INSPECTOR FRENCH: DEATH ON THE WAY
Freeman Wills Crofts

Copyright

Published by COLLINS CRIME CLUB

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain for the Crime Club

by Wm Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1932

Copyright © Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts 1932

Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008393182

Ebook Edition © June 2020 ISBN: 9780008393199

Version: 2020-07-23

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Map

1. Prelude to Tragedy

2. Tragedy

3. Inquest

4. Enter Inspector French

5. Concerning a Bicycle

6. Progress

7. The Day’s Work

8. Tragedy Again

9. Inquest Again

10. The Torn Print

11. Fraud!

12. French on the Fraud

13. The Drawn Blinds

14. The Payment in Notes

15. Elimination

16. Light at Last

17. Brenda Takes a Hand

18. Brenda Learns the Truth

19. Conclusion

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also in this series

About the Publisher

Map

1
Prelude to Tragedy

Clifford Parry sat in the corner of a first-class compartment of the 8.20 a.m. train from Lydmouth to Whitness and beyond, gazing gloomily out on the series of views which passed successively before his eyes. A more depressing series it would not have been easy to find. It was late October, a dull and sombre morning. The railway ran along by the sea and the receding tide had laid bare a vast area of mud flats, broken here and there by slimy stones, patches of dank seaweed and the twisting beds of tiny streams. A chill drifting rain fell hopelessly, adding a colder gray to the drab colours of the shore. In the distance, half blotted out by the mist, was a sea of the colour of tarnished lead.

Parry, though travelling thus luxuriously, was a son of toil on his way to his daily round. He was junior assistant engineer in the divisional engineer’s office of the Southern Railway at Lydmouth, in Dorset, and he was going down to Whitness to calculate earthwork quantities on the new Redchurch-Whitness Widening, or doubling of a single line, which the Railway Company was carrying out between those places. An uninteresting job, calculating earthwork, some might have said. Not so Parry. Before it had come his way he had passed through several extremely unhappy years. Since his release from the army after the War he had until now been able to obtain only precarious employment, and indeed had had spells of total idleness which left him face to face with actual want. Work, to him, was an inestimable boon. Dull, wearing, monotonous work would have been an inestimable boon, and his present job certainly could not be so described. As work, he enjoyed almost all of it.

Presently the train began to slacken speed, for Redchurch. At Redchurch he would be joined by his colleague, Ackerley. Ackerley was superior in rank to Parry, being the resident engineer in charge of the Widening. Ackerley was a general favourite, a hard worker, and very keen on his job.

As the train drew up at the platform Parry looked out. Yes, there was Ronnie Ackerley, a tall, well-built young fellow made up in mackintosh and huge boots and with a knapsack over his arm. He approached Parry’s compartment.

‘Hullo, Ack!’ Parry greeted him. ‘Beastly morning.’

‘Rotten,’ Ackerley agreed concisely, and the weather had been duly weighed in the balances, found wanting, and dismissed.

‘Where’s Bragg?’ Ackerley went on presently.

‘Coming down later. He had to meet some of those Westinghouse people about the Lydmouth signalling.’

Bragg was the third in command in the technical staff of the office. He was responsible for such design as was carried out in the divisional office and was Ackerley’s senior in charge of the widening operations.

Ackerley nodded. ‘Wonderful how quickly you get out of things,’ he remarked. ‘I was quite keen on that signalling job when we were getting out the plans, and now since I’ve come down here I’ve lost all interest in it.’

‘You can’t do everything,’ Parry pointed out.

Ackerley grunted. ‘I say, that darned pump gave up again last night,’ he went on.

‘Is the water rising?’

‘No, Lowell got the pulsometer working. But it meant keeping the boiler going all night.’

‘They’ve never got those Pier IV foundations dry?’

‘No, nor never will. Not with those pumps at all events.’

Though no longer young enough to enjoy the continuous talking of shop merely for its own sake, Parry was naturally anxious to be as well up as he could in everything concerning the Widening. Now, however, he did not reply to Ackerley’s last observation, but sat gazing moodily out of the window. They were once again running along the shore, but here the mud flats had given place to deep water. The railway embankment, in fact, formed the actual battery. The wind was sou’-west and the sea choppy. The water looked cold and gray and uninviting.

Ackerley glanced curiously at his companion. ‘What’s up?’ he demanded.

Parry roused himself. ‘Nothing. Only a bad tooth. Are you expecting many people tonight, Ack?’

That evening the Ackerleys were giving a dance at their house in Redchurch and Parry had been invited. Ronnie Ackerley, indeed, had asked him home to change and dine. Parry had accepted, and his suitcase containing his evening things was on the rack above his head. Ronnie had felt a certain amusement when giving the invitation. It was popularly believed that Parry had become deeply enamoured of Pearl, Ronnie’s sister, and that anyone should fall in love with Pearl struck Ronnie as a good joke.

Presently they plunged into a tunnel which pierced a bluff chalk headland, the White Ness, from which the adjoining little town got its name, then emerging on to a viaduct crossing a deep chine, they ran half a mile or more along level ground through the outskirts of a watering place and finally drew up in Whitness station.

‘I’m going out on the ballast train to Cannan’s Cutting,’ said Ackerley as they got out. ‘I’ll be back in the afternoon, if not for lunch. You’re dining with us?’

Parry pointed to the suitcase he was carrying. ‘Thanks awfully. I’ve got my things here.’

Parry crossed the platform and left the suitcase in the stationmaster’s office, wishing that official an absent-minded good-morning. Then he set off to walk back along the line over which they had just passed. His objective was the contractors’ headquarters. On level ground near the edge of Whit Chine Messrs John Spence & Co. had rented a field beside the line, which they were using as a ‘yard’. Into it they had run a siding and had located their offices, stores, carpenters’ and smiths’ shops and general plant. In a corner the Railway Company had erected a two-roomed hut for their own engineers. Here Parry was to calculate his earthwork quantities.

He reached the barbed-wire enclosure and passed in through the railway gate. Near the carpenters’ shop a number of men were loading timber framing on to a wagon. Talking to their foreman was a big-built, heavy-visaged young man in oilskins and a sou’-wester. He turned, and seeing Parry, walked across.

‘Hullo, Parry! Seen Ackerley?’

This was Lowell, Messrs Spence’s second-in-command, Ackerley’s opposite number on the contractors’ side.

‘He’s gone out on the ballast train to Cannan’s Cutting. He said he’d be in this afternoon.’

‘That’s that slip at Peg 124, I expect. He’s fairly got the wind up about it.’

‘This rain won’t do it much good.’

‘It’s not heavy enough to do it any harm,’ Lowell declared with the wisdom of five-and-twenty. ‘I wanted to see Ackerley,’ and he descended into technicalities.

Parry replied in kind, then letting himself into the railway hut, absently took off his coat and hat, stoked up the fires in the two stoves and began to get out his papers. For a moment he stood looking vacantly out of the window, then with a sigh he sat down at his desk and began to work.

Clifford Parry had just reached his thirty-second birthday. He had been educated at Lydmouth, where his people lived and where there was an excellent school. Instead of going on to college, as his parents had intended, he joined up in 1916. He served till within a month of the end of the War, being then invalided out, shell-shocked and quite broken in health. During his period of service his father had died, and he found his mother in poor health and circumstances. With a struggle they managed to exist; Parry, as he grew stronger, continuing the engineering course he had begun. He would, however, have had to give this up and get a job, had it not been that a relative died and left Mrs Parry some £500. After long discussion it was decided that the money should be spent in letting Parry continue his studies. At length he qualified by passing the examination for Associate Membership of the Institution of Civil Engineers. But before the news came that he had got through, his mother contracted a chill and died.

Left alone and practically penniless, for his mother’s pittance had died with her, Parry turned to look for a job. Then the real bitterness of life entered into his soul. First there were debts, which he himself had contracted before he realised how limited were their resources. Next, no one wanted an ex-service man of poor health and with just his qualifications. Absolute want began to stare him in the face. He took a job as a junior clerk; and was glad to get it. That kept him from starvation. He lost that job owing to a reduction of hands, then got another of the same kind. In one way or another he had worked along, till one day, finding himself back in Lydmouth, he had taken his courage in both hands and gone once again to see Mr Marlowe, the divisional engineer of the railway. Marlowe had known his father and on that account saw him at once. Luckily for Parry, work on the Widening was just about to begin, and Marlowe, with some misgivings, offered him a job as junior assistant engineer. It was made clear to him that though he was four years older than Ackerley, he was to be his junior in rank. Parry took the job with thankfulness, and though he was embittered from his experiences, he loyally accepted the conditions and did his very best to make good. The debts, however, still hung over him, and for a time after starting on the railway he remained badly crippled. Then once again he had come into some money. That money had just made the difference. It had enabled him to pay off what he owed. That and the outdoor life, which suited his health, was bringing him back competence and vigour. Two qualities also stood him in good stead. One was an extraordinary gift of inventive ingenuity. If confronted with a puzzling situation he could always cover want of knowledge by devising some original means of meeting the difficulty. The other was a great natural charm of manner which tended to smooth his relations with his fellows.

Ronald Ackerley’s history was very dissimilar. He had obtained his degree in engineering in the University of London and had started work in the Southern Railway’s head office. Then a vacancy had occurred at Lydmouth, and as his people lived at Redchurch, he had applied for and obtained it. This had enabled him to live at home, and each day he had travelled the fifteen miles in and out of Lydmouth. When work on the Widening had started and he had been appointed junior resident engineer, he had continued to live at home. He was at this time twenty-eight years of age and a thoroughly good man at his job. His manner occasionally left a little to be desired, but he was liked and respected by everyone.

For a couple of hours Parry worked steadily. His aim was that important figure, the amount of earthwork completed during the previous four-weekly period. It was a figure which had been widely discussed, guessed, and betted on by all concerned. It was a figure which showed the progress of the job, as a patient’s temperature shows his health. It was, moreover, an important item in the make up of the ‘certificate’, the four-weekly statement of the total work done on the job, upon which the contractors were paid.

