Murder At Deviation Junction (18 page)

    'You
had all on there ... Nearly lost your hat.'

    I
couldn't speak for a moment, but had to catch my breath, scattering snow on the
compartment floor as I unbuttoned my topcoat. I took off my hat, and pushed my
hand through my sodden hair, noticing as I did so that my coat sleeve had dried
to a solid blue - just as if it had been patched with blue darning.

    'I
was just about to get up and let you in,' said Davitt.

    Very
likely, I thought. There was no doubt that Davitt knew me for a railway copper,
but I fished out my warrant card in any case.

    'Like
to see your ticket, please,' I said and Davitt reached for his pocket book,
looking pretty sick. I was just rehearsing the caution in my mind, when I
looked down and saw that a great spray of black mud had been flung at my left
trouser leg. I was fairly darted with the stuff - it must have come up off the
wheel. Then came an even worse lookout, for I saw the ticket in Davitt's hand.
I didn't need to take it from him; I could easily make out the date and the
words 'Pickering' and 'Third Class'. (We were in Third Class, so even that was in
order.)

    'I'm
obliged to you,' I said, and quit the compartment in double quick time.

    I
found an empty one three along, where I fell into a seat. What the hell did
Davitt mean by travelling on a valid ticket? Had he turned square? I looked
again at the mud on my trouser leg. I would let it dry, then try to brush it
off before the wife's 'do'.

    The
train ran on quickly, past white fields, deep white lanes. It was express to
Pickering: a mid-afternoon fast train to a town that slept through every day
but market day. If anybody in the traffic office had given it a moment's
thought, the service would have been struck from the timetable immediately. I
took out the photograph. The snow had stopped by the time I stepped out of the
station, but it had done its job. Pickering, which was in the beginnings of the
moors, was all white. The town beck was frozen like a photograph. On the main
street, I passed the ironmonger's shop - the pails outside it were full of
snow. I walked past the post office - a white clock-face gazed through the
glass, but not a soul was to be seen inside. I continued past the bike shop,
where each bike stood outside had its load of snow. It was amazing how much
snow would fit on one bicycle saddle. Why did they not take them in? I walked
in a dream, wondering whether I might be given the boot directly on my
returning to the office, and hardly caring either way.

    And
then a man riding a bike came round the corner from the little road that leads
up to Pickering Castle. He had the trick of snow riding, even though the stuff
was six inches thick in the road. He looked like a machine, leaning first to
the left and then to the right as he pedalled, and never varying this rhythm.
His Dunlops made a crunching noise as they cut through the snow. He was the one
man alive in Pickering.

    'Do
you know where a man called Moody lives?' I called out.

    'I
do,' he said. 'Aye.'

    And
he carried on rocking, pushing on down the high street. I fell in with him (he
wasn't going at much more than walking pace).

    'Where
then?' I said

    'First
left,' he said, still rocking, and not looking at me. 'Keep going till you're
out of town; then it's first on your right, over the beck.'

    'Ta,'
I said.

    I
turned down the street he'd indicated.

    Here
was another frozen beck, with many pretty little bridges crossing it, each
belonging to a big house. In my dateless state, I fell to wondering about the
exact moment at which the beck had frozen. Midday? One o'clock? At that very
moment, whatever it was, it had become a Christmas card. Moody's was the last
house, and the biggest and oldest, and the sharp roof gave it the looks of a
chapel. In the garden, I half-expected to see graves.

    A
maidservant answered my knock. I took off my hat and held up my warrant card -
and I half-hoped I was doing it for the last time.

    'Is
the master of the house at home?' I said.

    'Oh,'
she said. 'Hold on.'

    She
wasn't very polite, for she left me dangling on the doorstep, and with a very tempting
hallway before me: wide and firelit and with no furniture but two small, thin
dogs in a basket. One stood and looked at me for a moment, but neither could be
bothered to risk a cold blow by making a move in my direction. You couldn't
blame them: they were just skin and bone the pair of them - two whippets.

    The
maidservant came back.

    'Go
up,' she said, still not polite.

    The
staircase had been wide, but the room she showed me into was small. Not much in
it but a fire. It held a card table, an armchair and an empty bookshelf
besides, but they didn't signify. It was a very clean house, considering the
money came from chimney sweeping. I took the photograph from my pocket and
looked at the oldest Club member: Moody. I must expect a man who looked
something like him only twenty or so years younger. I walked over to the
window, and looked out at the pretty road. I then heard a single loud slam,
followed by a great roaring shout. Looking down, I saw a trap pulled by two
horses and containing two muffled-up men come racing around the side of the
house, along the drive and through the gate. It turned left into the road and
flew, at full gallop, along the snowy road.

    The
maid came back a long while later.

    'The
master's not in,' she said.

    'He
was,
though, wasn't he?' I said. 'I mean, he was in until he bloody left.
He was in when I arrived.'

    'He's
been called away sudden,' she said.

    She
was quite bonny, but a good blocker.

    'I am
here on important police business. When is he coming back?'

    She
said nothing.

    'Does
he mean to return today?'

    'He
didn't leave word.'

    We
walked out into a corridor, where a manservant stood; he was closing a door
behind him, but he didn't do it soon enough to stop me seeing that there was a
world of whiteness inside this house as well as outside - white sheets over
every article of furniture. He knew that I'd seen; and I could tell that he'd
been told I was a copper. You can always tell when people know that.

