . well, I don’t quite know how to find the words. I’ve never met . . . never believed an Englishman could behave in such an unconscionable manner.’

  Young sniggered. Old intoned softly,

  The river of death has brimmed his banks,

  And England’s far, and Honour a name,

  But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks,

  Play up! play up! and play the game!

  He gave another sour laugh. ‘That’s what old Apsley sings when he’s in his cups, isn’t it?’ He looked up from his glass and it seemed as if the alcoholic fug that had clouded his brains and slurred his words cleared for a second or so. ‘Believe me, sonny Jim, you don’t win a war by playing the game. You win by being the first to gouge the other chap’s eye out with your thumb.’

  Our attention was distracted by the sound of a car pulling up. Doors opened and were slammed. We looked to the door. Three people came in. Sturridge, the chauffeur, Lord Apsley, and Jenny, her hands bound with packing string, in front of her like a posy. She turned to me, and cried out, ‘Jack!’ The area around her right eye shone a livid blue, but worse than this were the dark rivulets of kohl down her cheeks that indicated she had been crying. She darted towards me. Mr Young, keeping the gun trained on me, took a step to one side and shoved her violently with the open palm of his hand. She tripped and fell heavily on her face, unable to use her hands to cushion the blow. A droplet of blood fell from her nostril on to the cold floor. ‘You swine!’ I said to Young and swung the shovel. It was the same fluid movement of a fly-fishing man casting his hook. The blade that had seen so many breakfasts sizzle and fry in the firebox smashed into his ear and crushed it as if it had been a fried egg. He cried, ‘Oh!’ and in the same moment he fired the pistol. I should have been dead, but having stepped towards Jenny, and his not having corrected his aim, I was hit not in the chest but in the left bicep, where the bullet passed straight through. At the same time he fell to the ground, reeling from the shock of the GWR shovel hitting his ear. I looked down. My left arm hung loose, my shirt sleeve became hot and wet with blood. It hurt like blazes. Young had lost hold of the gun and was still bewildered in a world of pain and confusion. Driven by instinct he fumbled like a blind man for the gun on the floor. I kicked it away, but too forcefully. It came to rest at Lord Apsley’s feet. He did not bend down but, keeping his eyes on me, reached into his coat and drew out his own gun. It was a Webley Mark II .38. The official service pistol of an officer in the British Army. ‘More than happy to shoot you, Jack, if that is your wish,’ he said.

  I turned my gaze to him.

  ‘Drop the shovel, there’s a good chap.’ Our eyes met. ‘Sturridge, pick up the gun.’ The chauffeur obliged.

  ‘Now, Wenlock,’ said Apsley, ‘put down the shovel. Do it now. I would no more hesitate to shoot you than I would a wog.’

  Sturridge pressed the gun barrel into the temple of Apsley, and said, ‘Nor would I you, you old queen.’

  Lord Apsley did not move, hardly reacted; but the tiniest change in the way he set his jaw indicated that, along with everyone else in the room, he knew the tables had been turned. Sturridge continued to press the barrel of the gun against the lord’s temple whilst gently reaching round and taking the Webley service pistol. He held it out to me without looking at me. I walked over and took it. Lord Apsley asked if he might sit down. His tone was calm, cold, and contained within it the sense of repressed fury, a fury I saw once long ago at the orphanage when he beat Tumby in a manner out of all proportion to his minor crime. A chair was provided and he lowered himself gratefully, exhausted. Mr Old wore a grin on his face, an exaggerated one, partly from the last stages of drunkenness, but partly of amusement as if this were the best joke yet. On the floor, Young made an attempt to rise, but the gasp of pain that accompanied the attempt showed that the shovel had exacted a heavy toll on him. He wasn’t seriously injured but for a while, at least, it didn’t look like he would be going anywhere. Blood trickled from his ear.

  Jenny, Sturridge and I walked out into the cold afternoon. Sturridge shot the tyres out on the Morris 1000 and we left in Lord Apsley’s Rover.

