Four Max Carrados Detective Stories

by Ernest Bramah

  THE KNIGHT'S CROSS SIGNAL PROBLEM

  "Louis," exclaimed Mr. Carrados, with the air of genial gaiety thatCarlyle had found so incongruous to his conception of a blind man,"you have a mystery somewhere about you! I know it by your step."

  Nearly a month had passed since the incident of the false Dionysiushad led to the two men meeting. It was now December. Whatever Mr.Carlyle's step might indicate to the inner eye it betokened to thecasual observer the manner of a crisp, alert, self-possessed man ofbusiness. Carlyle, in truth, betrayed nothing of the pessimism anddespondency that had marked him on the earlier occasion.

  "You have only yourself to thank that it is a very poor one," heretorted. "If you hadn't held me to a hasty promise----"

  "To give me an option on the next case that baffled you, no matterwhat it was----"

  "Just so. The consequence is that you get a very unsatisfactory affairthat has no special interest to an amateur and is only bafflingbecause it is--well----"

  "Well, baffling?"

  "Exactly, Max. Your would-be jest has discovered the proverbial truth.I need hardly tell you that it is only the insoluble that is finallybaffling and this is very probably insoluble. You remember the awfulsmash on the Central and Suburban at Knight's Cross Station a fewweeks ago?"

  "Yes," replied Carrados, with interest. "I read the whole ghastlydetails at the time."

  "You read?" exclaimed his friend suspiciously.

  "I still use the familiar phrases," explained Carrados, with a smile."As a matter of fact, my secretary reads to me. I mark what I want tohear and when he comes at ten o'clock we clear off the morning papersin no time."

  "And how do you know what to mark?" demanded Mr. Carlyle cunningly.

  Carrados's right hand, lying idly on the table, moved to a newspapernear. He ran his finger along a column heading, his eyes still turnedtowards his visitor.

  "'The Money Market. Continued from page 2. British Railways,'" heannounced.

  "Extraordinary," murmured Carlyle.

  "Not very," said Carrados. "If someone dipped a stick in treacle andwrote 'Rats' across a marble slab you would probably be able todistinguish what was there, blindfold."

  "Probably," admitted Mr. Carlyle. "At all events we will not test theexperiment."

  "The difference to you of treacle on a marble background is scarcelygreater than that of printers' ink on newspaper to me. But anythingsmaller than pica I do not read with comfort, and below long primer Icannot read at all. Hence the secretary. Now the accident, Louis."

  "The accident: well, you remember all about that. An ordinary Centraland Suburban passenger train, non-stop at Knight's Cross, ran past thesignal and crashed into a crowded electric train that was justbeginning to move out. It was like sending a garden roller down a rowof handlights. Two carriages of the electric train were flattened outof existence; the next two were broken up. For the first time on anEnglish railway there was a good stand-up smash between a heavysteam-engine and a train of light cars, and it was 'bad for the coo.'"

  "Twenty-seven killed, forty something injured, eight died since,"commented Carrados.

  "That was bad for the Co.," said Carlyle. "Well, the main fact wasplain enough. The heavy train was in the wrong. But was theengine-driver responsible? He claimed, and he claimed vehemently fromthe first, and he never varied one iota, that he had a 'clear'signal--that is to say, the green light, it being dark. The signalmanconcerned was equally dogged that he never pulled off the signal--thatit was at 'danger' when the accident happened and that it had been forfive minutes before. Obviously, they could not both be right."

  "Why, Louis?" asked Mr. Carrados smoothly.

  "The signal must either have been up or down--red or green."

  "Did you ever notice the signals on the Great Northern Railway,Louis?"

  "Not particularly, Why?"

