Edward Marston - The iron horse

'Ah!' exclaimed the driver, turning to look at them. 'I had a feeling that I might be seeing you on my train, Inspector.'

'You remember Sergeant Leeming, don't you?'

'Of course.'

Andrews and Leeming exchanged a friendly nod.

'We need to get to Crewe as fast as possible,' said Colbeck.

'Then you've come to the right man.'

'You sound as if you expected us,' said Victor Leeming.

'I did, Sergeant. When a man's head is found inside a hatbox at a railway station, the people they'll always send for are you and Inspector Colbeck.'

'A man's head, did you say?'

'You already know more than us,' noted Colbeck.

'That's the rumour, anyway,' said Andrews, scratching his fringe beard. 'Messages keep coming in from Crewe. According to the stationmaster, it was the head of a young man. It was discovered by accident.'

'What else can you tell us?'

'Nothing, Inspector.'

'Then take us to the scene of the crime.'

'But not too fast,' pleaded Leeming with a grimace. 'Trains always make me feel sick.'

'Not the way that I drive,' boasted Andrews, adjusting his cap. He beamed at Colbeck. 'Well, what a piece of news to tell Maddy! I'm helping the Railway Detective to solve a crime.'

'It won't be the first time,' said Colbeck with a smile.

Caleb Andrews had been the driver of the mail train that had been robbed a few years earlier, and he had received such serious injuries during the incident that it was doubtful if he would survive. In the event, he had made a complete recovery, thanks to his remarkable resilience and to the way that his daughter, Madeleine, had nursed him back to full health. During the course of his investigation, Colbeck and Madeleine had been drawn together in a friendship that had slowly matured into something much deeper.

'I knew that you'd probably be driving this train,' said Colbeck. 'Madeleine always tells me what your shift patterns are.'

Andrews grinned. 'It feels as if I'm on duty twenty-fours a day.'

'Just like us,' said Leeming gloomily.

'Climb aboard, Sergeant. We're due off in a couple of minutes.'

'Is there any way to reduce the dreadful noise and rattle?'

'Yes,' said Andrews. 'Travel by coach.'

'At a conservative estimate,' observed Colbeck, 'it would take us all of sixteen hours to get to Crewe by coach. The train will get us there in just over four hours.'

'Four hours of complete misery,' Leeming groaned.

'You'll learn to love the railway one day, Victor.'

Leeming rolled his eyes. He was a stocky man in his thirties, slightly older than the inspector but having none of Colbeck's sharp intelligence or social graces. In contrast to his handsome superior, the sergeant was also spectacularly ugly with a face that seemed to have been uniquely designed for villainy rather than crime prevention.

'Let's find a carriage, Victor,' advised Colbeck.

'If we must,' sighed Leeming.

'When you catch the person who was travelling with that hatbox,' said Andrews sternly, 'hand him over to us.'

'Why?' asked Colbeck.

The engine driver cackled. 'That severed head had no valid ticket for the journey,' he said. 'We take fare-dodging very seriously.'

On that macabre note, they set off for Crewe.

It was a warm May evening but Reginald Hibbert was still shivering. Since the accident with the hatbox, he had been relieved of his duties and kept in the stationmaster's office. When a local policeman interviewed him, the hapless porter was made to feel obscurely responsible for the fact that a severed head had been travelling by train. Dismissal from his job was the very least that he expected. The worst of it was that his wife would be at home, wondering where he was and why he had not returned at the end of his shift. She would grow increasingly worried about her husband. He feared that Molly might in due course come to the station in search of him and thereby witness his disgrace.

'When can I go home?' he asked tentatively.

'Not until the detectives arrive from Scotland Yard,' said Douglas Fagge with a meaningful tap on the nose. 'They'll need to speak to you. We can't have you disappearing.'

'I'd only be gone ten minutes, Mr Fagge.'

'How do we know that you'd come back?'

'Because I'd give you my word.'

'And I know you'd keep it,' said Percy Reade, the stationmaster, adopting a gentler tone. 'I trust you implicitly, Reg, but I still think it better that you stay here until they arrive.'

Hibbert quivered. 'Am I in trouble, Mr Reade?'

'Yes!' affirmed Fagge, folding his arms.

'No,' countered the stationmaster. 'Accidents will happen.'

'Especially when Hibbert is around.'

'You're too harsh on him, Douglas.'

'And you're too lenient.'

Percy Reade was a mild-mannered little man in his forties with a huge walrus moustache concealing much of his face. Conscientious and highly efficient, he treated the staff with a paternal care in the belief that it was the way to get the best out of them. Fagge, on the other hand, favoured a more tyrannical approach. Left to him, flogging would have been meted out to anyone who failed to do his job properly and Fagge would happily have wielded the cat o' nine tails himself. Hibbert was relieved that the stationmaster was there. His kindly presence was an antidote to the venom of the head porter.

The distant sound of an approaching train made all three men turn their heads to the window. Reade consulted his watch and gave a nod of satisfaction at the train's punctuality. Fagge's hope was that it would bring the detectives from Scotland Yard and allow him to play a decisive part in a murder investigation. As the train thundered into the station and slowly ground to a halt amid a symphony of hissing and juddering, all that Hibbert could think about was his anxious wife, the threat of unemployment and his rumbling stomach. It was several hours since he had last eaten.

After stopping at major stations on the way, the train had finally arrived at Crewe. Robert Colbeck and Victor Leeming were aboard and the stationmaster went out to greet them. When he brought the visitors back to his office, Reade introduced them to Hibbert and to Fagge. At a glance, Colbeck could see that the porter was trembling and that his superior was revelling in the man's discomfort.

'This is the miscreant,' declared Fagge, pointing at Hibbert. 'He dropped a trunk onto that hatbox.'

'How do you know?' asked Colbeck.

'He admits it.'

'But did you actually see the incident, Mr Fagge?'

'No – I was on another platform.'

'Then we have no further use for you. Goodbye.'

'But I have to be here,' blustered Fagge. 'I'm the head porter.'

'We're only interested in the porter with the head,' said Leeming, unable to stop himself from blurting out his joke. He was immediately contrite. 'I'm sorry, Inspector. I meant no disrespect to the dead.'

'I'm sure that you didn't, Victor,' said Colbeck easily, turning to the stationmaster. 'Mr Reade, I assume that you reported the grim discovery to the local police.'

'Yes, Inspector,' said Reade. 'Constable Hubbleday was summoned at once. He took statements from several witnesses.'

'Then I'll want to hear what else he did.' Colbeck swung round to confront Fagge. 'How far away is the police station?'

'Not far,' said the head porter.

'In that case, perhaps you'll be good enough to show Sergeant Leeming the way and introduce him when you get there.' He ushered both men to the door. 'You know what to ask, Victor.'

'Yes, Inspector.'

'Leave your bag here.'

Putting his valise down beside Colbeck's, the sergeant led the reluctant Fagge out and the door was closed behind them. Colbeck could sense the air of relief in the office. Hibbert was clearly afraid of his hectoring boss and Reade unwilling to challenge him. Now that Fagge had gone, both of them had relaxed.