  We made good time driving back to Weeping Cross. Sturridge was a good driver. There was little traffic and he drove fast without in any way being risky. The mood in the car was a cocktail of conflicting emotions, perhaps dominated by a repressed exultancy and disbelief at what had transpired. There can’t have been another group of travellers on new year’s eve with quite such a strange tale to tell.

  ‘I really can’t thank you enough for that Gosling’s Friend badge,’ said Sturridge as he kept a keen eye on the road ahead. ‘My boy found it in his stocking on Christmas morning. His little face really was a picture.’

  As we drove through the darkened countryside, Jenny helped me remove my coat and jacket and attended to the bullet wound. She tore a strip of silk from the lining of her coat and fastened a bandage as best she could.

  ‘I wonder what will become of me now,’ said Sturridge.

  ‘Mr Sturridge, you must become Fireman Stalham once again.’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’

  ‘I see no reason why you shouldn’t. You really have done very little wrong, other than to be the victim of an unfortunate accident. My employment officially extends until the middle of the month, and I shall submit my report. I will say poor Driver Groates was trying to retrieve his hat which had blown out when he collided with the bridge. I shall recommend you be reinstated. Provided you stick to the story, there is no one to gainsay it.’

  ‘Except Lord Apsley.’

  ‘What would he gain by revealing the truth?’

  ‘He might want to be awkward. He won’t forget what happened back there. We’ve stolen his car, have we not?’

  ‘Since you are the chauffeur, I’m not sure if it counts as stealing, but it hardly matters. I recommend you remove yourself to a safe place and telephone Lord Apsley. You must tell him that you know all about his cowardice in the face of the enemy, how he cried for his mother on the battlefield.’

  ‘I could not condemn a man for crying, Mr Wenlock. There is a lot in this world that can make a man cry.’

  ‘I couldn’t either, but this man once had a soldier shot for crying, and yet cried himself. It is no shame in my book, but it is in his and we must take advantage of that. I expect those chaps at his club, Marmaduke’s, esteem him quite highly?’

  ‘Oh indeed. Old soldier, they all look up to him.’

  ‘Then I imagine he would be loath for them to learn the truth about him. I expect, too, in the conduct of your duties as a chauffeur, you have witnessed him in numerous
other indiscretions?’

  ‘It would make your toes curl what I’ve seen.’

  ‘There you go then. You merely have to make a deal – your silence for his. I can’t see what he would have to gain by disagreeing. After all, the very reason he took you into employ as his chauffeur was to shut you up.’

  The clocks of the town were striking a quarter past five as he dropped us at the station. We shook hands and made our parting. Since we still had time to spare, Jenny and I went to my office. It was cold and dark but strangely comforting. Once inside, Jenny spun round then jumped into my arms. I held her with my good arm, for a while, as the other hung limp by my side. I pressed my cold cheek on to the silky top of her hair. A distant rumble approached, the floor hummed, the room filled with the smell of sulphur before fading again. The 5.17 to Hereford, just like on the first day she came to my office. Jenny pulled back and looked up into my face. Her eyes glittered in the darkness.

  ‘You never gave me a Gosling’s Friend badge, you rotter.’

  ‘I would have, but I thought . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was worried you might consider it beneath you.’

  ‘Shows you how much you know me then, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I expect it does.’

  There was a slight pause and Jenny said, ‘That was your cue to say you would like to get to know me better.’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, I would.’

  ‘It works better if I don’t have to prompt you.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But I’m really not very good at—’

  ‘I know.’

  Half her face was darker than the room; the right-hand edge held a pale yellow gleam from outside. There was an intensity to the light that suggested the snow was sticking on the awning above the platform. We listened to the shrill cry of a whistle, shouts, doors slamming. I moved a strand of hair from the corner of her mouth and touched her bruised eye. She flinched.

  ‘What beasts these people are,’ I said.

