Lost baggage porter js-3

by Andrew Martin

  I thought: I ought to go back directly to the Police Office, and ask after the Chief. Instead, I ran through the ticket hall, and beyond where there were new posters on either side: 'Spring: Conducted Rambles in Yorkshire'. The Humber – that loyal article – remained at the bicycle stand hung with a thousand raindrops. I yanked it free, leapt on the saddle.

  The last two miles of distance…

  There had been no developments in the gardens of Thor- pe-on-Ouse Road. All those householders lived in happy ignorance of the low hotels surrounding the Gare du Nord, the underwater greenness of that Sunday's last bar, the fearful black canyon in which lay the Gare Saint-Lazare. I left the city lamps behind, and on the dark road that ran past the race course, my worst imaginings immediately doubled. The clean sweep was what I had to prevent; the killing of two for the price of one. It could not happen. By picturing the event in my mind's eye I was seeking to make sure of that, because it is known that we are not able to predict the future. What is predicted does not occur.

  I stood on the pedals to increase speed, and towards Thor- pe-on-Ouse the darkness deepened. A man stood in shadow beneath the clock on the gatehouse of the Archbishop's Palace. He stood quite still as I rattled towards him on the Humber. He wore a bowler with a curled brim; did not look a religious type. I thought of the man I had seen outside the bootmakers, standing in between Scott and William Johnson. Had he been sent to keep a watch? I was now bringing all possibilities across the circle of my imagination. I turned into the main street, and there were two men in the road, standing as far apart in the darkness as if they were about to fight a duel. I rode between them knowing that something would happen, and it did: one of the two shouted something and began to give chase. I had gone from the beginnings of hope to desperation in a minute. The men were coming fast, I knew as I dropped the Humber at the gate of 16A. The door was ajar and the lights blazing. I stopped for a moment, and waited for the next thing. A scream. It was my worst imaginings and it was fact. Another scream. Bootsteps on the ground beyond the gate; another shout from that direction, another scream from inside the house. I burst through the door, and the question and answer came at once: the typewriter stood on the strong table, but the report copies were not by its side. The room was empty. One loud bang from upstairs, and the wife screaming again as I set foot on the stairs. There may have come a disturbance from the kitchen, but I ignored it, climbing the stairs towards the scream.

  I opened the bedroom door and a woman was saying, 'Now I want his shoulder, love, so when I tell you, scream for your life.'

  But the wife's scream had come long before the midwife had finished… and the room was full of candles. The wife, the midwife, Lillian Backhouse… all at their different positions (Lillian holding the wife's right hand), like participants in a religious ceremony as they brought a life into the world.

  Hold on a minute: his shoulder!

  The midwife moved aside, and I saw him come tumbling out of the wife, looking for revenge it seemed to me, as though somebody had played a low trick on him by keeping him cooped up for so long in those cramped quarters.

  Lillian Backhouse, who had been holding the wife's hand, was staring at me, and Lydia was looking – not staring – across the top of the baby, which was being brought up towards her.

  'Jim,' she said, and it was the shortest utterance I ever heard her make.

  'The father's here,' said Lillian Backhouse to the midwife, who spun around, looked at me, and turned back towards the baby; she was wiping him down with white towelling. He had a lot of hair at the side, and it seemed to have been combed. I went to the wife, and Lillian Backhouse, indicating me to the midwife with a nod of the head, said, 'We've not seen this one since Sunday.'

