Authors: Edward Marston
‘No wonder he detests railways,’ commented Leeming.
‘Who can blame him?’ said Tallis, reading the report. ‘It was a real tragedy. Lady Gilzean’s neck was broken in the fall. However,’ he went on, putting the newspaper on the mantelpiece, ‘it is one thing to despise the railway system but quite another to wage war against it.’
‘It’s time for the steam locomotive to strike back,’ said Colbeck.
‘What are you talking about, Inspector?’
‘This, sir.’ Colbeck held up a booklet. ‘I found this in the desk. It’s a timetable for sailings from the port of Bristol. Sir Humphrey Gilzean and his accomplice are fleeing the country.’
‘Going abroad?’ gasped Tallis. ‘Then we’ll never catch them.’
‘But we will, sir. They are only travelling by carriage, remember, and they will have to pace the horses carefully. We, on the other hand, will be able to go much faster.’ Colbeck smiled at him. ‘By train.’
When the carriage reached Bristol, the port was a veritable hive of activity. Though narrow at that point, the estuary was deep enough to accommodate the largest ships and several steamers were moored at their landing stages. Madeleine Andrews viewed it all with utter dismay. Furnished with locks, wharves and quays some 6000 feet in length, the harbour was a forest of masts through which she could see a vast number of sailors and passengers milling around. Hundreds of seagulls wove patterns in the air and added their
cries to the general pandemonium. Madeleine shivered. To someone who had never travelled more than ten miles from London in her entire life, the thought of sailing across the sea induced a positive dread.
Yet she had no option. She had been warned what would happen if she dared to call for help and could not take the risk. With her hood up, she was taken aboard between Sir Humphrey Gilzean and Thomas Sholto, and – to her astonishment – was described as Lady Gilzean, leaving the country on her husband’s passport. Before she knew what was happening, Madeleine was taken below to a cabin, where she was tied up and gagged. Sholto stood over her.
‘If we have any trouble from you,’ he threatened, cupping her chin in his palm, ‘I’ll throw you overboard.’
‘You’ll do nothing of the kind,’ said Gilzean, easing him away from her. ‘Miss Andrews came to our rescue at the house. Without her, we would now be in custody. Show some appreciation, Thomas.’
‘Leave me alone with her – and I will.’
‘Come, you need some fresh air.’
‘What I need is five minutes with her.’
Gilzean took him by the lapel. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
Sholto obeyed with reluctance. After tossing a sullen glance at Madeleine, he left the cabin. Gilzean paused at the open door.
‘I am sorry that you got caught up in all this,’ he said with a note of genuine apology, ‘but there was no help for it. Had your father chosen a different occupation, you would not be here now.’ There were yells from above and the sound of movement on the deck. ‘We are about to set sail,’ he noted with satisfaction. ‘Where is Inspector Colbeck now?’
Madeleine could not speak but there was panic in her eyes. Gilzean went out and shut the door behind him, turning a key in the lock. He had been unfailingly polite to her and had shielded her from Sholto, but he was still taking her as a prisoner to a foreign country. As the ship rocked and the wind began to flap its canvas, she knew that they had cast off. Madeleine was out of Inspector Colbeck’s reach now. All that she could do was to resort to prayer once more.
A few minutes later, she heard the sound of a key in the lock. Thinking that it would be Thomas Sholto, she closed her eyes and tensed instinctively, fearing that he had slipped back to get his revenge for what had happened in the wine cellar. But the person who stepped into the cabin was Robert Colbeck and the first thing that he did was to remove her gag. When she opened her eyes, Madeleine let out a cry of relief. As Colbeck began to untie the ropes that held her, tears of joy rolled down her cheeks.
‘How ever did you find us?’ she asked.
‘I took the precaution of bringing my
Bradshaw
with me.’
‘The railway guide?’
‘A steam train will always outrun the best horses, Miss Andrews,’ he said, untying her legs and setting her free. ‘And I was determined that nobody was going to take you away from me.’
Madeleine flung herself into his arms and he held her tight until her sobbing slowly died down. He then stood back to appraise her.
‘Have they harmed you in any way?’
‘No, Inspector. But one of them keeps threatening to.’
‘His name is Thomas Sholto,’ said Colbeck. ‘We waited until we saw them come up on deck. There was no point in
trying to apprehend them while they had you in their grasp. Stay here, Miss Andrews,’ he went on, moving to the door. ‘I’ll be back in due course.’
‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘They are both armed.’
‘They are also off guard. Excuse me.’
Standing at the bulwark, Gilzean and Sholto ignored the people who were waving the ship off from the shore and congratulated themselves on their escape. Gilzean was honest.
‘It was a Pyrrhic victory,’ he conceded. ‘I kept my promise to Lucinda and struck back at the railway, but it means, alas, that I am parted from her for a while. No matter, Thomas. I will be able to slip back from France in time. Meanwhile, we have money enough to live in great comfort and anonymity.’
‘What about that little vixen down in the cabin?’
‘She will be released as soon as we are safely in France.’
‘Released?’ said Sholto, mutinously. ‘After what she did to me?’
‘We have no more need of her, Thomas.’
‘You may not have – but I certainly do!’
‘No,’ decreed Gilzean. ‘Miss Andrews has borne enough suffering. As soon as we dock, I’ll pay for her return passage and give her money to make her way home from Bristol.’
‘But she will be able to tell them where we are.’
‘France is a much bigger country than England. Even if they sent someone after us – and that is highly unlikely – he would never find us.’
‘According to you, Inspector Colbeck would never find us.’
Gilzean was complacent. ‘We have seen the last of him now,’ he said. ‘Bid farewell to England. We are about to start
a new life.’
The detectives crept up until they stood only yards behind the two men. Victor Leeming had a hand on his pistol but Robert Colbeck favoured a more physical approach. Since it was Thomas Sholto who had spirited Madeleine away, the Inspector tackled him first. Rushing forward, he grabbed Sholto by the legs and tipped him over the side of the ship. There was a despairing cry, followed by a loud splash. Gilzean spared no thought for his friend. He reacted quickly, pulling out a pistol. Before Gilzean could discharge it, Colbeck got a firm hold on his wrist and twisted it so that he turned the barrel of the weapon upwards.
Seeing the pistol, almost everyone else on deck backed away as the two men struggled for mastery. Sergeant Leeming pointed his own gun at Gilzean and ordered him to stop but the command went unheard. And since the combatants were now spinning around so violently, it was impossible for Leeming to get a clear shot at the man. He jumped back as Colbeck tripped his adversary up and fell to the deck on top of him. Gilzean fought with even more ferocity now, trying to wrest his hand free so that he could fire his weapon. Using all his strength, he slowly brought the barrel of the gun around so that it was almost trained on its target. Colbeck refused to be beaten, finding a reserve of energy that enabled him to force the pistol downwards and away from himself.
Gilzean’s finger tightened on the trigger and the gun went off. A yell of pain mingled with a gasp of horror that came from the watching crowd. Hearing the sound of the gunshot from below, Madeleine came running up on deck, fearing that Colbeck had been killed. Instead, she found him standing
over Gilzean, who, compelled to shoot himself, was clutching a shoulder from which blood was now oozing.
‘Why did you not leave him to
me
?’ complained Leeming.
‘I wanted the privilege myself.’
‘But I had a weapon.’
‘I am sorry, Victor,’ said Colbeck with a weary grin. ‘You can arrest Thomas Sholto, but you’ll have to haul him out of the water first.’ He turned to Madeleine. ‘They’ll not trouble you again, Miss Andrews,’ he promised. ‘Horses and ships have their place in the scheme of things but they were not enough to defeat the steam locomotive. That is what brought them down. Sir Humphrey was caught by the railways.’
Richard Mayne, the senior Police Commissioner, looked down at the newspapers spread out on his desk and savoured the headlines. The arrest of the two men behind the train robbery and its associated crimes was universally acclaimed as a triumph for the Detective Department at Scotland Yard. After sustaining so much press criticism, they had now been vindicated. That gave Mayne a sense of profound satisfaction. While he could bask in the general praise, however, he was the first to accept that the plaudits should go elsewhere.
He was glad, therefore, when Superintendent Tallis entered with Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming. The Commissioner came from behind his desk to shake hands with all three in turn, starting, significantly, with Robert Colbeck, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Tallis. The Superintendent shifted his feet.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Mayne, spreading his arms, ‘you have achieved a small miracle. Thanks to your efforts, we have secured some welcome approbation. The headlines in today’s
newspapers send a message to every villain in the country.’
‘Except that most of them can’t read, sir,’ noted Tallis.