Suddenly the door opened and a tall burly man of about five-and-forty entered. He had a dark skin and almost black hair and eyes, as if southern blood coursed in his veins. His air was leisurely but competent.

‘Hullo, young Parry,’ he drawled as he took off his wet coat. ‘Got those quantities out?’

‘Hullo, Bragg. I’m well on with them. The figures look big this time.’

‘Yes, those slackers have got going at last. Seen Carey today?’

Carey was the contractors’ chief resident engineer, Lowell’s superior.

‘No. Lowell was in the yard when I came in, but Carey didn’t show up.’

Bragg went to the telephone and pressed the buzzer. ‘Hullo, that you, Lowell? Is Carey about?’

The receiver barked so that Parry could almost hear the words.

‘Oh, gone to Redchurch, is he? When will he be back? … Right, I’ll go over after lunch.’

Bragg had appropriated for himself the smaller of the two rooms into which the hut was divided. He now pushed open the door and disappeared within. But he left it open and they talked spasmodically through it.

About one o’clock he emerged. ‘What about a spot of lunch?’ he suggested. ‘Is Ackerley coming in for it?’

‘He didn’t know.’

‘We’ll not wait for him.’

The two men searched in coat pockets and knapsacks and produced sandwiches and sundry other foods. Then making themselves comfortable before the stove, they began their meal. Scarcely had they done so when the door opened and Ackerley appeared.

‘At it again,’ he greeted them. ‘I’ve rarely seen you two when you weren’t eating. Don’t you ever do any work, Bragg?’

Bragg ignored this. ‘What have you been up to all morning, young Ackerley?’ he asked.

Ackerley hung up his dripping mackintosh and began washing at a small sink in the corner.

‘That slip at Cannan’s Cutting is moving.’

‘Much?’

‘It’s come down about a foot at the top, and the bottom is bulging.’

Bragg nodded. ‘We’ll fix up something about it later.’

The three men chatted as they ate: a little shop, a little mild ragging, and a good deal of critical discussion on centreboard sailing, at which Bragg and Ackerley were adepts and Parry a keen learner. Then when a pipe and two cigarettes were going, Bragg turned back to business.

‘I say, Ackerley, those figures for the pitching at Peg 110 don’t seem to be right. They don’t agree with the contractors’ at all events. Ours show over 3500 yards pitched in the last four-weekly period. From a casual inspection there didn’t seem to me to be anything like that done.’

‘Three thousand five hundred yards,’ Ackerley repeated slowly. ‘You’re right, Bragg, it’s too large. Who measured it?’

‘I measured that with Pole,’ Parry put in, ‘and I’m pretty sure what we did was right. Let’s see the figures, Bragg.’

Pole was the contractors’ junior engineer and ranked with Parry.

‘They’re on my desk. I didn’t say you were wrong, young Parry. As you know, I get my figures by subtracting the total done at the end of the previous period from what you return as being done now. Conceivably there was an error in last month’s return.’

‘That wouldn’t help Pole and me,’ Parry pointed out, ‘for we measured up last month’s too. And what’s more, I bet it was right also.’

‘Well,’ said Bragg, ‘it’s pleasant to deal with infallible people who never make mistakes. All the same, young Parry, you’ll have to check it again. And I’ll want it done this afternoon, because it must go into the certificate. Let’s see, Ackerley; didn’t you say you were going to walk through to Redchurch later on?’

‘Yes, I’ve to see Potts about his right of way. Parry saw Potts and fixed it up.’

‘I’d forgotten it was today. Better have a look at the slip again when you’re passing.’

‘Right, I’ll do so.’

‘What time shall you be starting, Ackerley?’ Parry interposed.

‘About half-past four, I think. I want to see a couple of things at the viaduct as I pass.’

Parry considered. ‘That would just suit me. I’ll walk out with you. I ought to get these quantities done by four-thirty.’

‘“Ought to get” won’t be enough, Parry,’ Bragg declared. ‘I must have them for the certificate if we stay here all night.’

Parry suddenly registered dismay. ‘Oh, I say, Bragg,’ he protested, ‘I hope you won’t want me to stay late. I have a “do” on, a very special affair, really.’

‘So have I,’ Bragg rejoined dryly, ‘the certificate. What time do you want to get away?’

‘I want to be in Redchurch by six-thirty. That would do, wouldn’t it, Ack?’

Ackerley agreed.

‘Well, look sharp and get your stunts done,’ Bragg returned. ‘We’ll see how you get on. Is it still raining, Ackerley?’

‘Yes, worse luck. But the wind’s gone down.’

Ackerley, having resumed his mackintosh, which had left quite a respectable pool on the floor, went out, and Bragg and Parry settled down once again to their work. But they had not more than got under way when another visitor made his appearance. This time it was a tall stoutly-built man of middle age with a small dark moustache and wearing the inevitable dripping waterproof.

‘Is the great man within?’ he demanded in a rather high-pitched voice and with a mellow Irish intonation.

Parry leaned back consequentially in his chair.

‘Yes, I’m here, Carey,’ he replied condescendingly. ‘What can I do for you?’

Carey advanced into the room.

‘Sure what would I be doing talking to the likes of you?’ he inquired. ‘It’s his lordship here I want to see.’ With a jerk of his thumb he indicated Bragg, who had appeared at his door. ‘You’re after ringing me up, Bragg?’

Bragg agreed, and the two men disappeared into the inner office. As Parry worked he could hear scraps of conversation through the open door: ‘held by the fox wedges,’ ‘three-eights inch camber,’ ‘meet the lateral thrust;’ and then Bragg in a louder voice: ‘When are you going to get a pump that’ll clear out that blessed hole at Pier IV?’ and Carey’s protesting reply: ‘Me dear man, the pump’s one of the best. Sure didn’t that idiot Hudson go and get it filled up with gravel and cut the valves out of it.’ Another murmur and then Carey again: ‘I declare to goodness that man’ll have me demented, the way he’s going on.’

The saga of the pump was still under discussion when there came a sound of movement, and the two men emerged into the outer office.

‘Right,’ Bragg was saying. ‘That should get the water down.’

The door closed behind Carey, and silence fell in the hut as Bragg and Parry settled down to work. Both had a good deal to get through and neither wanted to be kept late. Then Ackerley turned up again, and going into Bragg’s room, began to check with him certain figures for the certificate. For some time their voices came to Parry in low, indistinguishable murmurs. Then came Bragg’s voice: ‘I say, Parry!’

Parry got up and went to the door of the inner room.

‘How long will it take you to finish?’ Bragg asked. ‘Bring in what you’re at, will you?’

Parry collected his foolscap sheets.

‘I’m pretty well on,’ he explained as he laid them before Bragg, ‘but I’m afraid it will take a bit of time still.’

‘How long?’

‘Most of an hour, I should think.’

‘Well, Ackerley’s ready to go now and you can’t wait much longer or it will be dark. You’ll be able to finish these when you get back.’

Parry’s face fell, and Bragg, noticing it, went on impatiently: ‘Oh, very well, very well. I forgot your blessed “do”. See. We’ll not get our train tonight, but we’ll go by the ballast engine. Get me the comptometer and I’ll finish the darned thing myself.’

‘Oh, thanks awfully, Bragg. Very decent of you.’

With a gesture Bragg brushed his acknowledgments aside. ‘Then you’ll come back here as sharp as you can, Parry, with the check of that pitching, and you, Ackerley, will wait and see us at Redchurch. I’d like to hear about that slip, especially as I’ll not be down tomorrow.’

It was close on half-past four when Parry and Ackerley left the hut and began walking down towards the railway.

‘By the way,’ said Parry, ‘there’s the ballast engine shunting that stuff for Lowell. I’ll slip across and tell Blake we’re going tonight. Ten to one Bragg’ll forget.’

He crossed the sidings towards the engine. The driver stopped when he raised his hand.

‘I say, Blake,’ he called up, ‘we’re going to Redchurch with you, Mr Bragg and myself. Will you stop for us opposite the office?’

‘Right, Mr Parry.’

‘And I say, Blake,’ Parry went on, ‘are you going up to the station before you start?’

‘Yes, we’ve to lift these wagons out of here and throw them into the goods yard for the early goods.’

‘Then I wish you’d collect a bag of mine from the stationmaster’s office—a yellow suitcase. I’ve not got time to go up for it.’

‘Certainly, Mr Parry. I’ll bring it along.’

Parry thanked him, and passing out of the gate, followed Ackerley along the line towards the viaduct. The weather was still unpleasant. Though the rain had ceased, it remained raw and cold. The sea, of a dirty lead colour, was white-flecked, and a dull roar came up from the beach and the base of the cliffs. Far out a small steamer, heading for Lydmouth, was making heavy weather of it, white water flying from her bows as she dipped into the swells.

The two young men, reaching the edge of the Whit Chine, descended to where the massive foundations of the new viaduct were going in beside the spindle-shanked piers of the old. Ackerley had a quick look at the work and a word with the various foremen, and then they climbed up the other side of the chine to where, a hundred yards ahead, loomed the black forbidding mouth of the tunnel.

‘We’ll not go into the tunnel,’ Ackerley decided. ‘I was through it yesterday and everything’s going on all right. Besides, we’ve scarcely time.’

Dusk indeed was falling as Ackerley led the way off the railway to the sea side. A narrow path ran round the outside of the ness, joining the railway again at the far end of the tunnel.

‘Are you coming down to the hockey on Saturday?’ Ackerley asked as they stepped on the path.

Parry was pursuing thoughts of his own and did not want to talk about hockey. Vaguely he was aware of the white rocks on the right, sloping up out of sight above him, and on the left dropping quickly down to the foaming surf far below; of the race of white horses out on the heaving waters; of the wheeling sea birds with their melancholy cries. Vaguely he heard that the Redchurch goalkeeper was about as much use as a performing poodle; that Brenda played a better game than Mollie; and that Whitness would have to wake up and get busy if they were going to retain the cup. He wasn’t interested, but he managed to reply with reasonable intelligence, and Ackerley speedily reverted to his customary shop.

