The Body on the Train

by Frances Brody

  I noticed that Eliot and Gertrude exchanged a small smile when she said this. It made me feel slightly uncomfortable that they seemed to patronise Mrs. Dell, just as I had felt uncomfortable when Gertrude talked about the second-class orphans from the Bluebell Home.

  The exchange between Eliot and Gertrude had not gone unnoticed by Mrs. Dell. “I make the numbers odd,” she said quietly. “The vicar would have been here but he is with his ailing father. I should have liked to see him.” She gazed across at her son. “So would you, Eliot.”

  He looked across at her. “I would what, mother?”

  She spoke rather loudly, as deaf people sometimes do. “It is a pity about the vicar not being here. He would have visited the children.”

  “Oh he did, mother.”

  “Not recently.” She turned to me. “Gertrude would have invited the curate, but he is painfully shy and excels at excuses.”

  I warmed to her. “Mrs. Dell, five is an excellent number.”

  “And I am glad you speak clearly. These days, so many young women mumble.”

  Benjie, the perfect host, tasted the wine, giving the nod to Raynor in that intimate way they have of communicating, more like friends than master and servant.

  As Raynor poured, Benjie did his usual teasing. “You won’t be safe here, Eliot, Mrs. Dell. Kate has a tendency to produce a camera from up her sleeve when you least expect it.”

  Naturally I had to respond. “Don’t pretend, Benjie. I know you love to have your picture taken.”

  Eliot leaned towards me, confiding that he had a camera somewhere in the house, but couldn’t remember where.

  I smiled and looked beyond him to the sideboard, which was marginally more interesting than he. Its mirror, speckled with age, reflected the flickering candlelight.

  Raynor set down the wine.

  Since I had taken his photograph, he seemed to have grown taller. He strode to the door and took a tray of soup from a kitchen maid, balancing it on one hand.

  While placing our dishes of oxtail soup, he appeared more than usually self-contained, as if bestowing a privilege rather than providing service.

  I racked my brain for some topic of conversation that would draw out Eliot Dell. He has interests in mines, shares in railway companies. It would not do, after a cocktail and a glass of wine, immediately to talk to him about railways. Because I knew from Commander Woodhead’s list that, like Benjie, Eliot had been shown the unknown man’s portrait. I might just find myself saying: why don’t you talk to me about the body?

  A topic came to me. Golf. “Do you play golf, Eliot? My father does and he’s so full of the fact that the Ryder Cup will be held in Leeds, and in only its second year.”

  Eliot Dell blinked, as if I had asked a trick question. “No, I don’t play golf. Never thought to take it up.”

  So much for that.

  With Harriet working at the cinema, I see more pictures than I otherwise would. Eliot, Benjie, Gertrude and Mrs. Dell kindly listened patiently to the plot of a film I had seen.

  None of them went to the pictures.

  That put me in my place. Was I losing my touch, my ability to fit in?

  Horses did the trick. Gertrude and I reminisced about our ponies. Benjie and Eliot joined in.

  Soup was followed by casserole of hare.

  Shortly, I would bring the talk around to railways, and perhaps to crime, hoping to elicit a confidence. But first I complimented Benjie on his cars. He always seems to have a new one.

  Eliot said solemnly, “There is too much traffic these days.”

  I glanced at Gertrude. She was gazing at Eliot as if his every syllable on the subject of heavy traffic was a word to be treasured.

  Eliot is considered good looking. He looks pale by candlelight, a lean man with as much colour in his cheeks as an unbaked scone.

  By contrast, Benjie’s normally ruddy complexion had turned scarlet, thanks to the drink. He wagged his finger at Eliot. “Get a bigger car. They’ll all give way.”

  Just as I was about to begin a subtle enquiry about the train line to London, Benjie said, “So tell us what great investigations you have been involved in lately, Kate?”

  “Nothing to report, Deputy Lord Lieutenant, but if you need my services do let me know.”

  I wish nobody knew my occupation. If I were a typist, I would not be pinned in a corner and have questions fired at me about how one erases neatly on a carbon copy.

