Edward Marston - The Railway Detective

‘That’s not quite true.’

Gilzean stamped a foot. ‘They’ll wish they’d never been born!’

‘You would never get close enough to chastise them,’ said Sholto. ‘The tidings are worse than you feared. Jukes and the Seymour brothers walked into an ambush at the Crystal Palace.’

‘An ambush?’

‘All three are taken, Humphrey.’

‘What!’ exclaimed Gilzean.

‘They are in police custody. From what I can gather, this Inspector Colbeck laid a trap for them and they walked into it.’

‘But how could he possibly know that they would be there?’

‘I think that he is much cleverer than we imagined.’

Gilzean’s fury changed to concern. Dropping into a high-backed leather armchair, he became pensive. The house was in Upper Brook Street, close enough to Hyde Park for him to hear any explosion that occurred in the Crystal Palace. Long before dawn had broken, he realised that the mission had been unsuccessful but it had never crossed his mind that his men had been arrested.

‘We have one comfort,’ said Sholto. ‘They will not betray us.’

‘They have already done so, Thomas.’

‘How?’

‘By getting themselves caught,’ said Gilzean. ‘If this Inspector is clever enough to apprehend them, it will not take him long to find out that all three served in our regiment. That will set him on a trail that leads directly to us.’

‘Perhaps we should quit London and go into hiding.’

‘No, Thomas. There is no danger yet.’

‘But there soon will be.’

‘Only if we let things take their natural course.’

‘What else can we do, Humphrey?’

‘Divert them,’ said Gilzean, getting to his feet. ‘At every stage, we have relied on the slowness and inefficiency of the police. We have out-manoeuvred them with comparative ease. Until now, that is. It seems that we underestimated them, Thomas. They have one man within their ranks who has a keen intelligence.’

‘Inspector Robert Colbeck.’

‘What do we know about him?’

‘Only what we have read in the newspaper.’

‘Find out more,’ said Gilzean. ‘We need to identify his weakness. Is he married? Does he have children? Who are the loved ones in his life? If we have that information in our hands, we can distract him from his investigation and buy ourselves some valuable time.’

‘Supposing that he is a bachelor with no family ties?’

‘Every man has someone he cares about,’ insisted Gilzean, dark eyes gleaming. ‘All you have to do is to find out who it is.’

Madeleine Andrews was pleased when the visitor arrived. Still in his working clothes, Frank Pike had called on his way home from Euston Station and he had brought plenty of gossip to share with his friend. After all this time, the fireman was still blaming himself for the injury to Caleb Andrews and he began with another battery of apologies. Madeleine hoped to leave the two men alone in the bedroom but her father decided to use Pike as a court of appeal.

‘What do you think, Frank?’ he asked.

‘About what?’

‘Gideon Little.’

‘I think he’ll be a driver before I am,’ said Pike, honestly. ‘Gideon may be younger than me but he learns faster. I think that he’s one of the best fireman in the company.’

‘There you are, Maddy,’ said Andrews, pointedly.

‘I never doubted his abilities,’ she replied.

‘Gideon has a bright future ahead of him. All that he needs is a loving wife to support and cherish him.’

Pike grinned. ‘Is there an engagement in the wind?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Madeleine.

‘Not yet, anyway,’ said Andrews.

‘Father!’

‘You may come to your senses in the end, Maddy.’

‘It would make Gideon the happiest man on the railway,’ said Pike, ‘I know that. He never stops talking about you, Madeleine. Some of the others tease him about it.’

She was roused. ‘So my name is taken in vain, is it?’

‘No, no.’

‘You and the others are having a laugh at my expense.’

‘I’d never do that, Madeleine,’ said Pike, overcome with remorse, ‘and I’m sorry if I gave you that idea. No,’ he went on, ‘I promise you that nobody would dare to mock you.’

‘They’d have me to answer to, if they did,’ said Andrews.

‘Gideon is the only one they tease.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘About me.’

‘About…being the way that he is.’

‘Besotted with my daughter,’ observed Andrews. ‘You cannot stay single for ever, Maddy. Choose the right person and marriage is the most wonderful institution ever invented. Am I right, Frank?’

‘Yes, Caleb.’

‘Do you wish that you were still a bachelor?’

‘Not for a moment,’ said Pike, chuckling merrily. ‘Rose has made me very happy and she seems to be content with me.’

Andrews cackled. ‘Heaven knows why!’

‘Getting married changed my life for the better.’

‘You hear that, Maddy?’

‘I can recommend it,’ said Pike.

‘So can I,’ said Andrews. ‘How much longer do we have to wait?’

Madeleine did not trust herself to reply. She was fond of Frank Pike and did not wish to have a quarrel with her father in front of him. More to the point, she did not want to deal with an issue that, as far as she was concerned, had finally been settled. Hounded for a decision, Madeleine had told Gideon Little the painful truth. What she had not admitted was that her affections had been placed elsewhere. For a woman like her, Robert Colbeck might be unobtainable but that only served to increase his attraction.

‘I’ll make some tea,’ she said, and went out abruptly.

Since a window had been opened to admit fresh air, the office was free from the stink of cigar smoke for once yet the atmosphere remained unpleasant. Superintendent Edward Tallis was spoiling for a fight. He stood inches away from Inspector Colbeck.

‘Whatever did you think you were doing ?’ he yelled.

‘Taking the necessary steps to achieve an objective, sir.’

‘Brendan Mulryne was supposed to be in custody.’

‘Arrangements were made,’ said Colbeck.

‘What sort of arrangements?’

‘I looked more closely at the charges against him, Superintendent. There are several witnesses at The Black Dog in the Devil’s Acre, who will swear that Mulryne did not start the affray. He was not even there when it flared up. Mulryne is paid to quell such outbursts. Those he knocked out during the brawl certainly have no complaint against him. They made the mistake of taking on a stronger man. As for the damage he caused to a window,’ he revealed, ‘nobody is prepared to bring a charge against him on that account.’

‘That Irish gorilla assaulted four policemen,’ said Tallis.

‘Only because they provoked him, sir,’ replied Colbeck, ‘and they now admit that. I spoke to the custody sergeant. Since he’s been behind bars, Mulryne has been a model prisoner. He’s even made his peace with the four men who tried to arrest him.’

‘Turning on that blarney of his no doubt!’

‘Mulryne was one of them, remember. In his heart, I suspect, he would still like to be.’

‘Not as long as I have anything to say about it!’

‘I raised the matter with Mr Mayne earlier on.’

Tallis was horrified. ‘You tried to get Mulryne reinstated?’

‘No,’ said Colbeck, ‘that would have been asking too much and, in any case, it’s too late for that. No, Superintendent, I wanted to discuss a point of law with him.’

‘When it comes to law, you only need to know one thing with regard to Brendan Mulryne. He’s on the wrong side of it.’

‘Technically, he’s not.’

‘He resisted arrest.’