They regained the railway at the Redchurch end of the tunnel, where for some hundreds of yards the line ran along a narrow shelf cut in the sheer cliff. Another half-mile brought them to Cannan’s Cutting. A glance at the slip showed that no further movement had taken place and the men walked on to the end of the cutting where began a wide bay, Browne’s Bay. At this point the work of the Widening was well under way. The base of the clay slope had been pushed out into the sea, and the new work was in process of being protected by stone pitching. Here it was that doubt had arisen as to the area completed.

‘That’s what you’ve got to measure.’ Ackerley indicated the half-completed work immediately above the line of breaking waves. ‘You’ll get a bath if you’re not careful. Start at this mile-post and work towards Whitness. You needn’t be too accurate: pacing’ll be near enough. Cheerio, then. See you at Redchurch.’

As in the days afterwards Parry thought over that parting, two things came back vividly to him, little things both of them, but significant. The first was the glimpse that he had had of Ackerley’s ring. When Ackerley had said, ‘That’s what you’ve got to measure,’ he had pointed with his left hand, and even in the dusk the glint of the stone in the ring had caught Parry’s eye. Ackerley wore it on his little finger and Parry had seen it hundreds of times. It was a plain gold band bearing one small ruby, set in the simplest way without any chasing or ornamentation. Parry had often wondered why his companion wore it, but he had never asked, and Ackerley had seemed unconscious of its presence.

The second thing which Parry noticed was Ackerley’s extraordinary fitness and good spirits. As he moved off he stepped out briskly with all the energy and vigour of a healthy young animal. He was whistling, too, something light and popular that went with a swing.

Bidding goodnight to the ganger of the length, who passed at that moment, Parry turned towards the pitching.

2
Tragedy

The Redchurch-Whitness Widening was a moderately big job, involving some heavy works. The main line of this particular area of the Southern Railway ran eastwards from Lydmouth, one of the most important watering-places on the south coast, till it joined the Exeter-Waterloo line about half-way between Templecombe and Salisbury. For the first fifteen miles, from Lydmouth to Redchurch, it ran along the shore, but at Redchurch it turned inland. Redchurch was a smaller but more fashionable resort, beloved of the Thank-goodness-it-hasn’t-yet-been-spoiled-by-trippers type.

At Redchurch a line diverged from the direct London line, continuing eastwards along the coast through Whitness, and eventually reaching Bournemouth and Southampton. This line was double all the way except for one section, the three and a half miles stretch between Redchurch and Whitness. Here the cost of doubling had up till now been considered prohibitive. Very heavy earthworks and sea defences had to be dealt with, as well as widening nearly a quarter of a mile of tunnel and building a new viaduct. It was estimated that the cost would be upwards of a quarter of a million sterling.

These three miles of single line, however, had grown increasingly inconvenient. The stretch acted as a bottle neck which slowed up the traffic, causing endless delays and vexation. Though the times were so unsuitable for borrowing new capital, ’bus competition had forced the directors’ hands and a contract for £320,000 had been let. Work had now been in progress for nearly a year.

When Parry arrived back at the engineers’ hut he was more than a trifle breathless. He had underestimated the time it would take him to carry out what he had to do, and had had to hurry back as fast as he could. He did not wish to miss the ballast engine, and there was not much time to give Bragg his information and get the certificate completed before the engine was due. Parry was glad when he came in view of the lighted windows of the hut, shining like harbour beacons in the night.

He hurried to the door. Bragg was still bending over the certificate.

‘Well?’ Bragg grunted without looking up. ‘What about that pitching?’

Parry threw his notebook down on the desk. ‘I’m frightfully sorry, Bragg, the mistake was mine after all. I paced the thing over and every figure seemed to check out, then at last I found it. Pole and I measured it correctly, but I misread a figure in my book. The correct figure was 327 and I read it 827.’

‘Then Pole’s total is correct?’

‘Yes. I’m not trying to make excuses, but what really happened was that my book got wet and the figures weren’t easy to read.’

‘That’s all right. Read me out the total. I’ve finished your earthwork.’

‘Oh, good man, Bragg. Very decent of you.’

The entry of the pitching item completed the certificate. Bragg quickly monied it out, then added the total to that he had already obtained and signed the document.

‘Get a sheet of brown paper, will you?’ he said as he rolled up the papers and slipped a rubber band round them.

Parry produced paper and string, and the certificate and its attendant papers were parcelled up and labelled.

‘You’re going somewhere with Ackerley?’ Bragg went on.

‘Yes, to a dance.’

‘Well, you’ll have time to hand this over to the parcels people in Redchurch to send to the office. I don’t want to bother taking it round. Come on, Parry. We’d better look sharp or we’ll miss that blessed engine.’

Parry nodded. A moment later the two men were walking towards the wicket gate in the contractors’ fence, put in close to the railway hut for their special convenience. This led out on to a branch road which passed through a little spinney behind the yard.

‘For once I remembered my torch,’ Bragg went on as a little circle of light began to play over the ground in front of them.

‘It’s not dark,’ Parry declared. ‘It’s only coming out of the light makes it seem so.’

‘The torch is a help when you’re looking for a keyhole, young Parry.’

They passed through the gate and reached the line. As Parry had said, it was not dark. The sky was heavily overcast, but behind the clouds there was a moon, and objects remained dimly visible. Though it was some time since the rain had stopped, the grass was still dripping and there were pools everywhere. A dull muffled roar came up from the sea, where the waves were dragging the shingle up and down the beach and breaking heavily against the base of the ness.

‘Here she is,’ said Parry.

From the direction of the station appeared lights, slowly diverging and growing brighter. Presently there showed behind them a dark mass, which resolved itself into the smoke-box of an approaching engine. Bragg showed his torch and with a clap the brakes went on, eased off and clapped on again. The boiler slid slowly past and the machine came to rest with the dimly lighted cab just above them. The fireman, a gauge lamp in his hand, stooped down and with a spongecloth gave a perfunctory rub to the steel handles above the steps. Then, stepping back, he made room for Bragg and Parry to climb up.

The driver was standing with his hand grasping the regulator. When his passengers were aboard he gently opened it, then reaching up to another handle, he gave a tiny whistle. With a faint quiver the engine began to move. A chink of the firebox door was open, and each beat drew the glowing coal up to a white heat which lit cab and crew.

The cab was roomy, as cabs go. Bragg, the most honoured traveller, had moved to the right-hand corner and sat down on the fireman’s seat. Parry stood on the left side behind the driver, looking over his shoulder into the gloom ahead. They were now on the viaduct, and to Parry it seemed that they were hanging in space. To his left was a great gulf, for he was too high over the viaduct parapet to see it, and the nearest object was the shore and the beating waves some seventy feet below him. He grasped the upright rod which supported the roof, lest a jolt of the engine should tip him out, while to leave his hands free he dropped the parcelled certificate into the driver’s box. Then the driver whistled again and with a waft of air which Parry felt at his eardrums, the roof of the tunnel slid back over their heads and the noise increased tenfold.

The experience of passing through the tunnel was impressive. The beam of light from the partly opened firebox door, now continuously white from the rapid beat, shone out on the front of the tender and up above it on to the roof of the cab. From these it was reflected back over the faceplate, or end of the boiler, showing up the maze of pipes and handles, gauges and dials, and bringing out unexpected high lights from polished brass-work. Bragg’s figure, seated in the corner, showed dimly, with the fireman standing shadowy behind him, as Parry himself stood behind the driver. On each side between the tender and the cab the black walls of the tunnel quivered as they hastened by, while above the steam formed into a wide rolling coil, also hurrying backwards like an inverted wake.

Presently Parry turned and once again looked out ahead through the cab window, on which a great drop of water from the roof had just flattened itself. Faintly something curved began to show up. It was the ‘high leg’ or outside rail upon which they were travelling, reflecting dimly from its polished inside edge the light striking in through the approaching mouth of the tunnel. Then, as Driver Blake again whistled, the walls and roof slid back and they were out in the open.

For a few hundred yards they ran along the shelf cut in the cliff, with far below them the white horses showing up in ghostly smears. Then the cliff fell back. Another few hundred yards and they were traversing Cannan’s Cutting, past the slip which had so much upset Ackerley. Then once again along the sea round the big inlet, Browne’s Bay, and so to the next headland.

This next headland, Downey’s Point, was blunt in plan, and the railway, instead of tunnelling or cutting through it, ran round it along by the sea. As they approached it, the line ahead, curving sharply to the right, slid behind the boiler out of sight of Parry and Driver Blake. From the right side of the cab no one happened at the moment to be looking out. The fireman had introduced the picker, or huge hooked poker, into the firebox, and was vigorously raking the fire forward up the sloping firebars. It had been let down very low, in fact to a mere layer of incandescent cinders thinly covering the bars, as the engine had really done work for the day, and after the fire had been cleaned of clinker, would lie banked until the next morning. Bragg, having lit his pipe, was absently watching the operation.

The furnace having been adjusted to the fireman’s satisfaction, he withdrew the picker, its hook now white-hot, and laid it on the tender. A little spurt of flame and smoke sprang up where the glowing point came in contact with the coal, dying away as the iron cooled. Setting the firebox door to stand about an inch open, the fireman withdrew to the side of the cab, put his head out, and gave a perfunctory look ahead.

Parry, who happened to be watching him, saw him suddenly stiffen, for a fraction of a second peer earnestly ahead, and then swing round to the driver with a warning shout: ‘’Old! ’Old! There’s something on the road!’

Parry’s heart leaped as he watched the men’s frantic movements. With one hand Blake threw over the regulator, shutting off steam, while with the other he dashed the vacuum brake handle down to the full on position. Then he whistled, several short sharp blasts. Simultaneously the fireman turned on the steam sanding and closed the firebox door, from which a burst of flames had come, due to the sudden cutting off of the suction from the blast. The engine gave a little shudder and the speed declined so rapidly that Parry had to cling on to the cab pillar to prevent himself from falling forward against Blake. Both Bragg and the fireman were now hanging out of their side of the cab, looking back.