  Eliot broke in. “As it happens we have had some trouble. Took a call from one of my railway managers. Seems our area director has taken it upon himself to appoint a fellow to look into security, at the suggestion of the police.” He caught Benjie’s thunderous look and tailed off. “Subject to our approval of course.”

  Benjie glared. “Save that for the brandy, old chap. You can tell me what he’s going to cost.”

  Eliot turned pink. He looked across at me. “It’s to do with the pilfering, especially on trains that bring the Scotch whisky.”

  He was lying, yet I could not shake the feeling that one or other of these men was baiting me.

  Benjie steered us back to his question. “I know you don’t talk about your work, Kate. Confidentiality and all that. I’m curious. It’s none of my business, but do you earn money at it?”

  I gave him my sweetest smile. “You’re right, Benjie. It’s none of your business.”

  Mrs. Dell laughed. “Good for you, my dear.”

  Gertrude put down her knife and fork. “Darling, Kate doesn’t need to make money. She is a woman of independent means who just happens to like helping people in trouble.”

  Benjie bowed. “Just jesting. Kate knows me better than that.”

  I suddenly wished I had not come to stay here, but it was too late now.

  Eliot’s was a simple remark about the security man. He was trying to make conversation, or was he?

  Perhaps I was being over-sensitive but I felt suddenly uneasy, as if the three of them had turned a spotlight on me.

  Mrs. Dell said little after that. She looked from one person to the next as they spoke, and I felt sure that she was lip-reading as well as listening.

  Gertrude said to Eliot, “Kate has turned her hand to photographic journalism.”

  “It’s an assignment for a feature on people and places.”

  Even Eliot managed to look engaged. “Round here? Not somewhere more picturesque?”

  I was glad of having read Philip’s treatise. I talked about this being the hub of the country, the cradle of industry, about coal, and the miracle of rhubarb.

  Eliot swallowed a mouthful of food. “You must see the sinking of the pit shaft. It will be a unique opportunity.” He glanced at Benjie. “We want the world to know we’ll be opening a new mine.”

  Gertrude groaned. “Kate won’t be interested in that.”

  I assured her that I would love to see the sinking of a pit shaft.

  Benjie perked up. “A photograph in a magazine, or in newspapers, would let people know we are open to investment.” He looked at Raynor, once more pouring wine. “Good idea, don’t you think?”

  “I do, sir.”

  Gertrude signalled, no more wine for her.

  Later, Mrs. Dell, Gertrude and I withdrew and left the men to talk. The drawing room smelled of lavender polish. Daffodils and tulips filled a cut glass vase on the occasional table.

  Gertrude and I sat on opposite sofas near the hearth. Mrs. Dell had gone to powder her nose.

  Since our being in this room earlier, for cocktails, something had appeared on the low table between the sofas. It was a prospectus for a new mine, the kind of document that is circulated when the owners are drumming up investment.

  I picked it up.

  “It would be an excellent investment, Kate. It’s to have all the latest equipment.”

  Is that why I had been welcomed here so quickly? The widow of independent means. Last year, Gertrude discovered that I own a Rolls-Royce that I never drive. Perhaps that promoted me from Gir
lhood Friend to Potential Investor.

  “Eliot’s on the board. He has a good head on his shoulders.”

  I glanced at the names. Mr. B Brockman, Mrs. B Brockman, Mr. E Dell.

  Not old Mrs. Dell, then.

  “What do you think of Eliot?” Gertrude asked.

  “I did meet him before, you remember.”

  “Yes, before his wife died.”

  “He seems a perfectly nice man, and fond of his mother.”

  “Oh he is.” She confided in me that he was naturally concerned about his mother, especially after what happened to his wife.

  I did not know the circumstances of her death, and enquired what had happened.

  “Well you see, Kate, she was a hypochondriac.” She glanced at the door, but there was no sign of old Mrs. Dell. “It’s a horrible story. One night, Phyllis complained of being in an agony of pain. She always complained and usually recovered after brandy and sympathy. It was decided not to bother the doctor until morning. By morning her appendix had burst and it was too late.”