  As the baby was cleaned and turned, I saw him full-face for a moment, and I thought: good; I like him. 'I've been in France' I said. 'Jesus Christ,' said Lillian Backhouse. The baby was lying quiet on top of the wife now; they seemed to have been acquainted for years. 'The Chief Inspector came,' said the wife. 'He said not to worry – that you were haring about York after those burglars.' 'You can't hare about a little place like York' I said. 'Well,' said the wife, 'you can.' 'So you weren't too worried… Did he mention any shooting?' 'What shooting?' 'Just any.' 'I'm sure he didn't… How do things stand now? Are you clear of these men?' 'That's just it. I don't believe so. We must all remove, right this minute, to Lillian's house.' I looked at Lillian Backhouse. 'Fine' she said instantly, no doubt having quickly rejected a lot of other possible remarks. The midwife was staring at me, but the situation cracked when I clapped my hands. A relay was created on the staircase, with Peter Backhouse and Bill Dixon, keeper of the Fortune (they'd been the two blokes out in the road) at the end of the chain. They went off through the rain with the crib, layette, blankets, shawls and other baby goods; Lillian Backhouse went next carrying the baby in any number of shawls, and I walked the wife around to the Backhouses' place, which was next to the church. On the way, she said, 'I think we'll call him Harrison.' 'That's Dad's name,' I said. 'I'm quite well aware of that,' she replied. Half an hour later, with the wife settled at the Backhouse place, I was standing with Peter Backhouse before 16A, to which I had returned for no very good reason beyond feeling I ought not to abandon my house for anything. Over the road, the Fortune of War glowed softly, and Peter Backhouse was anxious to be in there. He said: 'You ought to fetch Turnbull; he has a gun, you know.' But I didn't want the complication of a toff about the place, and having to speak mannerly when I didn't much feel like doing so. 'Are you coming in for one?' he said, nodding towards the pub. 'You ought to by rights, today of all days.' 'Don't know' I said. 'Reckon I ought to guard the house.' 'But you're running away from it, en't you?' 'It's all a bit of a tangle,' I said. 'I don't know what's for best.' Silence for a space. 'Bonny kid, any road,' said Backhouse. 'Bit of all right, he is.' 'Did you see him coming out?' said Backhouse. I nodded, and Backhouse pulled a face. I looked along the length of the dark garden. The door of the house had been left ajar, I noticed. 'I think I'll go in for a tick,' I said. 'I might take a pint later on.' 'Just as you like,' said Backhouse, but he was delaying crossing the road. 'I saw a bloke earlier on' he said,'… hanging about near the gateway to the Archbishop's house.' 'OK,' I said, presently. 'Lot of workmen come and go from there' said Backhouse, '… dozens of the buggers, some days.' I gave him 'Good evening', and he walked over the road.

  Chapter Thirty

  I walked back to the house, and pushed the door further open. The gas was still up; the typewriter remained on its table, the fire burning low. I tipped on some more coal, picked up the poker, and thrust its end into the heart of the fire, leaving it resting there so that in time it might come in as a weapon. I walked fast into the kitchen and gave a sudden shout, 'Hey!' while watching the back door. I moved towards it, bolted it, stepped back into the parlour. Parting the lace curtains, I looked across the road toward the Fortune of War, and something about the name of the pub made me reach into my pocket for the Charing Cross left-luggage ticket that was worth the thick end of two thousand pounds.

  It was not there.