The fireman swung in.

‘We’re over it!’ he cried to Blake, as with a harsh grinding of the brakes and a sudden jerk the engine stopped.

The fireman had unhooked a gauge lamp and was already on the ground. Bragg and Parry followed as quickly as they could, each from his own side.

When Parry reached the ballast he stumbled backward past the tender, slipping about on the rough stones. The fireman was already some thirty yards away along the line, and was standing between the rails, bending over something dark. Instinctively Parry held his breath as he raced to the fireman’s side. When he saw what was there his heart was pounding so that he could scarcely breathe.

The dark mass was a man, or what was left of a man. The engine had passed over him and the resulting injuries were terrible. That he was dead there could be no doubt whatever. Parry felt suddenly sick as he stared speechless.

Then he gave a hoarse cry. This man had been clothed in a waterproof and heavy boots. His left hand was stretched out and on its little finger was a ring, a plain gold band bearing a single ruby …

With a single blistering expletive Parry snatched the torch from Bragg, who had by this time come up, and held it close to the face. The features were only slightly disfigured and were plainly recognisable. This dead body, this awful wreck of what had been a man, this was all that remained of his colleague, Ronald Ackerley.

3
Inquest

Trembling as if from ague, Parry heard faintly the fireman’s awestruck cry, ‘My God, it’s Mr Ackerley!’ and Bragg’s sharp horrified oath. All three, indeed, were overpowered by the ghastliness of the tragedy. And the fact that nothing could be done for the unhappy young man took away the stimulus of the need for instant action.

Presently Bragg swore again and with an obvious effort pulled himself together. ‘He’s gone, poor chap,’ he muttered. ‘We can’t do anything. Here, Atkins,’ he turned to the fireman, ‘help me to lift him clear of the road. You, Parry, cut along and tell Blake what has happened.’

In a dream Parry stumbled back to the engine, realising in a numbed kind of way that Bragg had sent him on this message to save him from seeing more clearly the dreadful details of the tragedy. In a dream he climbed up on to the footplate and began telling the news to Blake. But he scarcely knew what he was saying, and when in the middle of his story Blake crossed the cab and answered someone on the ground, he felt no surprise. Presently he realised that Bragg and the fireman were there. Bragg was speaking from the step.

‘Run in to Redchurch as quickly as you can, Blake,’ he was saying. ‘Tell the stationmaster to have an ambulance sent out. I’ll wait here with the body.’ Bragg paused and looked doubtfully at Parry. ‘I say, Parry,’ he went on hesitatingly, ‘you know the Ackerleys, don’t you? Think you can slip up and tell them? A rotten job, I know. If you don’t feel like it, get Clay to ’phone. Go ahead now.’ He stepped back on to the ballast and Blake once again gave his engine steam.

Parry had already been thinking of the Ackerleys. How could he force himself to take them this awful news? How could he go and see Pearl? She had always ragged Ronnie unmercifully, but Parry knew she idolised him. It would be a knock-out blow for Pearl. And for all of them. Indeed, Parry thought it would be even worse for the old people; Mrs Ackerley so fond of her son, Mr Ackerley so proud of him. How would it be possible to tell them? …

While these thoughts passed through his mind, Parry remained dimly conscious of his surroundings. The engine was now running at a high speed and already Blake had shut off steam for Redchurch and was sounding his whistle to announce his approach to the signalman. The yellow eye of the distant signal came up rapidly and slipped behind, and Blake began to apply the brake. That red light ahead was the outer home and at that, if it did not go off, they must stop. Though he could scarcely face what lay in front of him, Parry was now seized with impatience and felt that any delay would be unbearable. However, when they were still some hundred yards from the signal it changed to green, and Blake, releasing the brake, allowed his engine to coast forward. A further bunch of red lights approached, with a single green one at the extreme left. These drew near, passed slowly behind, and the engine turned gently to the left off the main line, and entering the locomotive yard, came to rest among some dozen of its fellows.

Blake wound his reversing wheel into middle gear. ‘Come on, Mr Parry,’ he said. ‘We’ll go and tell Mr Clay.’

Still in a dream, Parry followed the driver across the locomotive sidings and up the ramp of No. 1 Platform to the stationmaster’s office. Clay was a small man with an alert manner. He heard the story, rapidly expressed a conventional horror, and took hold of the situation.

‘If the poor fellow’s dead there’s not such a hurry,’ he said. ‘We’ll let the 6.10 through and go out between her and the 6.25 goods. You, Blake, will work out the van.’ He sat down at his desk and picked up one of its two telephones. ‘Redchurch, one double-six,’ he called, then, ‘It that the police station? Clay speaking, Southern Railway agent. Is the superintendent there? … Good evening, superintendent. Yes, Clay speaking. It’s just been reported to me that Mr Ronald Ackerley, one of the Company’s engineers, has been run over and killed at Downey’s Point, halfway between this and Whitness. What? Yes, the solicitor’s son … What? I didn’t catch? … Oh, yes, very sad. Well, superintendent, I propose sending out a special to bring in the body. It’ll leave here on the arrival of the 6.10 from Whitness, say about 6.15. I’ll be glad to know if this is in order from your point of view and if you’d like to be represented … Very good, if he comes down to my office I’ll see that someone meets him.’

Mr Clay replaced the receiver and picked up that of the other instrument, pressing a buzzer in code. ‘Who’s that? Yes, Clay speaking. Find Sparkes, will you, and tell him that a man has been run over between this and Whitness and that I want him to take a van out with the ambulance stretcher on the arrival of the 6.10. Blake will work it with the ballast engine. Get a couple of men to give a hand. Start from No. 1 Carriage Siding and don’t go without me. That clear?’ He rang off and then made another call. ‘That the junction box? Who is speaking? … Oh, Harris,’ and he explained what was to be done.

While these arrangements were being made, Parry had taken a firm hold on himself. ‘What about telling the Ackerleys, Mr Clay?’ he said in a low voice as Blake disappeared.

‘I was going to speak to you about that,’ Clay returned. ‘Will you do it or shall I?’

‘You better prepare them, I think, and say I’m going up to see them. And we’d better send a message to Mr Marlowe.’

Marlowe was Parry’s chief, the Lydmouth divisional engineer.

‘I’m going to wire the manager and I’ll duplicate it; Yourself to Marlowe.’ As he spoke Clay looked keenly at the other. ‘If you’ll not consider it a liberty, Mr Parry, I’d recommend you to call in the refreshment room and get a small pick-me-up. You’ll find it pretty trying talking to the Ackerleys.’

It was good advice and Parry took it. He felt badly shaken and his heart failed him as he thought of the coming interview. However, there was nothing to be gained by delay and when he took a taxi he told the man to drive quickly.

Parry had frequently read of a ‘stricken’ household, but he had always considered the phrase a piece of fanciful journalese. Now he saw that the adjective was just. No word which he could have supplied could more aptly have described the Ackerleys’.

The maid who opened the door was pale and startled-looking. ‘I see you know, Ethel,’ Parry said. The girl nodded in silence and Parry passed on into the hall. Mr Ackerley was just turning away from the telephone, and when he saw him Parry involuntarily shuddered. Why, this was an old man, ten years older than when he had seen him last. His face was gray and had somehow fallen in, and there were unwonted lines round the mouth. He came slowly forward to Parry, walking heavily as if a physical weight bore on his shoulders.

‘How did it happen?’ he said in little more than a whisper.

Parry felt overwhelmed. ‘We don’t know, sir,’ he answered, also in a low tone. ‘All I can say is that it was instantaneous; there was no suffering. But we don’t know how he came to be on the line. Unless he tripped and struck his head on the rail,’ he added as an afterthought.

‘They’re bringing him in,’ went on Mr Ackerley dully. ‘I must go down.’

‘I’ll go with you, sir.’ Parry hesitated. ‘What about Mrs Ackerley and—and Pearl?’

‘They know; I’ve told them.’

Still Parry hung back. ‘I was wondering, sir, if I could do anything. Could I ring up your guests, for instance, and put them off?’

‘Guests?’ Mr Ackerley stared uncomprehendingly. ‘Oh, yes, there was to be a dance.’ He spoke as if in a dream. ‘Thank you, Parry; it’s good of you to think of it. Ethel will get you the list. Call Ethel. I must go.’

Fumblingly he began looking for his coat. Parry found it for him and was holding it when there came a diversion. A slight, pale-faced girl came running downstairs.

‘No, Clifford,’ she said. ‘I heard what you were talking about. Don’t mind about the people; we’ll see to that. Go with him to the station.’

‘I will, of course,’ Parry returned. He would have gone on, but she raced upstairs as quickly as she had come down.

‘A taxi,’ Mr Ackerley directed. ‘It would take too long to get the car.’

Parry had kept his, and a few minutes later they reached the station. Here they learned that the engine and van had gone out, but had not yet returned. On the way down, Parry had given the old man all the details he knew. Silence had then fallen between them. Once only Mr Ackerley’s lips moved. ‘Oh, Ronnie, Ronnie,’ Parry heard him whisper. ‘Oh, my son, my son.’ Parry did not think he was conscious of his presence.

Presently lights appeared approaching the platform, and the engine and van came slowly in. News of the accident had spread and a little crowd of railway people had collected, though the public had been rigorously excluded from the platform. Bragg and Clay stepped from the van and under the latter’s directions the side doors were opened and while caps were doffed two men slowly carried out a stretcher on which lay a figure covered with a white sheet. A space had been cleared in a store near Clay’s office and there on a table the stretcher was laid. Mr Ackerley pushed forward, deferential way being made for him.

‘Can’t he be taken home, Mr Clay,’ he asked.

Clay hesitated. ‘I’m afraid, sir, there’ll have to be an inquest and we thought it might be more convenient to hold it here at the station. What do you say, sergeant?’

