Miles Burton - Death in the Tunnel (Miles Burton) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

Shortly after emerging from the tunnel, the train pulled up at Blackdown station. Arnold got out, and sought the station-master, to whom he introduced himself. He explained that he was investigating the death of Sir Wilfred Saxonby, who had been found dead the previous day on the arrival at Stourford of the five o’clock train from Cannon Street. “And there’s some reason to believe that he died in Blackdown Tunnel,” he added.

“In the tunnel, eh?” the station-master replied. “That’s not the only queer thing that happened in the tunnel yesterday evening. The driver of that very train reported that he was held up in the tunnel by a man waving a red light. He must have dreamt it, for there was certainly nobody there.”

“Can you be sure of that?” Arnold asked.

“As sure as that I’m talking to you now. I’ll explain why. To begin with, the tunnel isn’t exactly the place one would choose for an evening stroll. The public don’t use it as a promenade, so to speak. The only people who ever go into it on foot are the permanent way men. And, during the whole of yesterday, none of these men set foot inside it. Besides, they don’t go in singly. They go in a gang, and light flares. The driver reports no flares, only a red light which changed to green just before he reached it.

“Now, I know what you’re going to say. If it wasn’t one of the permanent way men, it must have been some unauthorised person who had somehow wandered in. Well, I say it couldn’t have been, and for this reason. At each end of the tunnel there is a signal cabin, and nobody could possibly get in without being seen by the men on duty. Even after dark a strong light shines from the windows of the cabins on to the line. There’s no question of a man slipping past in a fog, for it was perfectly clear yesterday evening. I’ve questioned the men on duty at both ends, and they swear that nobody can have gone in or out.

“But I wasn’t satisfied with that. It struck me that perhaps, by some miracle, somebody might have got into the tunnel and been run over. So, as soon as I heard about the driver’s report, I sent a search party through, to look for a body, or bits of one. Of course, they found nothing of the kind. I never for a moment expected that they would. You may take it from me, inspector, that there was nobody in the tunnel yesterday evening.”

“Then how do you account for the driver’s report?” Arnold asked.

The station-master shrugged his shoulders.

“Tunnels are queer places,” he replied. “You’ve never been through one, except in a train, I suppose? And then you’re nice and comfortable, and you run through so quick that you don’t have time to notice things. If you’d ever been through on foot, you wouldn’t want to repeat the experience. It’s pitch dark, to begin with, and then it’s usually full of smoke and steam, unless the wind happens to be blowing through it.

“I can imagine a driver, even an experienced man, imagining that he saw a light. Maybe a reflection in the window of his cab, or something like that. He’d naturally pull up, for we believe in safety first on the railway, whatever they may think on the roads. And when he saw that it wasn’t a red light at all, but only a reflection, he’d go ahead again.

“But he’d have to account for slowing down. And he wouldn’t care to make himself look a fool by saying that he thought he saw a red light when there hadn’t been one there at all. So he’d make up a yarn like this, about the red light that turned to green, and his fireman would back him up. And that, you’ll find, is about the truth of it.”

After this conversation with the station-master at Blackdown, Arnold continued his journey to London. The engine-driver’s report seemed to be disposed of. The train had certainly slowed down in the tunnel, that at least was an established fact. But only because of an hallucination on the part of the driver. He had seen a red and a green light where none could have existed. Rather an uncanny happening, if those lights had been seen at the moment of Sir Wilfred’s death. Could the flash of the pistol have had anything to do with it? By some extraordinary trick of reflection, could the driver have seen this flash as a red light ahead of him? Not under ordinary circumstances, Arnold imagined. But, as the station-master had said, tunnels were queer places.

He arrived at Cannon Street, and there made a few further inquiries. As a result of these he learnt that passengers had to show their tickets at the barrier before obtaining access to the platforms. The ticket inspector who had been on duty the previous evening happened to know Sir Wilfred by sight. He remembered punching his ticket, the return half of a first-class to Stourford. At the barrier, Sir Wilfred had extracted the ticket from a leather wallet, from which at the same time he took a pound note. The ticket inspector believed that, after his ticket had been examined, Sir Wilfred had put it back in the wallet. When he reached the platform, he stopped and spoke to the guard, and they had walked up the train together. Sir Wilfred had been carrying an attaché-case, but no other luggage.

This confirmed Turner’s statement, but threw no fresh light on the mystery of the ticket. In fact, it rather tended to deepen that mystery. If Sir Wilfred had put it back in his wallet, the possibility of it having fallen out at Stourford was removed. Arnold made a mental note of this, as one of the puzzling but possibly irrelevant features of the case. He then walked to Shrubb Court, and entered the imposing offices of Messrs Wigland and Bunthorne.

The death of the chairman of the company did not seem to have upset the decorous routine of the place. Arnold handed in his card, and asked to see the secretary. He was received by a pleasant, energetic-looking man of about forty, tall, clean-shaven and muscular, who introduced himself as Mr. Torrance. “You’ve come about this most unfortunate affair of Sir Wilfred, I suppose, inspector?” he said. “Make yourself comfortable, and I’ll try to answer your questions as well as I can.”

“That’s very good of you, Mr. Torrance,” Arnold replied. “In the first place, I’d be glad to know something of the firm of Wigland and Bunthorne, and the position which Sir Wilfred held in it.”

“That’s an easy one to start with, inspector. We are importers of produce, mainly from the East. Tea, coffee, rubber, spices, almost everything you can think of. The business was started in a small way over a hundred years ago by two partners, the original Wigland and Bunthorne. Their successors were bought out some fifty years ago by Oscar Saxonby, Sir Wilfred’s father. Oscar became Lord Mayor, and received a baronetcy. At his death, Sir Wilfred succeeded him. When his son, Richard, came of age, he made the business into a private company, with himself as chairman, and Richard and two others as directors. For some time after that Sir Wilfred took an active part in the management. But, shortly after Lady Saxonbys death, Richard Saxonby was appointed managing director, and his father practically handed over the direction of the business to him. Since then Sir Wilfred has confined himself to attending directors’ meetings, and coming up here once, and occasionally twice a week.”

“What did he do on those occasions?”

“Either one of the directors or myself would give him a sort of résumé of the past week. He would comment upon this, and make suggestions. Then he would study the various market reports. He had a room of his own here, where he could sit without being disturbed. I will show it to you, if you care to see it.”

“I should like to do so later. Sir Wilfred was here yesterday, I understand?”

“He was. I did not see him personally, as I had gone to Manchester, where we have a branch office. However, my assistant was with him shortly before he left here to catch his train home.”