Edward Marston - The excursion train

'If Hawkshaw struck out at the chaplain,' noted Colbeck, 'he must be inclined to violence. Yet you say he'd no record of unruly behaviour.'

'None at all, Inspector.'

'What caused the animosity between him and Dykes?'

'All sorts of things.'

'Such as?'

'Emily, for start.'

'Emily?'

'Nathan Hawkshaw's daughter. Dykes tried to rape her.'

When he first came to his senses, Victor Leeming was lying in a cesspit surrounded by jeering children. There was blood down the front of his jacket and every part of his body was aching violently. Through his swollen lips, he could not even muster the strength to shout at those who were enjoying his misfortune. In trying to move, he set off some fresh spasms of pain down his arms and legs. His body seemed to be on fire. It was the foul smell and the humiliation that finally got him out of there. Braving the agony, he hauled himself upright, relieved to find that he could actually stand on his own feet. While he gathered his wits, the children subjected him to another barrage of abuse. Leeming had to swing a bruised arm to get rid of them.

A frail old woman took pity on him and explained that there was a pump in a nearby street. Dragging himself there, he doused himself with water in order to bring himself fully awake and to get rid of the worst of the malodorous scum in which he was coated. When he slunk away from the pump, Leeming was sodden. Since no cab would dare to stop for him, he had to trudge all the way back to Whitehall in squelching boots, afraid that he might be accosted in the street by a uniformed constable on suspicion of vagrancy. Because of the smell, everyone he passed gave him a wide berth but he eventually got back to Scotland Yard.

Brushing past a couple of amused colleagues, he dived into the washroom, stripped to his underclothing and washed himself again from head to foot. He could not bear to look in a mirror. When he saw the bruises on his body, his first thought was how his wife would react to the hideous blotching. His sole consolation was that nothing appeared to be broken although his pride was in dire need of repair. The discarded suit was still giving off an appalling stink so he bundled it up, gathered the other items of clothing and peeped out of the door. Seeing that the coast was clear, he tried to make a dash for his office but his weary legs would only move at a slow amble. Before the injured detective could reach safety, a bristling Edward Tallis suddenly turned into the corridor and held his nose in horror.

'Damnation!' he exploded. 'Is that you, Leeming?'

'Yes, Superintendent.'

'What on earth is that repulsive stench?'

Leeming sniffed the air. 'I can't smell anything, sir.'

'Well, everyone within a mile can smell you. What have you been doing, man – crawling through the sewers?' He saw the bruises on the Sergeant. 'And how did you get those marks on your body?'

'I was assaulted,' said Leeming.

'By whom?'

'Two men in Bethnal Green. They knocked me unconscious.'

'Dear me!' said Tallis, mellowing instantly. 'You poor fellow.'

Showing a compassion that took Leeming by surprise, he moved forward to hold him by the arm and help him into the office that the Sergeant shared with Inspector Colbeck. The Superintendent lowered the stricken detective into a chair then took the suit from him so that he could dump it in the wastepaper basket. After opening the window to let in fresh air, he returned to take a closer look at Leeming.

'No serious injuries?' he inquired.

'I don't think so, sir.'

'Let me send for a doctor.'

'No, no,' said Leeming, embarrassed to be sitting there in his underclothing. 'I'll be fine, sir. I was lucky. All I have are aches and pains. They'll go away in time. I just need to put on some clean things.'

'These, meanwhile, can go out,' decided Tallis, grabbing the wastepaper basket and tipping its contents unceremoniously through the open window. 'I'm sorry but I found that stink so offensive.' He replaced the basket beside the desk. 'Why don't I give you a few minutes to get dressed and spruce yourself up?'

'Thank you, Superintendent.'

'Comb your hair before you come to my office.'

'I will, sir. I didn't mean to turn up in this state.'

'Was it an unprovoked assault?'

'Yes and no,' said Leeming, ruefully. 'I think I upset someone when I asked a wrong question.'

'Well, I shall want to ask a few right ones in due course,' growled Tallis, resuming his normal role as the established martinet of the Detective Department. 'The first thing I'll demand to know is what the blazes you were doing in Bethnal Green?'

'Making inquiries, sir.'

'About what? No, no,' he said, quickly, stopping him with a raised palm before he could speak, 'I can wait. Make yourself presentable first. And dab some cold water on those lips of yours.'

'Yes, Superintendent.'

'I'll expect you in ten minutes. Bring the Inspector with you. I've no doubt that he'll be as interested as I am to hear how you got yourself in that condition.'

'Inspector Colbeck is not here at the moment.'

'Then where the devil is he?'

'In Maidstone.'

'Maidstone!' echoed the other. 'He's supposed to be solving a crime that took place in an excursion train at Twyford. Whatever has taken him to Maidstone?' He shuddered visibly.'You don't need to tell me that. Inspector Colbeck has developed another theory, hasn't he?'

'Based on sound reasoning, sir.'

'And what about your visit to Bethnal Green?' asked Tallis with undisguised sarcasm. 'Was that based on sound reasoning as well?'

'Yes, sir.'

'You and I have something in common, Sergeant.'

'Do we, Superintendent?'

'Yes, we do. We're both martyrs to the Inspector's predilection for wild and often lunatic theories. So,' he said, pulling out his cigar case from an inside pocket, 'he decided to go to Maidstone, did he? I suppose that I should be grateful it was not the Isle of Wight.'

The return journey gave Robert Colbeck valuable thinking time. As the train rattled along, he reflected on what he had learnt from his visit to Kent. Henry Ferriday and the Reverend Narcissus Jones had explained with dramatic clarity how the hangman's performance on the scaffold had embedded a fierce hatred in the family and friends of the condemned man. On his two previous visits to the town, Guttridge must have acquitted himself fairly well in order to be invited back a third time. It was to prove his downfall. Colbeck had no doubt whatsoever that the murder in the excursion train had been committed by someone who was in the crowd outside Maidstone prison on the fateful day.

Obadiah Lugg had also been a useful source of information.He was not only keen to describe how he had arrested Nathan Hawkshaw and taken him into custody, he was able to show his visitor copies of the local newspapers that contained details of the case and lurid accounts of the execution. Like the hangman, Lugg was a man who hoarded souvenirs of his work but, in the case of the chuckling Sergeant, they were far less disturbing. Along with the other members of the Maidstone police force, and supported by dozens of special constables, Lugg had been on duty during the execution of Hawkshaw and gave his own testimony to the ineptitude of the hangman and the effect that it had on an already restive crowd.

What interested Colbeck were the contradictory assessments of Hawkshaw's character and he struggled to reconcile them. As a butcher, the man had been liked and respected, leading an apparently blameless existence and causing no problems for the two constables representing law and order in Ashford. During his arrest, however, he had to be overpowered by Obadiah Lugg and the two men whom the Sergeant had wisely taken with him in support. At the prison, too, Hawkshaw had resorted to violence at one point though – having met Narcissus Jones – Colbeck could well understand how the chaplain's robust Christianity might prove irksome. Yet the same man who had struck out in frustration at an ordained priest had elected to pray on the scaffold before he was hanged. Was he an innocent man, searching for divine intervention in his hour of need, or had he finally admitted guilt before God and begged forgiveness for his crime?