A sergeant of police had followed Clay from the van. He now saluted Mr Ackerley.

‘It would be better, sir, for all concerned, if the remains were left here till after the inquest. You need not be afraid. Everything will be done with the greatest reverence.’

‘The room will be locked, Mr Ackerley,’ went on Clay. ‘No one will be able to enter.’

‘Very well,’ Mr Ackerley returned slowly. ‘I see it can’t be helped. Thank all of you for what you have done.’

Clay began to murmur some words of sympathy, while the sergeant saluted again. Then Clay bent over to Parry.

‘Take him home, Mr Parry. He’s upset from the shock.’

But Mr Ackerley wanted all details, and Parry introduced Bragg and the fireman, though they could not add to what he had himself already stated. No one was able to say how the accident had happened, or how Ackerley came to be where he was found.

In the end Parry went back with the old gentleman. But he did not see Pearl. The ladies were upstairs and could not be disturbed. Mr Ackerley murmured something about his staying for dinner, but Parry excused himself and came away.

When he reached the station he found the sergeant waiting for him. Respectfully the man asked for a statement, and Parry described what had taken place. Bragg had by this time gone on to Lydmouth, and Parry, left alone in Redchurch, took a sharp walk before making his way back to his rooms.

The inquest had been fixed for eleven o’clock on the following morning, and shortly before that hour Parry found himself once more on No. 1 Platform at Redchurch. With him were Mr Ackerley, Bragg, Clay, Driver Blake, Fireman Atkins, and three or four other men. One of the waiting-rooms had been commandeered and the police were busy arranging it for the inquest. A crowd of the curious stood round, staring at everyone concerned.

Mr Ackerley, though still pale and aged-looking, had regained his normal composure and stood talking to a short, middle-aged man with a thin, legal-looking face. This was Mr Loxton, his partner, who apparently was going to appear for him. Talking to Bragg was Hugo Graham, the chief assistant engineer in the Lydmouth office, and the Railway Company’s local solicitor, Mr Kenyon. With the driver and fireman, who seemed somehow incongruous in their best clothes, was a sharp-looking man in gray tweeds. This, Parry knew, was George Thompson, the local representative of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen.

Clay had been hovering over the group as a hen mothers her chickens. ‘Now, gentlemen, if you please,’ he said at last. ‘The coroner’s waiting.’

A move was made across the platform and the party filed into the waiting-room. It was a large room with a table down the centre and chairs along each side. At the head of the table sat the coroner, Mr Latimer, a local solicitor. The chair next him was kept vacant, but in the second and third places Mr Ackerley and his partner, Loxton, sat down. Then came the Company’s representative, Graham and Kenyon, with Bragg and Parry behind them. Thompson of the A.S.L.E. & F. sat next to Kenyon, with Driver Blake and Fireman Atkins behind him. Beside the fireman was a permanent-way man, Mutch, the ganger of the Whitness length, though what he was there for Parry didn’t know. At the table beyond Thompson were two or three reporters. Clay, after hovering anxiously round, had at last subsided behind Mr Ackerley.

The chairs at the opposite side of the table had been kept vacant, and now Sergeant Hart, the man who had gone out with the special, called the jurors to those places. When they were sworn the coroner glanced round and said that before they proceeded to business he was sure that all present would wish to join with him in tendering to Mr Ackerley and his family their sincere sympathy in this most distressing affair.

Upon this up jumped Mr Kenyon. He said that on behalf of the Railway Company he wished to associate himself with all that the coroner had said, and to add that the Company was anxious to assist the inquiry in every way possible by producing all the evidence available. ‘We have the driver and firemen and several officials here, and if there is anyone else you would like to have present, you, sir,’ he bowed to the coroner, ‘have only to say so.’

Sergeant Hart did not look too well pleased at this calm taking of the credit for what he had done, but he refrained from putting his feelings into words. Thompson then rose and said that on behalf of the men of the Locomotive Department he also wished to associate himself … Mr Ackerley, obviously struggling with emotion, briefly returned thanks and the coroner bowed and said, ‘Horace George Ackerley,’ adding, ‘Don’t trouble, Mr Ackerley, to move. You’re quite all right there.’

Mr Ackerley, sworn, said in a low voice that he had seen the remains and they were those of Ronald George Ackerley, his son. He gave some details of the young man’s career, explaining that for the last four years his work had permitted him to live at home. Ronald was unmarried, and so far as Mr Ackerley knew, was not engaged. Witness had last seen his son at breakfast on the previous morning, and he then seemed in perfect health and in his normal good spirits.

Mr Grahame, the chief assistant engineer, was then called. He corroborated the details of the deceased’s career since he joined the railway staff, adding that since Ackerley had come to the Lydmouth office he had worked steadily and well, and that his appointment as resident engineer in charge of the Whitness Widening was promotion and an outward and visible sign of the confidence which his superiors reposed in him. Deceased had fully justified this confidence, having carried on efficiently since his appointment. So far as Grahame knew, Ackerley had no worries, was keen on his job, got on well with his colleagues and seemed to enjoy his life.

‘Clifford Parry.’

Parry, feeling more nervous than the occasion appeared to warrant, moved forward to the chair beside the coroner and was sworn. Mr Latimer began with a number of general questions, then came to the previous evening.

‘About half past four you and the deceased left your office at Whitness in company and proceeded along the railway in the direction of Redchurch?’

‘That is so.’

‘What was your purpose in doing so?’

‘The inspection of certain works. Mr Ackerley wished to see a slip which was giving trouble at Cannan’s Cutting and also he intended to have an interview with a Mr Potts about a right of way. I wanted to check the measurement of some sea pitching at the Cannan’s Cutting end of Browne’s Bay. We walked together up to this point.’

‘Where did you separate?’

‘At the pitching.’

‘At what hour was that?’

Parry hesitated. ‘It must have been a few minutes past five,’ he said at length. ‘I don’t remember exactly, but I should estimate about ten minutes past five.’

‘Quite so. As a matter of fact another witness will prove it was at twelve minutes past.’

Parry was a little taken aback. He had not known they were overlooked. Then he remembered Mutch, the ganger who had passed just as he and Ackerley separated. This, of course, was what the man had been brought for.

‘Was the deceased in a thoroughly normal condition when you parted?’

‘Absolutely, so far as I know.’

‘What was the last you saw of him?’

‘He was walking on towards Downey’s Point as I began to pace the pitching.’

Mr Latimer took a fresh sheet of paper, making a little pause as if at the end of a chapter.

‘What then did you do?’ he resumed.

‘I paced the dimensions of the pitching and in a few minutes found the error I had been looking for. I walked back then to the office at Whitness.’

‘How long did that take you?’

‘The pacing took seven or eight minutes. It’s a mile back and I took, I suppose, fifteen minutes: probably less, for I ran part of the way. Say, twenty-two or twenty-three minutes altogether.’

‘That would bring it to half past five or twenty-five minutes to six when you reached the office?’

‘It was thirty-three minutes past,’ Parry returned. ‘I noticed the time particularly because I had hurried back so that there would be time to deal with the pitching figures and catch the ballast engine at 5.50.’

‘Quite so. Now, just one other question. Was it dark when you parted with the deceased?’

‘It was dusk, but not dark. I could see to pace the pitching, but I could not read my book without an electric torch.’

The coroner paused. ‘Does any gentleman wish to ask the witness a question?’ he asked presently. No one evincing such a desire, Parry stood back and Bragg was called.

Bragg came forward and took his place on the vacant chair at the coroner’s left hand. In reply to the coroner’s questions he said he was the chief design and executive assistant, under Mr Grahame and immediately above the deceased. Owing to the deceased’s comparative lack of experience of such important works, he Bragg, had been instructed to assist and supervise him to the best of his ability. In accordance with these instructions he visited the works three or four times a week and kept in close touch with their progress.

‘You visited the works yesterday?’ went on Mr Latimer.

Bragg had visited the works. He explained in detail about the four-weekly certificates, stating that it was upon this work, the completion of the current certificate, that he had been engaged on the previous day.

‘Now, Mr Bragg, you have heard the statement of the previous witness that he and the deceased left the office about half past four with the intention of carrying out certain inspections. Did you instruct them to do so?’

Bragg moved uneasily. ‘Yes and no,’ he answered. ‘The interview with the farmer, Mr Potts, had been arranged some time previously in the ordinary course of work. The idea of inspecting the slip on the way was the deceased’s, but he set out to do both of these things with my knowledge and approval. I definitely instructed the last witness to check the pitching, but so long as it was done that day I left the time of doing it to himself. From what he said, I think he chose the time in order to have the deceased’s company so far.’

‘I follow. Now, Mr Bragg, you say that you told the deceased to meet you here in Redchurch on the arrival of the ballast engine. At what hour should that have been?’

‘A minute or two before six.’

‘Very well. Now, if the deceased parted from Mr Parry at the point where this pitching was measured at 5.12, as we shall prove, and was due in Redchurch about six, at what hour should he have passed the place at which the accident occurred?’

‘Downey’s Point? It was seven or eight minutes walk from the pitching. About 5.20, I should say.’

‘At what hour did your engine pass Downey’s Point?’

‘About 5.55.’

‘That’s what I’ve been coming to. How do you account, Mr Bragg, for the deceased not having been farther on when the engine came?’

‘I can’t account for it at all. That was one of the things which overwhelmed me with surprise, that he was there when he should have been at Redchurch.’

That ended the examination and Mr Kenyon took advantage of the coroner’s invitation to ask a question.

‘Tell me, Mr Bragg,’ he said, ‘was it quite a normal thing for you to arrange with the deceased to walk over the Widening?’

‘Absolutely normal. We were doing it every day. It was part of the deceased’s duty.’

‘Quite so. But what about walking the line in the dusk or dark?’

Bragg shrugged. ‘That was not so pleasant, of course, but at this time of year one can’t help oneself.’

‘I don’t mean that, Mr Bragg. I mean, was it usual and was it safe?’

‘It was both,’ Bragg returned firmly. ‘Besides you will remember that last evening was not dark. There was a moon behind the clouds.’

