Death on the Last Train (11 page)

“Bellis? Oh yes, little Alice Bryan's fairy grandfather. Saw in the paper that somebody's done for him. But I don't know a thing about it.”

“I didn't say you did. But we want to know as much as we can about the life Bellis was leading. You were once friendly with Alice Bryan, weren't you? Perhaps she said something at one time or another that might throw light on the case …”

Luxmore grew quite matey. He put his hand on Cromwell's shoulder, breathed whisky in his face and looked sorry for himself.

Cromwell didn't even trouble to look at him.

“Nice little gel, Alice. In fact, I quite fell for her in a big way. A chap's got to have a bit of feminine company in a dump like this, but I could have gone a long way with Alice. Thought she was the same, but after her illness, she kind of got queer …”

“Queer?”

Luxmore looked at his well manicured nails, breathed on them and rubbed them on his pants.

“Yes, queer. Seemed to want to get her ticket as soon as she could and get out of the service. I couldn't understand it. She used to enjoy herself once. A little sport …”

“Was that when she was in hospital …? I take it she did go sick?”

“Oh, yes. She went sick right enough. They had her in bed for a month. Ulcerated stomach, or something. Then she got leave and came back for a medical board. She'd changed when she returned. Gave me the icy mit. I was damned mad about it. We'd got on so well before.”

I'll bet you were mad, thought Cromwell. A conceited ass like you couldn't understand a snub.

“What do you think changed her?”

“I think somebody had been putting her off me at home. You see, I went over to Mereton to see her when she was on leave. Took her all her time to be civil. I asked her what was up. Oh, just that she didn't think we were suitable and couldn't make a go of getting married.”

“You were prepared to go so far?”

Luxmore flared up and his little eyes glowed dangerously.

“What the hell do you mean, go so far? I said I'd fallen for her in a big way, didn't I? We were going to get married when we got back in civvie street.”

“What do you do in civil life?”

“My father's a bookmaker. Turf agent, you know. P'raps you've heard of him … Ted Luxmore …”

“Can't say that I have.”

Luxmore looked pityingly at Cromwell.

“Everybody knows Honest Ted Luxmore as they call him. He had to go on munitions when war broke out … Carries on a nice little business at the works as a sideline. He'll be back on the turf soon and then I'm joining him when I get my ticket. I'll be in the money then.”

“I see. So Alice Bryan got cold feet.”

“No need to be offensive about it! I think she got thinking a bit above her station. I wasn't good enough for her.”

“Did it ever occur to you that there might be somebody else?”

“No. Why should it? I never got a hint of it. I just think she was flyin' a bit high and a plain L.A.C. wasn't good enough.”

“Seems like your imagination, if you haven't anything concrete to work on.”

“I think it started with the things her fairy grandfather used to send when she was in hospital. Bellis was her aunt's boy friend, you know, and used to send her parcels. Grapes at two quid a pound; peaches at five bob apiece. Just damn silly. What the hell does anybody want with fruit at that price? It doesn't do 'em any good.”

“But perhaps it was the thought that appealed to her. Didn't you ever take her presents when she was laid up?”

“Took her a bottle of port to put the roses in her cheeks. Two quid I paid for it under the counter. The nurse said with her complaint she couldn't drink it, so I took it back and drunk it myself.”

“H'm. Did Bellis come here to see her?”

“No. Her aunt came a time or two, but I never saw Bellis here. I met him when I called at Mereton. Old bloke with one foot in the grave. Seemed crackers on Alice's aunt. Do anything for her, he would. She was a good lookin' bit, if you like 'em full blown. Personally, I like a bit less of 'em. Alice suited me down to the ground. In fact, I've not got over it. I'm damned sore about the way she treated me after the good time I gave her.”

“Sore enough to do damage to anybody who got in your way?”

“What d'yer mean? Suggesting that somebody chiselled in and pinched her. Get that out of your head. If they had, I'd have known. Trust Harry Luxmore. Know too much about gels …”

“So you don't think that the fairy grandfather, as you call him, put her off you?”

