Lost baggage porter js-3

by Andrew Martin

  The thought came that I could wake Sampson and tell him I'd been put up to this by his confederate – the designing fellow skulking in the doorway. It would be my word against Hopkins's. Might Sampson believe me, and then order Mike not to make his call? Mike's true governor was Sampson, after all, and he would have believed that the orders he'd had from Miles Hopkins were given on the say-so of Sampson.

  My finger ends met paper, and I said out loud: 'I have my fingers on one of the bloody things.'

  'Collect the tickets scissor-like,' said Hopkins from the doorway.

  Sampson slept on, silent and quite still as my fingers closed over the paper, dragging it into the light. The left-lug- gage ticket was blue, and the words upon it were in English. It was the one from Charing Cross, and the colour of it gave me the beginnings of an idea.

  I stood back from the couch and, looking directly across the room at Hopkins, folded the blue ticket several times over, and lowered it into my own right trouser pocket.

  'Give it here,' he whispered from the doorway.

  'Hold on, mate,' I said. 'I'm going in for the other. I know it's there.'

  I was sweating like a bull as I started on my second finger creep. But just as my fingertips had reached the pocket entrance for the second time, another train came rattling along the line below. Its rapid approach seemed to send a secret message to Sampson's right arm, which began to rise – a snake being charmed to the tune of a train. It wavered in the air, making as if to swipe at me. I drew back, and the thick arm landed heavily on top of the right pocket entrance, sealing it up, preventing any further attempts and deciding me upon my idea.

  As the train rattled away I turned to Hopkins, saying, 'We must give it up now.'

  He nodded. He could see the sense of that.

  'Hand over the blue one,' said Miles. 'It's the English one, en't it?'

  I did not have Hopkins down as a violent man, but I knew in that instant that he would never let me go even if I gave over the ticket. Why would he, knowing I was a copper? He would guess that the moment I was free, I would ask for men to be sent to the left-luggage offices, to prevent the money being taken, and to arrest anyone trying to claim it. As he looked on, I reached into my trouser pocket, where lay two blue left-luggage tickets. One unfolded, the other folded tightly. I took out the first. It was the ticket I'd been given at York in return for the good suit after my hotel breakfast with the Chief. I placed it on Sampson's belly, and retreated from the couch, making towards the door, and Hopkins.

  'You must take it yourself,' I said, drawing level with him.

  The ticket rose and fell with Sampson's belly, stirring somewhat in the breeze from the open window. Hopkins did not look at me but, cursing in an under-breath, moved rapidly towards the fluttering blue paper with knife in hand. As he reached out to take it I gave a cry, something that was not even a word. But it was loud, and I saw Sampson rise in the moment before I turned and fled, screaming out with rapid rising glee. I was the brilliant sleuth hound after all. I had recovered half the stolen money, and I'd fixed Hopkins, Sampson, or the two bastards both… But most likely Hopkins, for he only had the blade where Sampson had the shooter. I saw in my mind's eye – as I crashed down those red-carpeted stairs – the bookstall at York station, with the glowing covers of the shilling novels, and all the detective heroes there depicted… But in the next instant the bookstall of my mind combusted in my rage at my own stupidity, and a terrible coldness came over me. I had won out over the ticket, and I had set the two at each other's throats, but Hopkins would not now be able to take back the order he had given. I had condemned the wife to the revenge of Mike.

  I flew on, and at one mid-air moment – as I bounded the final three steps of the second or third landing – I thought I heard the crack of a gun – or was it a cry? – from the floors above.

  I pounded on down the red-carpeted stairs, past the doors of all the sleeping artists, until I was at the front door of the hotel, and out of it and away, flying along shuttered streets, boots rattling crazily on the cobbles, with two cabs rushing along beside me. I tried to gaze through the windows as I ran, half expecting to see Sampson in there, taking aim with his shooter. The two cabs both turned left at the end of the street, so that was a direction leading… somewhere.