  ‘They killed the man in the bookshop. Mr Dombey. They started the fire. I heard them talking about it.’

  ‘Why would they do such a thing?’

  ‘They think he might be Cadbury.’

  ‘No,’ I whispered. I squeezed my eyes closed at the horror of this casual murder of an innocent man. ‘No.’ I picked up the telegram from the table. ‘Cadbury is Hershey Lindt. I’m sure of it. He’s arriving tonight at Bristol.’

  We caught the York to Bristol Temple Meads. It would be the last journey the train would make as part of the Great Western Railway. Tomorrow the train would make the same journey at the same time, but it would be different. I did not know in precisely what way, but it would be different, and not as good. The thing that made it different, the thing that would be gone after midnight, is not something you can see. Not something you can touch or hold. You cannot even rightly say what it is. It’s like when you walk into a church and you lower your voice. You feel something you cannot describe. For hundreds of years simple folk would have gathered there and looked up in hope or fear. Over the generations the something accumulates. It gets into the old wood and stone, the way perfume left in a drawer leaves a scent that lingers long after the perfume bottle has gone. You cannot hold it in your hand, or put it in a bottle, you cannot point to it or describe how to capture it. You cannot name it. But the strongest things can be things like this. All over the land people meet and part, they undertake journeys that they hope will change their lives, they return from journeys a different person to the one that left. This is the perfume of a railway station. In a church it is the smell of mildew and candlewax, or wood polish and soft disinfectant on tiled floors, dusty cassocks and mouldy air from high in the roof where it is always chilly, or oil lamps and brass polish. In a railway station it is smoke and steam, sulphur and ash; or wet raincoats and wet dogs, carbolic and coal tar soap, Kiwi dark tan shoe polish, lady’s perfume from Boots, hot Bovril and tea from flasks; tears. It is the accumulation of joy that builds in the heart when people are reunited with those they love, or the sadness when they part at the ticket barrier. The paraphernalia of the station platform, the trolleys and porters, the bags, the trunks, the hanging signs and enamel Player’s signs, the gleaming track and distant signals, all these are props on the stage of our lives. They quicken the heart as we scan the horizon for the first signs, the little puffs and far-off wail. The railway journey is a small piece of wonder in our sombre lives. It is always undertaken with a secret thrill at the possibility of what may happen. It is a thing called Hope.

  Our world as we steamed through the night was a dim compartment lit by yellow lights that were reflected in the dark glass and seemed to accompany us outside too, a second room containing the both of us, travelling alongside our train. As we journeyed, I mentally composed the report I would write on behalf of Fireman Stalham; and I pondered the telephone call he should make to Lord Apsley. As events were to transpire, Fireman Stalham was later reinstated to his former employ without needing to make the telephone call. Cheadle broke off relations with Lord Apsley, and some time towards the end of January, Apsley travelled to a cold and deserted seaside town where he went to the desk of a drab hotel and asked for Room 42. He had no suitcase and said he wished to retire early without taking dinner. He ordered instead a glass of whisky. About an hour after it was delivered they heard a shot.