“What!! Bellis?
Him
! Don't make me laugh. Alice's aunt just had him where she wanted him … He'd eyes for nobody but her.”

“Where were you between ten and eleven on the night of the murder?”

“Wot? You don't think I did it! Why should I? What had I to get by doin'-in a doddering old geezer …?”

“I don't know what you had to gain, but where were you?”

“Here. In the
Green Man
. Flo and Jessie, the two bits I was just with when you came in, were here. They'll tell you. If you think you can pin this on me …”

“Nobody's trying to pin anything on anybody. You were mad at losing Alice, weren't you? I just wanted to find out
how mad
. Seems you've got over it, haven't you?”

“I'll say I have. Plenty of good fish in the sea, ole man.”

Luxmore was getting matey again and looked ready to tell extracts from his amorous repertory. Cromwell got to his feet.

“Just let's have a word with Flo and Jessie.”

The girls confirmed Harry's tale. They were emphatic about it, puffing their cigarettes violently, drinking their whisky without a qualm and trying to look like perfect women of the world. Cromwell, a good husband and father, shuddered as he tried to imagine them in homes of their own.

Luxmore took Cromwell back to the door.

“I've nothing more to say about this affair. Can't help. I'll not be bothered any more, will I? Looks bad having the police around.”

“No. You've not been much help, I'm afraid. By the way, did Alice Bryan go anywhere convalescent …? The seaside or country, I mean.”

“Yes. I think she went to Brighton for about ten days. Didn't even send me a postcard. Told me when she got back to camp. I might have gone down there and given her a good time if I'd known …”

“All right, Mr. Luxmore. Thanks. Sorry I've taken so much of your spare time …”

“Oh, that's O.K., ole man. Sorry haven't been able to give you a clue. Sure you won't have a li'l drink for the road?”

Cromwell felt depressed. On the way back to Salton in the train he turned the case over and over in his mind and saw no light. He changed at Willesfield and fell asleep between there and Salton. At Mereton, a party of boys from the High School got in his compartment without waking him. At the cutting the engine whistled and roused him. He thought he was still dreaming for the conversation he heard was fantastic. The schoolboys were whispering among themselves.

“I swore, cross my heart, I wouldn't tell, but you're all
in the gang and took the oath of secrecy, didn't you?” said one boy in an undertone, with one eye on Cromwell who still had his eyes closed. He looked like a local preacher so the bearer of the secret thought him quite harmless.

“Aw, you and your secrets. Spill it … We won't tell. Suppose it's another flop … Lot of hush-hush about nothin' at all …”

The boy with the burden was stung to anger.

“Not this one … An' if you don't want to know it … well …”

A large, hulking youth gave tongue.

“Cawm on, Smithie … Out with it … Or we'll pull your socks off and screw your toes off one by one …”

The boys went into a huddle and Smithie breathed out his tale.

“Gaskell and Casey stopped the train the night old Bellis was murdered …”

It reached Cromwell like a zephyr. He almost shot to the roof in amazement.

There was a lot more whispering, apparently challenging the statement and a lot of muttering that Cromwell couldn't overhear. However, the gang seemed finally satisfied and voted Smithie's news a scoop.

“But don't tell Gaskell. He'll murder me if …”

“As if we would, you big mutt …”

The train drew up at Salton and on the scruff of young Smithie's astonished neck there descended a large hand.

“I want you, young feller-me-lad,” said Cromwell grimly. “Come along with me to the stationmaster's office.”

The young news-hawk began to whimper.

“I haven't done nothin'.. I've got my season ticket. Here it is … Look …”

“That's not what I'm after, young Smith. You seem to have some news about the train hold-up the other night. I want you to tell me all about it …”

The rest of the schoolboys hung round in a ragged group
not knowing quite how to react to the awful thing that had fallen upon poor Smithie.

Then the boldest spoke.

“Who are you, any way?” he said truculently, still mistaking Cromwell for a busybodying Sunday school superintendent.

“I'm an officer from Scotland Yard!”