  I took that turning myself, and was galloping alone in a wide street with thin trees on either side. I had to believe that Hopkins had been spinning a yarn; that no order had been given to Mike, for it was a queer sort of thing to ask: do such and such a thing unless you hear from me. Or that Mike would not obey. Or then again, I might be able to beat Mike to Thorpe- on-Ouse. Would he go out in the middle of the night? If not, there was hope, for I might be able to return by morning.

  But this was all a gamble, with Lydia's life as the stake.

  I ran on. Why was Sampson not giving chase? (For I was taking for granted that he'd won the scrap.) Perhaps he was, but in the wrong direction. Had I thrown him off already, by taking just one turning? He must know I'd be making for the station. This street was all signs. Without slackening my pace at all, I read 'Boulangerie', 'Glaces', 'Dentiste', 'Pharmacie'… but everything was closed, it being so late.

  The only thing moving in my line of sight was a clock on an archway but there at the end of the street I saw my goal: the mighty window of the Gare du Nord, the eye looking outwards this time. I ran into the station, clattering on to the circulating area where three men in uniform looked at me, as if to say: 'What do you mean by running inside this palace of ours?' One train was leaving as I looked towards the platforms; the others in the station looked dead, stabled for the night.

  Feeling the weight of the guide book in my coat pocket, I took it out, and scrabbled through the pages, finally looking up and asking the three: 'A quelle heure part la premier train… for London?'

  No answer. You'd have thought one of the bastards would have stirred. I turned about and a lady of middling years in a very broad white hat was standing a little way off and saying, in the most beautiful of voices (meaning an English voice): 'The next boat train for London is in half an hour's time, but it goes from Saint-Lazare. There isn't another from here until 4.30.'

  One of the men said a single word, and it sank in slowly with me: 'Metro'. The Metropolitain. The underground railway. They had understood her English better than mine. The human angel was still standing behind the men, still smiling, and not speaking now but pointing with a gloved hand to a spot on the station wall. I ran over, and saw a plan showing… a tangle. I looked behind me at the station clock: midnight. I looked again at the map, which was called a plan. The three guards had gone now and so had the lady, but that meant I would be able to work it out for myself. The glass globes stretched away along the empty platforms, and they lit the way north to Calais. I turned again to the map. At the top, at the north was 'G. du Nord', but it was joined only to a thin pencil stroke of a Metro line. This was a line not yet existing. But the thick black lines were different. They were more useful, for they existed.

  Saint-Lazare must also be somewhere to the north if it sent trains to London. I roved immediately right, then left from the spot marked G. du Nord, and there was Saint-Lazare. It was to the left, and connected to a thick black line. The nearest station on the thick black line to Gare du Nord was called… well, it began with 'B', and it was the longest French word I'd so far struck.

  I was running again through empty streets, heading left from Gare du Nord. I had twenty-five minutes remaining at the outside. I was checked by the sight of two men walking towards me under a metal bridge: one was broad, the other thin. I watched them, putting my hand into my pocket, and touching the folded left-luggage ticket. It seemed a very poor sort of prize. I ought not to have gambled with Lydia's life, but with my own. I had not been gentlemanly.

  The two men moved towards me, becoming by degrees ordinary Frenchmen; behind them, an electrical train went over the metal bridge.I ran towards the bridge – and in fact it was a station, with th
e ticket offices below. Electrical train, electrical station. All bright lights and a smiling Frencher at the ticket window. 'Saint-Lazare' I said, reaching into my pocket… all my pockets… but there were only the two ten-pound notes. I had no French money. I looked around, and I believe that I was searching for the Angel-lady in the broad white hat, but the ticket was there waiting on the window ledge, pushed out by the clerk.

  I held up a ten-pound note.

  'Just remembered,' I said, 'only English money.'