‘There was no reasonable fear of the deceased meeting with an accident?’

‘None, I think. He was thoroughly experienced and knew every inch of the way, and he could easily see where he was.’

Mr Kenyon intimated that that was all he wanted and sat down.

Mr William Potts deposed that he was a farmer living some half a mile on the Redchurch side of Downey’s Point. He had had a business appointment with the deceased for half past five on the previous evening. He had duly come down to the railway, but after waiting till after six had assumed the deceased had been detained, and had returned home.

Driver Blake was the next witness. After giving evidence about the fatal run of the ballast engine, he was questioned in detail as to the conditions obtaining on the footplate just before the accident. He was standing in his place, looking out ahead. Mr Parry was standing behind him. Mr Bragg was seated on the fireman’s seat and the fireman was occupied with the fire. No, there was no talking going on, and all concerned were carrying out their duties carefully and normally. He did not see anyone on the line. He could not do so because of the curve. The first intimation he had that anything was wrong was a shout from the fireman, and he stopped as soon as it was physically possible.

Fireman Atkins corroborated the driver’s evidence. The fire was low and wanted raking up and he did this work as they approached Downey’s Point. When he had finished he stepped to the side of the cab and looked out ahead. He had no special reason for doing this. It was merely a precautionary measure, as he knew the driver’s view would be bad. When he had looked out a moment he saw something black on the line. He shouted to the driver, who immediately stopped. He went back and found they had run over Mr Ackerley.

‘When you saw this black object,’ resumed Mr Latimer, ‘did you know it was a man?’

‘No, I didn’t know what it was. But whatever it was I knew we should stop.’

‘Quite so. Now, where exactly was the object?’

‘Just about halfway round the curve.’

‘I don’t mean that. Was it between the rails or across the rails or outside them?’

‘As far as I could see, it was lying across the low leg.’

‘What do you mean by the “low leg”?’

‘The inside rail.’

‘That is the right hand rail because the curve was turning to the right?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Can you swear he wasn’t standing up?’

The fireman didn’t think so, but he wouldn’t swear to it. He had seen Ackerley as a dark mass and in the gloom he was not sure in what position the unhappy young man had been.

‘Now,’ Mr Latimer went on, ‘after the engine had passed was the position of deceased altered?’

Of this there was no doubt. The engine had struck the body and carried it along, leaving it between the rails. The right arm had been severed and it lay outside the right hand rail.

‘Did you examine the engine afterwards?’

It appeared that there were bloodstains on the right life guard and leading bogie wheel. It was clear, therefore, that the accident had occurred with the ballast engine and not with some previous train.

On the coroner giving the usual invitation, Mr Thompson of the A. S. L. E. & F. sprang up.

‘With regard to the lookout that was kept from the engine can you say that this was adequate?’

The witness was positive that it was entirely adequate.

‘As good and complete as is ever kept?’

‘Yes, quite up to the normal.’

‘As a matter of fact, could you under any circumstances have seen the deceased sooner than you did?’

‘Not except in daylight.’

Mr Clay was then questioned as to the hour at which the previous trains had passed Downey’s Point. It appeared that one left Redchurch at 5.0 and stopped specially at Downey’s Point to pick up the workmen, reaching Whitness at 5.10. It there crossed a train from Bournemouth, which left Whitness at 5.10 and arrived at Redchurch at 5.16. There was no other ordinary train then till the 6.10 from Whitness. On the previous evening there had been no special except the ballast engine leaving Whitness at 5.50.

Permanent Way Ganger Mutch was next called. He stated that while walking home on the previous evening, at the pitching between Browne’s Bay and Cannan’s Cutting he had passed Mr Ackerley and Mr Parry. They were just separating. As he went on he happened to glance back and he saw Mr Ackerley walking towards Downey’s Point and Mr Parry stepping off the line down over the pitching on the sea slope.

‘At what hour did they part, Mutch?’ the coroner inquired.

‘About 5.12.’

‘Now, will you just tell the jury how you happen to know that so well?’

‘I know it by the 5.10 from Whitness,’ the man returned. ‘She passed about a minute after they parted. That would be about 5.13 or 5.14 at the outside.’

‘It has been estimated, ganger,’ said the coroner, ‘that the deceased must have reached the point at which he was killed at about 5.20. You know the place and you saw the speed at which he was walking. Do you agree with that estimate?’

Mutch thought it would be about right.

‘Would it have been possible for him to have been killed by that 5.10 from Whitness of which you speak?’

About this the ganger was positive. It would have been utterly impossible for the distance to have been covered in the time.

‘Then he wasn’t killed until 5.55. Can you suggest what he might have been doing in the interval?’

Mutch had no idea and was allowed to leave the witness chair. Sergeant Hart bent down.

‘I think, sir,’ he said confidentially, ‘that I can put forward a theory to account for this. It is, of course, only a theory.’

The coroner nodded. ‘Very good, sergeant, we’ll hear it in due course.’

Dr Cripps, the police surgeon, testified that he had examined the remains. He described the injuries till Parry felt sick. The face was slightly disfigured from contact with the stone ballast and there had been a blow on the right side of the head behind the temple, fracturing the skull. This was probably due to the deceased falling against the rail, as the skin was but slightly damaged. The right arm had been severed. In the doctor’s opinion these injuries were consistant with the deceased having fallen and having been run over by a railway engine. Death had been instantaneous.

Sergeant Hart was the last witness. He deposed that he had accompanied the engine and van out to Downey’s Point on the previous evening, when the remains were being brought in. He had examined the line with a torch and from the marks on the ballast he believed he had been able to reconstruct the tragedy. Firstly, he was of opinion from the nature of the injuries that the deceased had been lying across the rail before the engine approached. Just behind where the young man’s foot would have come was a cross drain, due to the workings, where the ballast had been sunk between two adjacent sleepers to a depth of nine or ten inches. It appeared to the witness that the deceased might in the dusk have slipped into this drain and fallen, striking the side of his head on the rail and being stunned. This, of course, was only the witness’ theory and he had been unable to obtain actual proof of its truth.

This being all the evidence, there was a short pause while the coroner adjusted his notes. Then he made a summary of what had been stated, very clearly and fairly, as Parry thought. Finally he gave a short exposition of his own views.

‘I do not think, members of the jury,’ he ended up, ‘that you will have much difficulty in reaching a verdict in this unhappy affair. You may consider that this unfortunate young man lost his life as the result of an accident, for which neither he nor anyone else was to blame. If you do so you will return a verdict of accidental death. On the other hand, if you are not satisfied with this view, you will consider the alternatives. There are only two; suicide and murder.

‘Now, with regard to suicide, the whole of the evidence tends to show that the deceased was in good health, bodily and mentally; that he was happy in his work and with his associates; that he was ambitious and working hard for advancement and success; and that he was free from pecuniary embarrassment and from unhappy love entanglements: in fact, he had every reason to live and none to die. In the face of this evidence, the theory of suicide seems to me to present grave difficulties.

‘There is one piece of evidence, however, which might at first sight be held to support the theory of suicide: that the deceased must have been for a considerable time, about half an hour, at or near the point at which he was killed. It might here be argued that he was waiting for the engine in order to throw himself before it. Sergeant Hart, however, has put forward a theory to account for this delay, which you may consider adequate. There was a drain across the line; in the dark the deceased did not see it; he put his foot into it, tripped over the next sleeper and fell forward, striking his head on the rail and becoming insensible. There at all events you have what might have happened. That it did happen cannot be proved, but still less can it be disapproved.

‘But if the evidence for suicide is unsatisfactory, I think you must agree that no evidence has been given which in any shape or form suggests that murder has been committed. I do not think I need labour this point.

‘Now, members of the jury, I would ask you to retire and consider your verdict, and if there is any point in which I can assist you in your labours, I shall be glad to deal with it to the best of my ability.’

The jurors, looking important, whispered among themselves. Then the foreman, standing up, said that the members didn’t require to retire to consider their verdict, that their minds were made up, and that they found that deceased had met his death through an accident and that no blame attached to any person therefore.

4
Enter Inspector French

Early on the morning of the day after the inquest on Ronald Ackerley Superintendent Rhode and Inspector Dawe of the Redchurch police were seated in the former’s office in the police station of that town. Two men less alike in personal appearance than the superintendent and his assistant it would not have been easy to find. Rhode was a big heavily built man with a domineering expression and a curt manner. Dawe on the other hand was thin and nervous looking and seemed chronically ill at ease. Rhode reached his results by sheer driving force which refused to recognise any obstacle, Dawe by his alert mentality. Both were good men, respected by each other and by their superiors.

They were not discussing the inquest. They were not interested in the inquest except to load it with imprecations for having occupied a day of Sergeant Hart’s time, a day which both they and he had been very reluctant to spare. For the Redchurch police force was at the moment working at high pressure. No less than three serious crimes, a murder and two burglaries, had recently occurred in that usually peaceful area, and these were proving just a little more than the staff could handle with comfort. In fact, the calling in of the Yard to help with the murder case was under consideration.

This was indeed the point on which Rhode and Dawe were now engaged. They were about to draw up a report to their chief constable, giving a considered opinion for or against applying to London. Dawe was against it, Rhode on the whole in favour of it, but willing to be convinced.

‘If we could get a line on Farjeon,’ Dawe was saying, ‘we could get ahead. That’s what’s holding us up.’

‘A week’s work of far more men than we can spare has gone into it already,’ Rhode answered, ‘and we don’t seem much further on. If we could have got those men on to the burglaries we’d probably have had them squared by this time. I’m afraid, Dawe, if we don’t do better by tomorrow or next day we’ll have to get help.’

Dawe’s reply was cut short by a knock at the door. A constable put in his head.

‘Coastguard Wilmot of the Whitness station is here, sir, and would like to see you about the death of Mr Ronald Ackerley.’

Rhode and Dawe exchanged glances. ‘Good Lord,’ said the former, ‘more trouble. Show him in, Braithwaite.’