‘I was speaking figuratively, Superintendent.’
‘Ah – of course.’
‘No matter how clever they may be,’ continued Mayne, ‘we catch them in the end. In short, with a combination of tenacity, courage and detection skills, we can solve any crime.’
‘That is what we are here for, sir,’ said Tallis, importantly.
‘Our role is largely administrative, Superintendent. It is officers like Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming on whom we rely and they have been shining examples to their colleagues.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Leeming.
‘On your behalf, I have received warm congratulations from the Post Office, the Royal Mint, Spurling’s Bank, the Chubb factory, the commissioners for the Great Exhibition and, naturally, from the London and North Western Railway Company. The last named wishes to offer both of you free travel on their trains at any time of your choice.’
‘I will certainly avail myself of that opportunity,’ said Colbeck.
Leeming frowned. ‘And I most certainly will not,’ he said. ‘On the other hand,’ he added with a chuckle, ‘if the Royal Mint is issuing any invitations to us, I’ll be very happy to accept them.’
‘They merely send you their heartfelt gratitude,’ said Mayne.
Tallis sniffed. ‘Far be it from me to intrude a sour note into this welter of congratulation, sir,’ he said, ‘but I have to draw to your attention the fact that some of the evidence was
not obtained in a way that I could bring myself to approve.’
‘Yes, I know, Superintendent. I’ve read your report.’
‘Then perhaps you should temper your fulsome compliments with a degree of reproach.’
‘This is hardly the moment to do so,’ said Mayne, irritably, ‘but, since you force my hand, I will. Frankly, I believe that
you
are the person who should be reprimanded. Had you let your men go to Sir Humphrey’s house on their own, they might well have made the arrests there. By making your presence known so boldly, Superintendent Tallis, you gave the game away. That was bad policing.’
‘We had the house surrounded, sir.’
‘Yet somehow they still managed to escape. In all conscience, you must take the blame for that.’
Trying not to grin, Leeming was enjoying the Superintendent’s patent unease, but Colbeck came swiftly to his superior’s aid.
‘It was a shared responsibility, sir,’ he told Mayne, ‘and we must all take some of the blame. Against anyone but Sir Humphrey Gilzean, the plan that Mr Tallis had devised might well have worked. And the Superintendent did, after all, prove that he is not chained to his desk.’
‘That merits approval,’ said Mayne, ‘it’s true. So let us be done with censure and take pleasure from our success. Or, more properly, from the success that you, Inspector Colbeck – along with Sergeant Leeming here – achieved in Bristol. Both of you are heroes.’
Leeming pulled a face. ‘That’s not what my wife called me when I stayed away for another night, sir,’ he confided. ‘She was very bitter.’
‘Spare us these insights into your sordid domestic life,’ said
Tallis.
‘We made up in the end, of course.’
‘I should hope so, Sergeant,’ said Mayne with amusement. ‘Mrs Leeming deserves to know that she is married to a very brave man. You will have a written commendation to show her.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Leeming, happily, ‘but I only followed where Inspector Colbeck led me. He is the real hero here.’
‘I’m inclined to agree.’
‘The only reason that we finally caught up with them was that the Inspector had the forethought to put a copy of
Bradshaw’s Guide
in his valise. It told us what train we could catch to Bristol.’
‘I regard it as an indispensable volume,’ explained Colbeck, ‘and I never go by rail without it. Unlike Sergeant Leeming, I have a particular fondness for travelling by train. I am grateful that this case gave me such opportunities to do so.’
‘A train robbery certainly gave you the chance to show your mettle, Inspector,’ said Mayne, ‘and everyone has admired the way that you conducted the investigation. But success brings its own disadvantage.’
‘Disadvantage?’ repeated Colbeck.
‘You have obviously not read this morning’s papers.’
‘I have not yet had the time, sir.’
‘Make time, Inspector,’ suggested Mayne. ‘Every single reporter has christened you with the same name. You are now Inspector Robert Colbeck – the Railway Detective.’
After considering his new title, Colbeck gave a slow smile.
‘I think I like that,’ he said.
Madeleine Andrews could not understand it. While she was being held in captivity, all that she wanted to do was to return home, yet, now that she was actually there, she felt somehow disappointed. She was thrilled to be reunited with her father again, trying to forget her ordeal by nursing him with renewed love, but she remained strangely detached and even jaded. Caleb Andrews soon noticed it.