  "One winterly day, about the year when you and I were concerned inbeing born, the engine-driver of a Scotch express received the 'clear'from a signal near a little Huntingdon station called Abbots Ripton.He went on and crashed into a goods train and into the thick of thesmash a down express mowed its way. Thirteen killed and the usual taleof injured. He was positive that the signal gave him a 'clear'; thesignalman was equally confident that he had never pulled it off the'danger.' Both were right, and yet the signal was in working order. AsI said, it was a winterly day; it had been snowing hard and the snowfroze and accumulated on the upper edge of the signal arm until itsweight bore it down. That is a fact that no fiction writer dare haveinvented, but to this day every signal on the Great Northern pivotsfrom the centre of the arm instead of from the end, in memory of thatsnowstorm."

  "That came out at the inquest, I presume?" said Mr. Carlyle. "We havehad the Board of Trade inquiry and the inquest here and no explanationis forthcoming. Everything was in perfect order. It rests between theword of the signalman and the word of the engine-driver--not a jot ofdirect evidence either way. Which is right?"

  "That is what you are going to find out, Louis?" suggested Carrados.

  "It is what I am being paid for finding out," admitted Mr. Carlylefrankly. "But so far we are just where the inquest left it, and,between ourselves, I candidly can't see an inch in front of my face inthe matter."

  "Nor can I," said the blind man, with a rather wry smile. "Never mind.The engine-driver is your client, of course?"

  "Yes," admitted Carlyle. "But how the deuce did you know?"

  "Let us say that your sympathies are enlisted on his behalf. The jurywere inclined to exonerate the signalman, weren't they? What has thecompany done with your man?"

  "Both are suspended. Hutchins, the driver, hears that he may probablybe given charge of a lavatory at one of the stations. He is a decent,bluff, short-spoken old chap, with his heart in his work. Just nowyou'll find him at his worst--bitter and suspicious. The thought ofswabbing down a lavatory and taking pennies all day is poisoning him."

  "Naturally. Well, there we have honest Hutchins: taciturn, a littletouchy perhaps, grown grey in the service of the company, andmanifesting quite a bulldog-like devotion to his favourite 538."

  "Why, that actually was the number of his engine--how do you know it?"demanded Carlyle sharply.

  "It was mentioned two or three times at the inquest, Louis," repliedCarrados mildly.

  "And you remembered--with no reason to?"

  "You can generally trust a blind man's memory, especially if he hastaken the trouble to develop it."

  "Then you will remember that Hutchins did not make a very goodimpression at the time. He was surly and irritable under the ordeal. Iwant you to see the case from all sides."

  "He called the signalman--Mead--a 'lying young dog,' across the room,I believe. Now, Mead, what is he like? You have seen him, of course?"

  "Yes. He does not impress me favourably. He is glib, ingratiating, anddistinctly 'greasy.' He has a ready answer for everything almostbefore the question is out of your mouth. He has thought ofeverything."

  "And now you are going to tell me something, Louis," said Carradosencouragingly.

  Mr. Carlyle laughed a little to cover an involuntary movement ofsurprise.

  "There is a suggestive line that was not touched at the inquiries," headmitted. "Hutchins has been a saving man all his life, and he hasreceived good wages. Among his class he is regarded as wealthy. Idaresay that he has five hundred pounds in the bank. He is a widowerwith one daughter, a very nice-mannered girl of about twenty. Mead isa young man, and he and the girl are sweethearts--have been informallyengaged for some time. But old Hutchins would not hear of it; he seemsto have taken a dislike to the signalman from the first, and latterlyhe had forbidden him to come to his house or his daughter to speak tohim."

  "Excellent, Louis," cried Carrados in great delight. "We shall clearyour man in a blaze of red and green lights yet and hang the glib,'greasy' signalman from his own signal-post."

  "It is a significant fact, seriously?"

  "It is absolutely convincing."

/>   "It may have been a slip, a mental lapse on Mead's part which hediscovered the moment it was too late, and then, being too cowardly toadmit his fault, and having so much at stake, he took care to makedetection impossible. It may have been that, but my idea is ratherthat probably it was neither quite pure accident nor pure design. Ican imagine Mead meanly pluming himself over the fact that the life ofthis man who stands in his way, and whom he must cordially dislike,lies in his power. I can imagine the idea becoming an obsession as hedwells on