    'Does
Mr Moody plan to remove?' I asked him.

    'I
think so, sir,' he said. 'We've all been given notice.'

    I
could feel the agitation of the maid without even giving her a glance.

    'Since
when?'

    'A
week since.'

    The
maid stepped in.

    'You'd
best talk to the master about that.'

    The
man said, 'If you leave a telegraphic address ...'

    I
wrote out the telegraphic address and the telephone number of the York police
office, and gave it to the man, who was the more amiable of the two; or the
more scared. The dogs and the two servants watched me go and, as I ambled along
by the frozen stream, I turned and saw the two of them closing the great gates.
I thought they were speaking to each other, but the frozen snow took away the
sound.

    Back
in the high street, I saw that even the town hotel was called the White Swan,
which seemed to be so in keeping with the whiteness of the place as to be
ridiculous. I felt a powerful fancy for a pint of John Smith's, but I'd given
my word to the wife, so I tramped on towards the station as afternoon changed
to evening. All I was doing was sinking ever further into a kind of despairing
dream; and all I had so far proved was that the Mystery of the Travelling Club
certainly
was
a mystery. That house of Moody's was the sort of place in
which a wealthy man saw out his days. It was the final prize for a lifetime of
toil or luck. He ought not to be haring away from it at such a great rate in
terrible weather on account of questions about his father. And who had been
riding with him? Was the second fellow just the coachman? Or was he another
member of the Travelling Club?

    We
stopped at the little town of Malton on the way back, making only a small
disturbance in my tangled dreams.

    Shillito
was writing carefully. Baker and Crawford were in, and Crawford was reading a
paper, evidently a comic paper, for he was saying to Baker, 'Here's a good one.
What is the relation of the doorstep to the doormat?'

    Shillito
said, 'You and I must have words, Detective Stringer.'

    'A
step
farther,'
said Crawford. 'Do you see?'

    But
Baker had lost interest; all eyes were now on Shillito and me.

    'I
particularly wanted you in this afternoon,' said Shillito. 'You're still a good
deal behind on your paperwork, and Davitt was seen earlier on at the
bookstall.'

    'He
boarded the Pickering train,' I said, leaving off the 'sir', but looking at my
boots, which I knew took away the
force
of leaving it off. 'I decided to
have it out with him. I boarded the train, and asked to see his ticket.'

    'And?'

    'He
showed me it.'

    'He
had a ticket?'

    'He
did.'

    'And
not just any old ticket? Not a last year's bicycle ticket for Poppleton with
the date altered and destination disguised?'

    Poppleton
was the nearest station to York in any direction. A bicycle ticket for that
stop was known to be the cheapest available at the York booking office.

    'No,'
I said. 'He had a valid ticket.'

    'Davitt?'
said Shillito, and his voice rose to such a pitch of disbelief that it sounded
almost like a girl's. It worked on me like an electric jar, and I suddenly knew
I could no longer be either the doorstep or the doormat. Well, I don't recall
the moment, but only afterwards, with Shillito lying on the floor next to his
desk, and skin split across my knuckles. He was looking up at me from just next
to the ash pan of the stove, which somebody had half pulled out, and that was
the best bit: the puzzlement on his face, the
newness
of the look that I
saw there.

    I
picked up my topcoat and hat, and walked out of the office with my handkerchief
over my hand. I was in search of a bottle of carbolic, and a pint of beer, but
I didn't walk fast, and Shillito didn't come after me, or didn't see me in the
crowds, for the station was like one colossal club now. It was five o'clock,
rush hour, but there was something more. It was 16 December, and Christmas had
started. There was all sorts going off in York: concerts and parties and plays,
which all meant more top hats for the men and fancy bonnets for the women, fur
collars and meeting off trains and kissing and laughing. I was not part of it.
I had blood on my shirt, which had somehow flown there from my hand, and I was
out of a job or as good as. But I had paid Shillito out, and that made up for
it.

    In
the booking hall, the Salvation Army played and the decorated tree finally
looked right. I walked on - out into the latest snowfall. I walked over the
bridge that crosses the lines joining the old and new stations; even the old
station looked picturesque, with its lamps all lit, and snowflakes flickering
down over the crippled wagons kept there. I cut down Queen Street, heading for
the Institute, where there was tinsel over the doorway, and paper chains in the
corridors. I followed one of these past the reading room and the bars until I
came to the caretaker's office. He was in there as usual, smoking by the hot
stove. He was called Albert, and he was the idlest bugger that stepped.

    'Now
I know you've a bottle of carbolic in here, Albert,' I said.

    He
pointed with his pipe towards a cabinet, taking in my hand as he did so.

    'What's
up?'

    'I
clocked Shillito,' I said.

    'Get
away,' he said, but he wasn't really interested.

    Albert
had a nice set-up. Cleaning equipment arranged in a barricade all around him,
and very seldom touched. A broken basket chair by the stove to sit on and a
pint pot placed underneath that he filled up from the Institute bar—regular
like.

    'I've
just nicely sat down,' he said. 'We've half a dozen dinners here tonight if
we've one. Every function room to be swept and fire made - no two seating
arrangements the same, and all to be set out by Muggins here - Passenger Clerks
we've got coming in, Railway Reading Circle, League of Riflemen, Angling Club.
I don't know why they don't just form the Society for Making Work for
Caretakers, and have done - You crowned Shillito, did you say? He's a big lad,
twice your size.'