Edward Marston - Inspector Colbeck's Casebook

Wylam Railway had started as a wooden line on which coal wagons were dragged by heavy horses. It had been rebuilt in the second decade of the present century as a five-foot gauge plateway. Over a period of two years, William Hedley, the mechanical inspector at Wylam, had experimented with a locomotive that used some of the elements in engines built by Trevithick and Blenkinsop, adding refinements that improved speed and adhesion. The original Puffing Billy had four wheels but was soon altered to run on eight because the axle loading was too much for the cast-iron plate rails. Later versions of the locomotive reverted to four wheels but it was the old eight-wheeler to which Hooper took his guests. It was a curious contraption, small, misshapen and primitive compared to engines now in use on major railways.

Colbeck and Madeleine were fascinated to see it waiting for them in the engine shed. Other locomotives chugged by, pulling wagons piled high with coal, but none had the same place in history as Puffing Billy . Madeleine got to work immediately, sketching it from all angles. Colbeck, meanwhile, was taken on a brief tour of the mine so that the artist could work undisturbed. It was a productive day for husband and wife. Colbeck learnt a great deal about the early days of steam locomotion while Madeleine was drawing a prime exhibit. The manager provided them with a midday meal then she worked on into the afternoon.

On the train journey back to Newcastle, she was brimming with gratitude.

‘Thank you so much, Robert.’

‘I enjoyed it. There’s kudos in being the husband of a celebrated artist.’

‘Stop teasing.’

‘I’m serious, Madeleine. You were the centre of attention and I liked that. I was able to bask in your shadow, if that’s not a contradiction in terms.’

‘When I started work, I remembered what you once told me about Stubbs.’

He laughed. ‘ Puffing Billy may be an iron horse but I don’t think you can compare him with those sublime horses that Stubbs created.’

‘In order to paint horses in such convincing detail,’ she said, ‘he actually had a dead one in his studio with the skin stripped off so that he could see every bone and sinew. It’s what I tried to do today — look carefully at how the engine worked so that I could paint it from the inside, as it were.’

‘Your father taught you how a steam engine worked.’

‘I owe him so much, Robert — and you, of course. Thank you again for today. It’s been an absolute treat for me.’

‘The treat for me was to see you so happily immersed in your work,’ he said. ‘But you don’t need to hug your sketchbook like that. It won’t fly away.’

Madeleine hadn’t realised she was holding the book protectively in both arms.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, putting it on the seat beside her. ‘These sketches are very precious to me. I’d hate to lose them.’

‘Then you must ask a policeman to keep an eye on them for you.’

They returned to their hotel, washed, changed then went down to dinner. Once again the standard of cuisine was high. As they left the restaurant, they overheard a conversation between an elderly lady and the manager. She was complaining bitterly about the loss of a brooch and he was suggesting that it might have gone astray elsewhere. The woman was adamant that she’d brought it to the hotel when she stayed there days earlier. Its disappearance had only just come to light. The manager was patient and emollient. It was only when he offered her compensation for the loss that she was pacified. Colbeck and Madeleine went up to their room.

‘That was very generous of the manager,’ he said. ‘He was replacing a brooch that she may never have had here in the first place.’

‘Are you saying that she was a confidence trickster, Robert?’

‘Heavens, no — she genuinely believed that she lost the item at the hotel.’

‘The manager poured oil on troubled waters very swiftly.’

When Colbeck let her into the room, the first thing she did was to go to the drawer where she’d left her sketchbook. Madeleine was looking forward to viewing the results of a day at Wylam Colliery. But she was disappointed.

‘Where is it?’ she cried, looking at the empty drawer.

‘Are you certain that’s where you put it, Madeleine?’

‘Yes,’ she replied before conducting a frantic search of the room. ‘I swear that it was here, Robert. Someone has stolen Puffing Billy .’

It was time for Colbeck to emerge from anonymity. He went straight downstairs to confront the manager, Andrew Whitchurch, a tall, angular individual in his forties, wearing an expensive frock coat. Surprised to hear that he had a detective inspector at the hotel, he issued a stream of apologies for the loss of the sketchbook.

‘We don’t want your apologies,’ said Colbeck. ‘We simply want it back.’

‘I will replace it with a new one, sir.’

‘You don’t understand. My wife is an artist and she made sketches at Wylam Colliery today that are vital to the project on which she is working. It’s impossible for us to go back to the colliery tomorrow because we will be catching a train at noon. As for replacing it, where would you find a shop selling artists’ materials on a Sunday?’

‘I’ll refund the cost, Inspector Colbeck,’ volunteered the other. ‘In the interests of good customer relations, I’ll give you twice the cost of the sketchbook.’

‘Twenty times the price would not satisfy my wife. She wants the original one back. It is, literally, irreplaceable.’

Whitchurch cleared his throat. ‘I’ll see what I can do, sir.’

He was standing behind the reception desk. On the wall behind him were rows of hooks on which keys were dangling. They caught Colbeck’s eye.

‘How many master keys are there to the rooms?’ he asked.

‘There are only two, sir. I hold one and the housekeeper has the other. She went off duty at six o’clock this evening.’

‘The theft occurred while we were having dinner. That would seem to eliminate the housekeeper — unless she sneaked back here unseen, of course.’

‘Mrs Garritty is above reproach, sir. She’s been with us for years.’

‘Then somebody else gained access to our room. The puzzling thing is that the intruder chose to take my wife’s sketchbook. Why? It’s of no use to anyone else. There were far more valuable items in the room yet they are still there.’

‘I’ll do my very best to trace the missing book, sir.’

‘Why didn’t you offer to trace the brooch belonging to the lady we overheard complaining to you earlier on?’

‘That was a different matter, Inspector.’

‘Not necessarily — its disappearance may well be the work of the same thief who took the sketchbook. Have many other things have vanished from rooms here?’

‘Two or three,’ admitted the manager, uneasily.

‘Do you have a hotel detective?’

‘We don’t, Inspector.’

‘Well, you’ve got one now,’ said Colbeck, looking him in the eye, ‘and I mean to get to the bottom of this. I’ll speak to the housekeeper the moment she arrives tomorrow. In the meantime, I suggest you look closely at every member of your staff to assure yourself that none of them could have been responsible for this spate of thefts. Don’t be misled by feelings of loyalty,’ he warned. ‘There’s a thief under this roof and you are paying his wages.’

The manager was clearly shaken. Recovering his composure, he manufactured a soothing smile and spoke with quiet determination.

‘Mrs Colbeck will get her sketchbook back,’ he said. ‘I give you my word on that, Inspector.’

Madeleine was not content to leave the detective work to Colbeck. When he went off to speak to the manager, she explored the building. At the end of the corridor was a servants’ staircase with bare stone steps. She descended to the ground floor. Facing her was a door with the word HOUSEKEEPER painted on it in bold capitals. She knocked hard but got no response. When she tried the handle, she found that the door was locked. Madeleine was about to go back up the stairs when a young man in the uniform of a hotel porter came into the passageway. He was very surprised to see her.