  What he made of that I don't know, because I took the ticket and ran for the stairs that led to the platform. It was the Underground but you went up to reach it. The train came in: a line of boxes. It stopped in a heap, the doors flew open with a sneezing sound, and an official walked slowly out from one of the carriages. He watched me carefully as I climbed aboard into a carriage containing four men, all smoking. The train ran along level with the rooftops for a little way, before dipping down into a tunnel. At a station called Villiers I climbed down to look for another line, as I knew I must according to the plan I had seen. After charging along white tunnels following blue arrows that I didn't understand, I came onto a platform where an electrical train waited. I climbed aboard without any notion of where it was going. One station later, its doors opened on the words 'Saint-Lazare'. I ran up into the mainline station passing a ticket gate with no checker. Into the station: few people, low roof, smoke everywhere. A clock dangled in the smoke: 12.25 ~ five minutes remaining. I looked at the signs: 'Bar', 'Consigne', 'Billets Internationaux', 'Telegrammes'. I could send a telegram. Who to? The Chief. But he would be in bed asleep, or he might just be dead. It came to me then: the Chief knew my address.I looked at the signs again: 'Telephone'. I could not telephone. I was not up to it; did not know how. I looked again at the clock: 12.27. There were some electrical trains in the bays; but smoke floated over from somewhere beyond. I saw the ticket windows. Would they accept English money? 12.28. I could not see the money-changing place. I dashed to the ticket window – Billets Internationaux – and slammed down one of the tenners. 'London' I gasped out, 'boat train, second-class', and then I added for good measure, 'deck', which I'd heard Sampson say at Charing Cross. The man was writing out the ticket before I'd finished. But this writing out took an age. I looked at the clock. Dead on half past.

  The ticket was pushed across to me, and the man began counting out the change. But he stopped half way because he was short of English money; he had to go off into some back room to fetch more. I was gone, flying past the ends of the electrical trains, looking for the source of the smoke and steam. It came from an engine on the furthest platform – an engine that was leaving. I ran after the last carriage; it was moving slowly, and soon I was level with the buffers. I ran on, so that I was level with the rear windows, but now it was all I could do to keep up. The passengers inside were all looking dead ahead. I yelled out, but now I was only level with the back of the rear carriage once again, and then I was staring at the strange looking red lamp on the retreating back of the train.

  I came to a stop, and drew a long breath. I looked to the right, and there was the whole business over again: a long train, steam locomotive at the front, pulling forwards. I ran across the platform, and was up and inside in no time. I found a seat next to a woman in Victorian black, who said: 'You're in a rare hurry.'

  'This is the boat train for England, en't it?' I asked, but it was a daft question, for the very fact we were speaking English proved that it was.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The journey passed in a daze of questions. Was Mike up to making a clean sweep? What was the character of the man? And who was the splitter? If Lund was the culprit… why would he try to check an investigation he'd started? Could it be his governor, Parkinson? Could it be the Chief… if he'd been left alive after the shooting? I thought of the little clerk: Roberts. Had he worked out that I was a policeman? He'd certainly made me jumpy with his questioning. And was he still somehow in with the gang, despite having the skin of his hands flayed off with burning metal and then being shot at? No, he was finished; he'd been too free of his patter; had talked himself into an early grave. He was shot -1 was quite sure of it.

  We had now entered a great ravine five times higher than the train. A giant white arrow painted on the left-hand wall showed the way out. Off to the right was an illuminated shed lifted up on piers, so that the engines could go in from underneath. I saw a white, shining church on a hill far above it, and shortly afterwards we were into blackness. I looked down at the Metropolitain ticket that I'd not given in. It said 'Aller et Retour', but I never meant to make the return journey.

  I thought of Edwin Lund. All that religious blather, forever talking goody-goody, and going round the houses. He would never act for himself but do all his work by an agent, with little insinuations here and there… But to what purpose?

  To think of the wife in the same room as Mike was impossible… and with all the copies of the reports to hand. How was Mike described in those? Not favourably. The wife had thought she was only marking time by her typewriting: it was something to be going on with before her brain could be really put to some good use. She'd talked at times of turning schoolmistress, which was possible, at a stretch. There were courses to be taken, dragging on for years.