  I said how dreadful that must make Eliot feel.

  “It was shocking. It’s such a horrible story, like a real-life version of the boy who cries wolf. I told him, and Benjie told him, he and his mother are not to blame.”

  “What was his wife like?”

  Gertrude thought for a moment. “One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, and I don’t, and wouldn’t. But she thought herself a cut above. She was a cluster of anxieties. She didn’t ride for fear of being thrown. Always had an opinion on things that didn’t really concern her.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Oh, poor people, the downtrodden, the sort of people who wouldn’t help themselves if they could. It wasn’t that Phyllis was a lady bountiful, we all have to do that occasionally. Where she’d got it from I don’t know, but she had this obsession about justice and making the world a better place. It was all talk, all an act.”

  I felt a sudden sisterly warmth towards the late Phyllis Dell, with her cluster of anxieties, and her untimely, painful death.

  “You know Eliot is our nearest neighbour. I would love to see him settled. He’s a shy man but he’ll be a good catch for someone.” She lowered her voice. “His mother can be difficult, but she can’t last much longer.”

  “Mrs. Dell seems perfectly charming to me. And I haven’t come looking for a husband.”

  “Of course you haven’t. But wouldn’t it be good if we were neighbours, we could go riding. You might come to London with me and look at babies.” She laughed. “I know I’m being fanciful and jumping ahead and all that, but you should see Eliot’s house. His family have done very well out of the railways, just as we have. Old Mr. Dell cunningly avoided death duties by dying at the right time. You’d want for nothing. Eliot’s late wife brought money into the marriage.”

  “Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll tuck it away with the others.”

  Gertrude laughed. “You’re a hopeless case.”

  She had always tried her hand at matchmaking. It came as no surprise that she was still at it. In spite of Gertrude’s narrow view of the world, she had been what you might call a staunch friend over the years. When a woman is widowed, married friends often fall away. The Christmas cards continue, with the message that we must meet soon. Probably that is meant in the moment the pen moves across the card. In Gertrude’s case it always was meant, and followed through.

  Gertrude said, “We go to church in the morning, at Holy Trinity in Rothwell. The vicar is away and so we’re obliged to support his stand-in. Would you like to come? Afterwards the stand-in will come to Eliot’s for drinks.”

  “I thought I’d look for something a little different, perhaps attend a chapel, in the interests of research.”

  “Apart from Raynor and the housekeeper, most of the staff attend chapel. Milly will tell you the times of the services.”

  That was exactly what I intended to do. I felt sure that Gertrude knew nothing about the man on the train. Servants know everything.

  The knowledge was between the words, behind the silences: Benjie knew I was here to solve the riddle of the unknown man. So did Raynor, and possibly Eliot. I must brazen it out. Let them think that they were imagining things, because perhaps that’s what I was doing: imagining that because Benjie knew they all knew. Benjie had given a strong enough hint. I didn’t mind the hint, but it could have been more subtle, one of those ways of letting a person know without saying.

  Mrs. Dell returned from powdering her nose. The men cut short their confab in the dining room and came to join us.

  Gertrude chose a record. Benjie wound the gramophone. Eliot came to sit beside me.

  The curtains had not been closed. The sky was black and full of stars.

  Almost recognisable music floated from the gramophone in the corner. It might have been something from Elgar.

  Old Mrs. Dell sat very upright, her walking stick close by the straight-back chair. She did not take part in talk of this and that, but watched. I thought that she paid particular attention to me. This did not make me uncomfortable. I moved to sit closer to her and asked about her daughter-in-law.

  She spoke very quietly and with great sadness. “I did not hear her call out.” She sighed. “Times have not been good since she died.”

  At that moment, Raynor was beside us, offering drinks or coffee. We both declined. Raynor glanced at Benjie who was deep in conversation with Eliot and paid no attention. Gertrude got up, picked a record and gave it to Raynor. She then came to sit with me and Mrs. Dell.