Wilmot proved to be an elderly and intelligent looking man bearing the obvious stamp of the Royal Navy. He wished the officers good morning and took the chair to which Rhode pointed.

‘Well, Wilmot,’ said Rhode, who knew him well. ‘What’s bitten you? Something about the Ackerley case?’

‘Sorry to trouble you gentlemen,’ said the coastguard, ‘partic’larly as I ain’t certain if there’s anything in wot I ’ave to tell you. But I thought to myself, if so be that it’s important, why then it should be told, and if there ain’t nothing in it, why then mentioning it won’t do no ’arm.’

‘A profound truth,’ Rhode declared dryly. ‘I subscribe to your philosophy and so does the inspector. Well, let’s hear the worst.’

Wilmot evidently took this for encouragement.

‘It were just something I saw,’ he explained. ‘On Monday afternoon, the day Mr Ackerley was killed, I ’ad an inspection along the coast. I left Whitness about ’alf past four to walk to Redchurch. I kept on the top of the cliffs where there ain’t no road till I got to Downey’s Point, then I took the road round the Point, and after that went along the railway into Redchurch. When I were about ’alf way round Downey’s Point I saw the lights of a steamer going up Channel, and I stopped to ’ave a look at ’er. Well, there weren’t nothing interesting about ’er and I turned to go on, but before starting I ’ad a look back along the road to Whitness; just sort of by chance, if you understand.’

‘I understand,’ Rhode said patiently as the coastguard paused.

‘As I were looking back I saw a man. ’E appeared at the back of the mound fence on the sea side of the road. As you know, sir, the road runs about eighty feet above the railway at that place, and if this man weren’t climbing up from the railway, I’m jiggered if I know where ’e was coming from. ’E stopped and ’ad a good squint up and down the road, but I don’t think ’e saw me for I were close behind a small thorn bush: about the only one that grows on the sea side of the road. Then ’e climbed over the mound fence and ran across to the small shrubberry that’s on the other side of the road. You know, sir, there’s just a little bit of flat ground before it starts to slope up again to the top of the ness, and it were into that ’e went.’

‘I know it well. Get along, man.’

‘I wasn’t ’alf surprised,’ Wilmot continued, ‘seeing ’im come up like that in such a ’urry, and run across the road kind of stealthy. Something stealthy in the way ’e ran, like as if ’e were trying not to be seen, if you know wot I mean.’

Rhode’s foot was marking time with irritable persistence, but he controlled himself and said quietly, ‘I know.’

‘I weren’t in any ’urry and I thought I’d watch and see wot ’appened. In a moment ’e came out of the shrubbery wheeling a bicycle, a push bike. ’E jumped on it and rode off as ’ard as ’e could towards Whitness.’

‘Well?’

‘That were all,’ the coastguard returned. ‘’Is ’urrying and ’aving the bicycle there ’idden, so to speak, it seemed kind of suspicious to me. But there ain’t maybe nothing in it.’

Rhode moved impatiently. ‘I don’t get your idea,’ he declared. ‘Why should this have had anything to do with the Ackerley case?’

‘I don’t say as ’ow it ’as,’ Wilmot returned irritatingly, ‘but it seemed to me kind of suspicious because of the time.’

‘The time?’

‘Yes, sir. It were just on to quarter past five.’

For a moment there was silence, and then Wilmot resumed. ‘Of course, sir, you understand that I didn’t think nothing about it at the time, excepting just wot I’ve told you: that it seemed a bit queer. But when I read about the inquest in last night’s paper I wondered if so be there weren’t something in it. ’Ere were a young man got to Downey’s Point about 5.10 and were killed. But there weren’t no reason why he should ’ave been killed at that time. The engine didn’t pass till 5.55, and nobody couldn’t explain wot ’e were doing between 5.10 and 5.55.’

Rhode glanced at him keenly. ‘What’s all this?’ he asked. ‘Are you suggesting that Ackerley was murdered?’

The coastguard shook his head. ‘No, sir, I ain’t suggesting nothing. But I thought I’d better tell you wot I’d seen. If you think there ain’t nothing in it, why then, that’s all right.’

Rhode frowned and glanced at Dawe.

‘How are you so sure of the time?’ he asked.

‘I looked at my watch. I thought the thing were a bit queer, and I thought if anything came of it I might as well know the time.’

For a moment there was silence in the little room, then Rhode struck a bell.

‘Has Hart gone out?’ he asked the constable who appeared. ‘If not, send him in.’

In a moment Sergeant Hart entered.

‘Sit down, Hart. Here’s Coastguard Wilmot with a story of something he saw at Downey’s Point on the night Ackerley was killed. He says,’ and Rhode briefly repeated the statement, ending up: ‘What do you think? Anything in it?’

Hart did not immediately reply. He seemed impressed. He gave a lifelike representation of a man thinking, then said hesitatingly that he didn’t know.

‘That means you think there might be, I suppose?’ Rhode returned. ‘Why?’

‘That half hour, sir,’ Hart said, still with hesitation. ‘It was commented on at the inquest. And then of course,’ he paused again, ‘there was that blow on the head that was supposed to have been caused by falling on the rail.’

Rhode moved irritably. ‘Good Lord, man, are you starting now to build up a murder case after you yourself explaining the whole thing away at the inquest?’ He frowned, then went on: ‘Look here, go out now with Wilmot and see just where this man came up. See if it was directly above where the body was found. And get anything more from Wilmot that you can. Then come back and report.’ He looked at the inspector. ‘That’s the best thing, Dawe?’

Dawe agreed. ‘That’ll about put the lid on doing without a man from the Yard,’ he went on when the other two had left, ‘that is, if this Ackerley case has to be reopened.’

Rhode nodded gloomily. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘though I didn’t give it much attention, the thought did pass through my mind that it was extraordinarily careless of a railwayman getting killed like that. It was a single line; there was no other train that he could have been getting out of the way of or that was making a noise to distract his attention. I don’t know. I’m afraid if Hart can’t clear the thing up we’ll have to go into it.’

‘If so, we get someone from the Yard.’

‘If so, we get someone from the Yard,’ Rhode repeated. ‘Yes, I think we’ll have to. However, let’s wait till Hart comes in.’

They turned to other work until in a couple of hours Hart’s return brought them back to the matter.

‘It looks baddish,’ the sergeant declared. ‘The place where the man came up is immediately above where the body was found. I had a look at the bank between the road and the railway. You know it’s pretty steep. There’s the railway cutting about forty feet high, then the slope of the Point, running on up nearly as steeply, but with little shrubs on it. I was able to find marks nearly all the way where someone had slipped back in climbing up. None of them clear enough to be useful, but just proving that someone did climb it recently. Then I had a look among the shrubs on the inland side of the road. I saw the mark of the bicycle. It had been pushed in between the double stems of a birch, like into a bicycle rack. I couldn’t see any clear footprints nor anything else.’

Rhode whistled below his breath. ‘Do you know anything about this fellow Ackerley? Any enemies?’

‘None, sir, that we’ve heard of, but as you know, we didn’t make very detailed inquiries.’

Rhode nodded. ‘Very well, Hart; that’ll do. I’ll have a word with the chief constable. You get on with that Farjeon business.’

It was as a result of a protracted conference, at which the chief constable was present, that Detective-Inspector Joseph French of the Criminal Investigation Department, New Scotland Yard, stepped late that afternoon from the train at Redchurch Station.

French had for the past few months been working continuously at the Yard and had led a comparatively humdrum life. Since he had finished up the Grinsmead affair at Ashbridge, in Kent, he had been engaged on smaller and less thrilling cases, cases which meant plenty of work, but in which, owing to their sordid and commonplace nature, he found it impossible to take a great deal of interest. He had investigated two burglaries, a forgery, and a murder of a wife by her drunken and jealous husband. In two of these crimes he succeeded in putting his hands on the guilty parties, but one housebreaker eluded him, and as the drunken husband made no attempt to escape, his apprehension could not be said to represent any very signal triumph of the detective art. At the moment French had been free. He had been hoping to be sent to Brussels, where a gang of international criminals, badly wanted by the London police, were believed to be in hiding. This application from the Dorset Constabulary had, however, queered his pitch so far as Belgium was concerned, and he had been told to proceed by the first train to Redchurch.

Hart met him at the station.

‘The station’s only a few blocks up, sir,’ he explained. ‘If you’ll give me your bag I think we might walk.’

‘By all means let’s walk, sergeant. But hadn’t I better give the bag to one of these hotel people?’

A room having been reserved, the two men walked to the police station. French, in accordance with his invariable rule, chatted pleasantly about his journey and the locality, and the sergeant, expecting to be kept severely in his place by their distinguished London visitor, became at once human and friendly and anxious to assist.

Rhode was awaiting them in his room. He shook hands with French, and after a somewhat curt greeting, got to business.

‘You better remain, sergeant,’ he directed. ‘The inspector may want to ask you some questions. Sit down, both of you. You know nothing of the case, I suppose, inspector?’

‘Nothing, sir. The Home Office simply advised us that you wanted a man.’

‘Then I’d better run over the salient features; they’re very simple. We’ve done practically nothing on it because we’ve no men to spare. We were busy on two burglaries when we got that Farjeon case on the top of us; you know, the case in which Mrs Farjeon and Captain Higgings were found shot.’

‘I read of it. Admiral Farjeon was suspected, I gathered.’

Rhode shrugged. ‘That’s as may be,’ he answered shortly. ‘At all events we haven’t the staff for anything else. The chief constable decided we must concentrate on the Farjeon affair and apply for help from the Yard for the railway case. So there it is, inspector; that’s why you’re here, and you start with a free hand in your own way.’

‘I understand, sir,’ French answered politely, though inwardly he smiled. His country cases usually began with some such preamble. Never yet had he been told that the local men had tried a problem and found it too big for them. Always they were prevented by other work from giving it their attention. However, this was only human nature. French had made it an invariable rule to save the faces of the local men in this connection, and he had found it to pay him.