  I hunted through every pocket in my suit, looked across the floor, but the thought kept coming back of my scramble for money at the bright, high-level Metropolitans station. It must have tumbled from my pocket then, but the fact didn't seem to signify. The wife was all right – wife and baby – and that was all that mattered for the present. I returned to the parlour, which was too dark or too bright, and no longer at all homely but more like a waiting room, and I sat down in the rocking chair. Outside, the wind was getting up. I could hear trees moving. Half a mile away, I heard a Leeds train going south, fleeing the scene. Over the road, I saw the lights die in the Fortune of War, heard the parting shouts of the drinkers. I sat on, staring through the window, though it was too dark to see anything. When the knock on the door came it must have been past midnight, and I fancy that it woke me up. The knock came again. I sat still and counted my heartbeats: on
e… two… three. The knock came once more. I caught up the poker, and turned the handle of the door with it raised above my head. Standing in the doorway, with the rain blowing into the parlour from behind him, stood the white, maggoty man, Edwin Lund. He wore his porter's suit, the cap without a badge. Over his shoulder was the usual small valise. As he stood in the doorway, he opened the flap and removed from the bag a bundle of muslin. 'The Blocker was about,' he said. 'Mike?' I said. 'Where?' 'Don't fret – I've seen him off.' 'Come again?' I showed him into the parlour, and he was unwinding the muslin as he walked. Closing the door, I turned towards him. It was a revolver that lay in his hands, as I may have guessed it would be. 'Take it' he said. I lifted the gun still in the muslin, stepped back. I put the poker down on the hearth and placed the gun on the strong table. It was bigger than Sampson's, and the letters 'D.A.' were stamped into it. I nodded at the sofa, and Lund sat down on it. His face glowed like gaslight, and he coughed a little as he settled. 'Did you rat on me, mate?' I said. He shook his head, coughed a little more. His tunic was dark with rain all about the chest. 'You'd best take that off' I said. 'Never mind' he said, shaking his head. My mind was full of thoughts of death, which was partly the strange effect of the baby coming – for birth makes you think of its opposite. 'You did for the Camerons, didn't you? Out on the cinder track?' He looked straight ahead, frowning, as though trying to recollect; then he suddenly sat forwards, looking into the fire. 'I daresay there was some mistake…' I began, but could not think how to continue. 'It was the trial of my life' Lund said, after a space, '… and I was found wanting.' What had Sampson said of the Cameron killing? 'I enjoyed that business', or something very like. He had not laid claim to having done it. '… Parable of the Talents,' said Lund, into the fire. 'What do you suppose is the right reading of that Scripture?' 'I wouldn't have the foggiest bloody notion,' I said. 'Would you not?' said Lund, eyeing me now. 'I was just thinking on, because when I first saw this…' He nodded towards the gun on the table. '… It brought to mind that text.' 'And where was that? Where did you first clap eyes on it?' 'Wolverhampton train; first-class compartment. Tucked down a seat back.' 'It just would be in first,' I said. 'St Matthew 25' said Lund, '"I reap where I sowed not." Six bullets inside, too. I'd have given it over, had anyone come to claim it… but nobody ever did.' 'The trick would have been not to use it,' I said. 'Why d'you turn it on the Camerons?' 'I was afflicted, and that was God's will… but I prayed for relief and it was then that…' 'Afflicted? Don't get you.' He sighed, looked away, saying: 'I must go a little way around the houses.' 'All right,' I said, 'but start now.' ' T HERE WAS THE ROBBERY AT OUR PLACE – L OST L UGGAGE O FFICE. Y OU KNOW OF IT.' ' Y OU DIDN'T WANT TO SPEAK OF IT DIRECTLY… BUT YOU MEANT THAT I SHOULD FIND OUT, DIDN'T YOU?' 'After a fashion.' 'Who was behind it?' ' D ON'T KNOW, BUT I SHOULD THINK THE B RAINS AND THE B LOCKER. T HEY'RE A BAD LOT; THEY HAUNT THE RAILWAY, AND THERE'VE BEEN OTHER ROBBERIES SIMILAR.' ' W ELL, I RECKON IT was THEM,' I SAID, 'BUT THEY'RE NOT INDEPENDENT UNITS, THOSE BLOKES. T HEIR NAMES ARE M ILES H OPKINS AND M IKE… SUMMAT… A ND THEY HAVE A GOVERNOR.' 'Big fellow? Well turned-out?' 'That's it.' 'I've seen him. He must be smarter than the Brains, even.' ' N O. H E LEADS BY FORCE OF CHARACTER… A ND HE WORKS BY BUYING BLOKES OFF. S ERVANTS OF THE RAILWAY; PUT-UP JOBS, DO YOU SEE? I F YOU DIDN'T HAVE A HAND IN THE LOST-LUGGAGE THEFT, THEN IT MUST HAVE BEEN YOUR GOVERNOR, P ARKINSON.' Lund shook his head again. ' H E WAS ALL OUT TO FIND WHO HAD DONE IT, BECAUSE HE KNEW HE WAS SUSPECTED OF THE BUSINESS HIMSELF… P ARKINSON'S G OD-FEARING. H E WOULDN'T HAVE DONE IT.' 'You're God-fearing,' I said, 'and you did worse.' Lund looked keenly at the fire, searching there. 'Parkinson takes a drink,' I said. 'He's church, not chapel. They have a freer hand there.' 'And he's not over-friendly to you.' 'We haven't passed a word since the robbery.' 'You're just trying not to throw blame. Parkinson's crooked, and that's all about it; otherwise how would they have opened the safe?' 'That safe came to us six month back from another place.' 'Where?' Lund looked at me once again. 'Station Hotel.' I thought of Mariner, the suicide. Perhaps he had a different connection to Sampson, another reason to regret his own actions. Lund sat further forwards, watching the action of the wind on the fire. Did he suppose I lived here alone? He'd never asked after my wife, leave alone any child. But wives and children were nothing in his way. The wind was increasing outside, and I thought: we might be in for another windrush, and I knew that somehow all of this – the rising wind and the story that Lund was telling – was all the baby's doing. Lund was saying to the fire: 'Parkinson knew me for a watchful sort; knew I had by heart the numbers that open the safe. He put word out that I'd done it; told all comers, and he honestly believed it, too.' 'And the Camerons got wind?' 'They let on they thought that I'd been involved somehow… And they would ask me for money; said they would go to the Company brass or to the police if I didn't pay it over.' 