  “Am I butting in?”

  Something was going on, and I did not know what. I wished now that I had come straight out with it when I arrived. I needn’t have admitted to investigating, but I could have said that I heard a rumour.

  A tongue twister came into my head: do they know that I know that they know that I know that they know?

  Later, lying in bed, with the curtains open so that I could see the stars, I wondered had I imagined the silent warning signals between Benjie and Raynor, and my uncomfortable feeling that Raynor had been ordered to watch me.

  As I fell asleep, it occurred to me that whoever had killed the unknown man would go to great lengths and take desperate measures to avoid discovery.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gertrude had insisted I should stay in bed on Sunday morning. She would have breakfast sent up to my room.

  Milly brought one of those trays, made for the lazy. I believe they come from the Gamages catalogue. I sat up in bed, propped on pillows, the sturdy tray with its fat legs in just the right position.

  Milly was pouring tea. “Madam said you want to go to chapel.” She spoke in a flat voice that told me this would be a terrible nuisance for her.

  “Or to just know directions and times.”

  There was a clink of crockery and a cry. “I’ve spilt the milk.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “No, but I have.” She began to cry.

  Breakfast in bed on the Gamages tray began to seem less of a treat.

  “It’s all right, nothing is broken.”

  “No.” She continued to cry, and was about to flee from the room.

  It is not altogether easy to move that sort of tray once it has trapped the legs. “Milly, wait!”

  Milly was by the door, which she opened and immediately shut. Someone must have been on the landing.

  I was out of bed now and beside her. “You know what they say about spilt milk.”

  She mopped at it with a doyley. “It’s not the milk.”

  “No I didn’t suppose it was. Have you had a cup of tea?”

  “A long time ago. We’re up early.”

  “Then you shall have one now and a slice of toast.”

  After some protests, she sat down in the wicker chair. We came to the compromise, at her insistence, that she would drink from the saucer and I must have the cup.

  Crumbs from our toast fell generously onto the rug. We salted th
e boiled eggs which had grown hard. It took a little encouragement to make her speak. I told her about a hospital where I once worked. One nurse cried an awful lot. Another never cried at all. “We’re all different.”

  Slowly her story came out. She could not go to chapel this morning because something was going to happen afterwards. The Temperance Band intended to march to the railway station, take the train to Wakefield and from there march to the prison. They would play outside the prison walls so that their music would reach Stephen Walmsley’s cell. He would know that they were there. They would play out his innocence to heaven and the authorities.

  “Milly, we’ll go together.”

  She shook her head, unable to find words. Eventually, her tears lessened. She folded her arms and rocked. Her story of why she couldn’t walk with the band came out with little sighs and sucking in of breath as she tried to compose herself.

  She and Stephen had been to the pictures. They had walked over the common. She liked him and was waiting for him to hold her hand but he never did because he was shy and so was she. And then he took up with Joan and it wasn’t fair. Joan played the tambourine in the band and so she and Stephen were together a lot. She saw them holding hands. Joan was supposed to be her friend.

  “That’s not so terrible, Milly. You still like him, and you still like Joan. It might be a flash in the pan that they held hands. There’s nothing to stop you walking with the band.”

  This brought on a fresh bout of weeping. “It was Joan’s idea that we go to the prison. It should’ve been mine.”

  “Do you play in a band?”

  “No.”

  “Well then.”

  There was something to stop her, she explained. It was this.

  “On that Friday, I thought I’d just go see. I knew they walked back together from band practice and so I went to look. I kept out of the way, round the corner. I said to myself if Stephen walks her home, and if he holds her hand, I’d know it was hopeless. Along they came, she playing her tambourine as she walked. I watched them walk to the top of the street, and go into her house. She lives with Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright.

  “I didn’t know what to do. I thought, I’ll just go see Mrs. Farrar. She’ll tell me if there’s no hope. She’ll tell me if they are courting. The shop door was locked, but I knocked. There was no answer.”