Smith uttered a wild cry and almost fell unconscious and his pals melted away, retreating from Cromwell's presence gingerly like someone leaving royalty and then running hell-for-leather as soon as they were out of sight.

One of them called at the home of Mr. Wilberforce Smith, father of the young captive, told him that his son had just been arrested for the murder of Timothy Bellis and left him to think it out.

Young Smith was taken to the Salton police station and there his father caught up with him. Wilberforce Smith was a trade union official and breathed all kinds of threats about what he would do if anything befell his son. A general strike was the least thing to be feared. He talked of
habeas corpus
, democracy and a riot by the dockers. His stocky frame trembled with rage, his long thin neck swivelled and shook like that of a ventriloquist's dummy and sweat poured out from the top of his bald head to the tip of his craggy chin.

Finally, Forrester threatened to put Wilberforce in one of the cells and give him something to rage about …

When, at length, there was a break in his father's oratory and indignation, young Smith was able to tell his tale. There was not much in it.

It seemed that Wilberforce, junior, had overheard Gaskell and Casey congratulating each other behind the school wall. Gaskell was an unruly senior boy who had fallen under the influence of Casey, a lad of Irish extraction who never did anybody any good. Together they were minor terrorists. Casey captivated Gaskell with his accounts of what his relatives had done during The Trouble in Ireland and were still prepared to do in the interests of Eire and Sinn Fein.

Actually, Casey's parents were decent law-abiding English citizens but the boy had found “Injustice to Ireland” a good slogan on which to pin his love of mischief.

Gaskell had admiringly told Casey how some train robbers in a Wild West tale, which he had studied instead of homework, had held up a train. Casey had scornfully told him he knew a better way employed by his imaginery uncles in The Trouble, and forthwith challenged his satellite to join him in trying it out. Their fathers were in the forces and their mothers couldn't control them.

It all boiled down to the fact that these two champions of United Ireland by adoption had halted the last train from Mereton to Salton at the cutting. They had hidden in the siding and witnessed the complete success of their scheme.

Under pressure from their respective angry mothers, assisted by two policemen, a probation officer, Cromwell and Forrester, the two terrorists confessed in full. They were both hulking freckled lads of fifteen, one with an Irish face, blue eyes and upturned nose and the other with a black eye, a red nose and two teeth missing from fighting against enormous odds on the dockside just before the police had pulled in the pair of them.

Luckily for Smithie, who might never have survived the betrayal, neither Gaskell nor Casey knew he had overheard their mutual back-slapping and as his name was not mentioned, he escaped unscathed.

It amounted, then, to this. The murderer of Timothy
Bellis had played no part in the hold-up of the train, unless, of course, Gaskell and Casey had crowned their efforts by gun-play as well. Which was out of the question. An enquiry concerning this point struck them dumb with terror, Gaskell dissolved into tears and Casey began to call on the Virgin and all the Saints to help him and bear witness of his innocence.

The boys swore, too, that they had seen nothing untoward going on in the train when it halted. In fact, they had run away as soon as their scheme began to work. They had been afraid of somebody searching the siding and finding then crouching in their coal truck.

The malefactors were allowed to go home for the night and appeared before the magistrates on the morrow. By a majority of five to one, those worthies agreed to treat them as first offenders, placed them on probation for twelve months and imposed the indignity of reporting twice weekly to the probation officer. Mrs. Beaglehole, the dissenting member of the bench, wanted them sending to Borstal, if possible for life!

Whilst this startling turn of events was in progress Littlejohn was again at the Claypotts'. On the way there he had met Harold hurrying to catch the Mereton train on another drinking bout. By threatening to arrest him if he did not do so, Littlejohn persuaded Claypott to return home with him. There, there occurred a family turmoil of the first order.

Harold craving for his stimulant and forcibly withheld from it, was on edge and almost in a frenzy. Constance, surprised to see the unusual return of her brother accompanied by a policeman, was seized with tremblings and nervous rigours. Leah, fearing the worst, collapsed and had to be put on the couch and given a drink of brandy. Her brother took advantage of this ministration to take a copious dose of the medicine himself and became braced and truculent therefrom.