  I thought again of the wife, now walking towards me along a sunlit empty street in Halifax… only she'd spied me too early, and didn't know where to look, and there hadn't been a great deal else to look at in that street, so she'd been in a fix. Well, she had coloured up beautifully by the time we'd come close to.

  Whatever had gone on in that hotel room, Sampson would be heading back to the homeland now; coming after me. The gracious white-hatted lady in Gare du Nord had said there was no further boat train until… four o'clock was it? I had stolen a march on him at least. But just then the train stopped, hard.

  I looked at the Victorian party, and she said: 'Strange.'

  There was nothing at all to be seen beyond the windows.

  After five minutes, I made out a man walking slowly along the tracks with a pipe in his mouth. He carried a lamp, and rain whirled around him. I pointed him out to the lady, who called down something in French, to which he shouted up a reply.

  I asked: 'What's the cause of the delay?'

  'Oh… France,' she said with a sigh.

  'The boat'll have to wait though, won't it?'

  'It will not,' she said. 'They've passengers to collect on the other side… Not that they care for those any more than they do for us.'

  The train waited, and when half an hour had passed I began to think of Sampson beating me to Thorpe-on-Ouse, leave alone Mike. After three quarters of an hour I began pacing the carriage. I could not sleep, think, stop thinking. Presently, a whistle came from the engine, and the train began to roll forwards, and it continued making twenty miles an hour at the most until a great railway works came in sight, with ranks of half-made engines illuminated by little fires burning about the place. This seemed to give heart to our train, for it at last picked up speed for the run to a spot called Rouen, which was sunk into a stonewalled cutting between two long tunnels. The train stopped here to change engines, and I could see nothing of Rouen but a clock: quarter to four in the morning. The deadest time of all. Within forty-five minutes, Sampson would be able to begin his journey to England if he was so minded.

  I believe I slept during the next stretch, and when I woke we were crawling through the town of Dieppe, making for the sound of seagulls in a thin grey light. It took an age but we reached the harbour where a single steamer waited. I climbed down on to a platform that said 'Dieppe – Gare Maritime' and smelt of fish. There was a fish market to the right. I watched a motor taxi crawl through it as I took my place in the queue for the customs house. Nobody ahead of me was being searched, but I was sure I would be stopped, and some contraband found causing new delay.

  I came out of the customs house ten minutes later, walking underneath a sign reading: 'Aux
Paquebots'. I was quickly aboard. After an hour at sea in clearing light and what might have been moderate rain or spray, I began looking out for the coast of England, and sat there doing so for a further three hours. The crossing was much longer by this route.

  I may have slept again, lulled by the thunder of the paddle – in which case I was woken by the snap of a triangular sail unfurled at the bow to bring the boat into what proved to be Newhaven Harbour station, which was entirely made of wood, and in want of a roof. The London Brighton and South Coast Railway took me, in a dream, to Victoria where, if I'd been feeling brighter, and thinking better, I would have sent a telegram to the post office at Thorpe-on-Ouse, telling the wife to leave the house and not return; instead, I rode the inner Circle to King's Cross where, at midday, I boarded the Scotch Express for York and Edinburgh. Every mile, the swooping telegraph wires told me of the course I ought to have taken. At 3.30,1 glimpsed a finger post by the line reading 'York', and just then the first spatterings of rain fell against the window glass, as if the very word had brought it on.

  PART SIX

  The Hat Box

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Rain blew softly at the windows as the train rocked on. The Cathedral of Peterborough came; the red brick of Retford, red brick of Doncaster; the normal world returning by degrees.

  And York was still there. We passed under Holgate Bridge, where the mass of points made the train thunder until the right line was found, and then all was peacefulness, rain, the gliding of the train as steam was shut off… and Platform Fourteen. I was down long before the train had come to rest, and it was still moving as I pounded over the footbridge. I was the only man running in York station, and I felt foolish – heavy-booted and red-faced like some oaf of a boy, but still I kept on, past the ticket barrier, shouting something about a warrant card, in answer to which I fancied I heard from within the box a low muttering.