'How much did you give them?' 'A good deal. They would follow me home after work, and they would have ten bob off me every time… I couldn't risk losing my position.' I looked at the cap beside him, at the space where the badge ought to have been. He'd be on rather less than a pound a week wages. 'That night, 26 January, I went down Leeman Road – try and throw them off. But they came after me, and at last I said I would give no more money.' 'And what did they say to that?' 'It was the straight-haired one did the talking. The other was… queer. The straight-haired one said, "Well then, it comes down to a fight." The other one, the mental-case… he grabbed me, started fairly strangling me, and the other pitched in. I reached into the bag, and the gun was in my hand. I saw the flash in the sky.' 'It was the planet Mercury,' I said, 'what did you think? Star in the bloody East?' That checked him. 'You're over-keen on tales from the Scriptures,' I said. 'Have you ever thought that you might find an argument for owt in the Bible… I mean, it is rather a jumble.' 'It is God's book,' said Lund, looking directly at me once more.'… It's the word of God, and if you want to call that a jumble, that's your look-out. I fired once, and that was the weird one settled, but then the other was at me with a knife.' 'You fired again?' He nodded. Half a mile off, another train went past but in the opposite direction, York-bound; the wind in reverse. 'Well,' I said, 'what do you reckon on doing now?' 'I must atone, and bear all the consequences.' 'You mean to own up?' 'Mean to?' he said. 'I've just done it.' I shook my head. 'I'd best talk to the Chief about it. Chief Inspector Weatherill, who's my governor… Have you spoken with a minister?' 'We don't hold with confession' he said. 'You should know that' and for the first time since I'd known him, he seemed angry. 'I'm not chapel,' I said. 'I'm not anything in particular.' 'The minister would say I must admit to it. He could do nothing but.' 'You may very well swing for it.' 'I dare say. That's part of the penalty.' 'I'd have thought it was the whole of it.' He shook his head. 'Only part – and the least part.' 'Why did you take me along to see the pick-pocketing on the London Express… It would have been the Monday after, wouldn't it?' 'It was a start, but only half measures – because I could not quite see the way to go.' 'You knew I'd come to the lost-luggage business, and you knew I'd come to the Camerons' murder. You were setting me to trace out a crime that you'd committed.' 'Well' he said. 'I thought you might get to it in time, but in the end, I've brought you to it myself.' Silence for a space. 'Listen,' I said. 'You'll have heard about the robbery in the roundhouse. That was more of their doing. I fled to Paris with Sampson and Hopkins – had to do it to keep cover. While I was over there, Mike – the Blocker – spoke by telephone to Miles Hopkins, giving me away as a copper. Now who let on to Mike?' 'Parkinson.' Silence again. 'He must be a wrong 'un,' I said. 'He saw me talking to you outside the Central Chapel. His church is St Saviour's, a little further along in the same street. He already knew you for a detective 'How?' 'Not sure of that. Did they know in the Institute?' 'The barmaid knew; I'd just had a set-to with the Camerons myself in there… ended by cautioning the pair of 'em.' Lund stood up from the sofa, cap in hand. 'Parkinson believed I was making complaints to you against him, letting on that
he'd been behind it all. Monday last, he thought I was out on the platforms, but I was in the back of the office. I heard him telephoning the police station.' 'Tower Street?' Lund nodded. '"The proper lot", as he thinks. He wanted to know if he was being investigated, asked to speak to Constable… can't recall the name. He's the copper who patrols past the police station.' 'That's the Five Pound Man… and he's fucking bent.' 'Aye,' said Lund. 'I know he's not right.' 'That's why you're here,' I said. 'Later that day,' Lund went on, 'Parkinson had a confab with him. I reckon that's how your name was given out.' 'Name and address.' 'That's in the lost-property ledger as well. Parkinson would've seen no harm in passing it on.' I tried to reason it out. On Sunday, Parkinson had seen me talking to Lund in St Saviourgate, and he knew I was a detective. On Monday, he telephoned Mr Five Pounds, the bent copper (although Parkinson did not know he was bent), in order to ask outright whether he was being hunted up for the lost-luggage burglary. Mr Five Pounds would then have asked him for all details of the detective mentioned – meaning myself. He must then have spoken to the one member of the band left in York, namely Mike, who in turn spoke over the telephone to Miles Hopkins, when Hopkins was in Calais. Hopkins had then kept back from Valentine Sampson what Mike had told him. I wondered whether Mike and Hopkins had immediately connected the name Stringer with Allan Appleby. Perhaps not. Any description of me passed on by Parkinson would not have included the eye-glasses, for Parkinson had to my knowledge never seen me in them. Perhaps there had remained in Hopkins's mind a little doubt about the identity of Appleby and Stringer. He was not sure of this until he put his long finger clean through the spectacle frames on the train to Paris, and by then he had decided to somehow make use of me. I looked again at Lund; he was staring at me with bright eyes. 'Your missus is quite safe, is she? And the bairn? I saw you all trooping off to the house near the church.' He missed nothing. Had he placed my Railway Magazines beside my bicycle to keep me away from Parkinson – the man ever on the lookout for treachery? A thought came to me. 'Did Mike see where we all went? Lund shook his head. 'Reckon he was long gone by then.' Mike's heart had not been in the business. He was not one to act alone, in any case. We waited, listening to the wind, neither with the energy to speak. At last, Lund said: 'Is there a divinity shaping life?' 'Well, you ought to know, mate.' Silence in the parlour; wind running on outside. '… Hold on a tick,' I said, and I darted into the kitchen tofetch the bottle of beer I'd been in need of for some little while past. When I returned, Lund was gone, and the gun with him.