  We spent most of the journey lost in our own thoughts. From time to time, wayside halts or crossing gates would rush up like ghosts and disappear again just as fast. For a brief moment there would be half a glimpse; the five white bars of the gate, and a disc the colour of blood; a man and boy and dog, standing by the gates; a car waiting perhaps, but not many cars tonight; as midnight approached, fewer people were travelling. Our train was nearly empty. We sat in a dark cell, like two people posing for a photograph. Sometimes, we saw the lights of hamlets where folk would be preparing for the arrival of the new year. There was an otherworldly quality to the prospect, as if we were viewing the passage of their lives from a remote height and had been granted a privileged view that revealed their urgency, the way our lives pass by sometimes, flash by like a train in the night, and it reminded me of the words that Cheadle had uttered with so much passion when he told me about Florence. We all assumed the episode with his lover was a source of perennial regret to him, but in truth it was the one thing in his life he did not regret. The single episode of joy that would nourish his heart like honey as he looked back on his life from his death bed. Cheadle did not give a damn for his blotted copybook, and what after all was that but a means to blind us, to conceal from us the truth? It shocked me that a man could be made so blind, have the course of his whole life determined by such a childish admonition as a blotted copybook. I knew with a pain in my heart that I had been the most blind of all. For had I not so arranged my life, this wonderful precious gift that my mother . . . yes, I had so often dreamed of her making that lonely journey on the 27 bus to the orphanage, but had I ever really understood the pain it must have caused her to give me up? A mother who gives up her son so that he will have a chance in life? For that act contains within it the recognition that the circumstances of her life were so broken and without hope that they could never be fixed, and she gives up all hope for herself and invests it in the boy, believing that those to whom she entrusts his future will honour that covenant. But they cheated her. Cheadle was right. We had all been taught to scorn him, but he had been the wise one.

  Another wayside halt swept into view, a man alone at the crossing gate staring with wistful confusion at the thunder of the passing train, snowflakes swirling sadly about his face. I turned to Jenny and asked her to marry me. I was going to explain to her the urgency, how we must hurry because tonight held such a special status in the annals of days, because on the stroke of midnight the authority vested in the captain of a ship and the driver of a Great Western Express to join man and woman in the bond of matrimony would be rescinded. But I said it not, because J
enny said yes, yes, yes, before the words of my explanation could even form. And then she kissed me and pressed her face against mine, and I realised that it no longer mattered if we were married tonight or five minutes after midnight, because I no longer gave a hoot.

  THE BOY’S OWN RAILWAY GOSLING ANNUAL

  Vol.VII 1931 Price: 1/-

  Replies to our readers’ letters

  MISS DAISY C., PINNER—No English schoolboy has ever been hit on the head by a falling meteorite. You will have to find other methods of dealing with your brother.

  HARRY BIGGINS ESQ., INVERNESS—It is true that the eye in certain specialised ophthalmic procedures can be removed from its socket and reinserted, all the while still attached to the optic nerve. While outside the socket, however, it does not ‘see’ anything. Even if it did, no surgeon would be so frivolous as to perform the trick you describe.

  QUENTIN PEASWORTHY, WINCHESTER—The effect on your cook, though dramatic, would not be as you envisage. Steamrollers operate more like the iron your housekeeper uses on your shirts. Only in cartoons do they flatten everything in their path.

  THE CONTINUING ADVENTURES OF RAILWAY GOSLING CADBURY HOLT – ON THE TRAIL OF THE MISSING NUNS!

  A Prospect of Havilah

  But this was no simple tunnel through a mountain, it was a staircase to another world, an ancient land older than time itself, begotten in the deep earth’s womb. There was no sun and no source for the light that we could see, it was everywhere and nowhere, as if the world itself glowed like the embers of a fire. There was vegetation, not the soft and smiling trees we had left on the surface but dark and stunted cauliflowers larger than a man at which buzzed winged lobsters that snapped at us with their dark pincers as we passed. We stood on a ledge and looked out upon the land. Black, still waters glistened and the leader of our party gave me to understand through a simple pantomime of a man writhing in a deathly agony that I was not to drink the water. But fool that I was, so parched was my throat, that I could not forbear to drink some droplets from the calyx of a flower and within an hour was afflicted with a terrible delirium. I was unable to walk and the porters carried me trussed on a pole in the way I had seen them do with their favourite hunted food, chimpanzee. For a week I raved, as we slowly traversed that blasted world, and what dread visions and phantasms appeared to me during that mania! I saw the towers and broken spires of a shattered city standing beside a sea that gleamed like the eye of the leviathan in the deep. Sleep withheld her gentle grace from me and I beheld the days as wide-eyed and fearful as men in gaols who await the kiss of Caiaphas at dawn.