Rhode leant heavily back in his chair.

‘It’s the case of a young man being run over on the railway,’ he went on. ‘They’re doubling the line between here and Whitness, that’s a small town three and a half miles along the shore to the east. This young man that was killed, Ronald Ackerley, was the resident engineer for the Company,’ and he went on to tell of the apparent accident, the inquest, and the visit of Coastguard Wilmot with the sinister suggestion resulting from his story. ‘So you see,’ he concluded, ‘the facts, so far as we know them, are few and simple, and all we want you to do, inspector, is to clear up the doubt. If you can prove the death to have been an accident, your work’s done. If it is murder,’ Rhode shrugged, ‘it’ll be just beginning.’

‘I see that,’ French agreed. ‘Has the case not been gone into at all? Is it known, for instance, whether the young man had enemies?’

‘I may say that it really has not been gone into. The sergeant went out and saw the place, and as I have said, checked up about the man and the bicycle. But that’s all that’s been done. With regard to enemies: we’ve not heard of any, but then we’ve not inquired. I tell you, inspector, better have a talk with Sergeant Hart. He knows the case better than anyone else. Take the inspector to the other office, Hart.’

French, thus dismissed, got up. ‘I’ll be glad of anything the sergeant can tell me,’ he observed. ‘Also I should like the depositions made at the inquest. I’ll go over them tonight and be ready to make a start in the morning.’

The discussion with Hart having proved unfruitful—the sergeant was unable to add anything material to Rhode’s statement—French returned to his hotel and after dinner settled down to study the dossier, so far as it had been compiled. A very little thought led him to the conclusion that it would be a waste of time to try to evolve theories until he had more detailed information. He must go over the ground and get statements at first hand from those concerned, so as to be sure he understood the affair thoroughly. He would then be in a better position to reach a considered opinion.

Accordingly next morning he took an early train to Whitness, and walking out to the engineers’ hut, presented his card to Parry.

‘I’d be much obliged, Mr Parry,’ he said after some introductory remarks, ‘if you’d come out with me to Downey’s Point and show me where the body was found. It was seen by you and Mr Bragg and the fireman, was it not?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would it be possible to get either of those other two also?’

‘When do you want to go?’

‘As soon as possible. Now, if you can manage it.’

Parry considered. ‘Mr Bragg is not here today, but I think I could get the fireman.’ He made a telephone call. ‘You’re in luck, inspector,’ he went on. ‘If we walk down to a siding just beyond the tunnel we’ll get an engine to take us out, with the fireman you want on board. Will you come along?’

They left the hut and walked down past the viaducts, old and new, and along the path on the slopes of the headland outside the tunnel. The day was fine and the sea, a pale greenish blue, was calm and beneficent looking. Far out on the horizon, which showed hard and dark against the clear sky, a large steamer was heading up Channel. Nearer inshore two or three white sailed pleasure boats heeled over as they tacked against the breeze. To French it was a delightful change from London. He was interested also in what he saw of the work of the Widening and made up his mind that before he left he would get Parry to take him over it and explain just what was being done.

On the siding, which was on a widened portion of the rocky shelf beyond the tunnel, stood the ballast train. Miggs, the ballast guard, and Blake, the driver, were on the ground beside the engine.

‘You’re waiting till the 9.50 clears to get out, I suppose?’ asked Parry.

Miggs said that was so and that she wouldn’t be long.

‘Mr French is making some inquiries into Mr Ackerley’s death. I want you, Blake, to run us out to where the accident took place. I told Mr Pole that we’d delay you a bit.’

The men murmured ‘Very good, sir,’ and shot interested glances at French.

As they spoke a train which French had neither heard nor seen approaching, suddenly materialised. It ran slowly past, whistling as it disappeared into the tunnel.

‘You have to keep your eyes skinned here,’ French remarked, considerably surprised at its unexpected appearance.

Parry agreed. ‘If the wind’s the wrong way trains come up on you very quietly. A lot of men have been knocked out because of it. Better get up, inspector. We’ll be ready to start in a moment.’

Parry climbed on to the footplate and French, immensely interested, followed. He had never been on an engine before and was like a child in his eagerness: so much so that he had sternly to remind himself that he was here on business, and that in his enjoyment of a new sensation he must not forget his job.

Miggs, having hooked off the engine, now went to the occupation box, obtained a tablet from it, and unlocked and threw open the points. They ran out along the shelf of rock, passed through Cannan’s Cutting and round the long curve of Browne’s Bay, pulling up just short of the fatal spot, about halfway round Downey’s Point. Parry clambered down, followed by French and Fireman Atkins.

‘Now, gentlemen,’ French began, ‘will you please show me how the poor young man was lying.’

The medical and police evidence suggested that Ackerley had not been knocked down by the engine, but had been lying on his face on the line when it came up. The face was only slightly disfigured and the clothes were not cut in front, as they would have been had Ackerley been dashed forcibly down on the sharp-edged stone ballast. The slight wounds on the face would have resulted from his being pushed a little forward, as he undoubtedly had been. On the other hand the injuries caused by the engine were terrible, but local. The unfortunate young man had apparently been lying partially across the rail, and the wheels had crushed the chest and severed the right arm and shoulder.

French found this view strengthened by the evidence of his two witnesses. Had Ackerley been knocked down, not only would the face and clothes in front have been torn, but the back where struck by the engine would have been crushed into pulp. Such injury to the back was entirely absent.

French had brought the dossier and he re-read the medical evidence. In addition to the injury to the arm, Ackerley’s skull had been fractured by a blow behind the right ear. It had been admitted that this blow could not have been caused by the engine, as the skin was but slightly damaged. French saw that this was correct. Had the engine struck the head, it would have crushed it like an egg-shell. The blow, the sergeant had suggested, had been caused by Ackerley’s striking his head against the rail as he fell.

French did not feel particularly happy about this explanation. For some moments he stood thinking, then as best he could he went through the motions of stepping into the drain, tripping over the adjoining sleeper, and falling forward on the rail.

It was as he had thought. If the side of his head struck the rail, it would be a mere glancing blow. A direct blow would come on the forehead. French doubted whether even the most direct blow received from such a fall would fracture the skull, but he felt positive that a glancing blow would be insufficient.

Parry’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘We mustn’t keep the engine,’ the young man pointed out. ‘There’s only six minutes to clear the road for the next train.’

‘Thank you, I’ve finished with the fireman, but I’d be obliged if you could wait with me, Mr Parry.’

The engine backed off and French resumed his cogitations. A further point had occurred to him, a point of the simplest, but most convincing kind. If Ackerley had really tripped over that sleeper, he would have saved himself by putting out his hands. He might have fallen, but he never would have fallen with sufficient force to fracture his skull.

French felt a growing certainty that the blow had been struck before the engine came up. If so, there could be but one deduction. The tragedy was no accident. Ackerley had been murdered: murdered in a cold-blooded, deliberate, premeditated way which included the faking of an accident to cover up the crime. French saw that his case was only beginning.

For a moment he was inclined to think hard thoughts of the doctor who had reported in favour of accident. Then he saw that had he been in the doctor’s place, he would probably have done the same thing. The man had no suspicion that the affair might not be an accident. He had not come out to the site and made a reconstruction, as had French. It was only when French had followed in his mind what must have happened, that he saw the flaw. No, the doctor could not be blamed.

French thought his conclusion was pretty well proven, but as he stood looking round he saw something which strongly confirmed it. The railway track with its broken stone ballast was rough and unpleasant walking. But beside it, between the ends of the sleepers and the top of the sea pitching, was a space of some six or eight feet, and down the middle of this ran a smooth well-trampled path.

‘Tell me, Mr Parry,’ French said as he took in these details, ‘Why would Mr Ackerley have been on the railway at all? Would he not rather have walked on this path?’

The point had evidently not occurred to Parry and it obviously puzzled him. It was Ackerley’s habit to walk on the path. Parry had been with him scores of times and he had always done so. Parry did not believe he would have walked on the line, though he suggested that he might have stepped on to it for some reason just before the ballast engine came along.

French nodded absently. All this evidence was cumulative, and French knew that there is nothing in the world so convincing as cumulative evidence. When to what he had now discovered were added the three other facts which pointed to murder, first, the unlikelihood of an experienced railwayman being run over under the circumstances in question, second, the chronological discrepancy in any other theory, and third, the hurried departure of the unknown man on the bicycle, French felt he had enough to establish this part of the case.

There being nothing else to be seen on the railway, he turned to his companion.

‘How can we get back to Whitness, Mr Parry?’

‘Walk it, or if you like, get up on the road and wait till a ’bus passes.’

‘I’d rather walk, if you don’t mind.’

They set off in the pleasant sunshine. French improved the opportunity not only to see the pitching which Parry had been sent to measure up, but also to make inquiries about the personnel of the Widening. Then he turned to the question of who had known that Ackerley would be on the railway at Downey’s Point on the evening of his death.

‘I should think that everybody knew it,’ Parry returned. ‘I knew it, for I parted from him a few minutes before. Bragg knew it, for he was aware of what we proposed to do. The contractors’ men, Carey, Lowell and Pole, knew that he was walking through that evening. They mightn’t have known the exact time he would have passed Downey’s Point, but they could have guessed it approximately. Potts might also have guessed it: that’s the farmer Ackerley had to meet. Ganger Mutch of the Whitness length could have deduced it, and also other railwaymen who might have seen us walking out.’

This did not seem a very promising line of research. French therefore dropped it and set himself to pick up as much of the railway politics as he could, finally getting Parry, on reaching Whitness, to introduce him to the other members of the office staffs, so that he might form his own opinion of their personalities. His somewhat veiled inquiries, however, threw no light on possible motives for desiring Ackerley’s death.

Having thanked Parry for his help, French walked out again to Downey’s Point, this time by the road. The coastguard officer had been sworn to silence about the man he had seen, and French had not wished to give away that he was working on any special line. Hence his revisiting the place alone.

It was a striking enough view that he looked out on from the road. Away to the horizon stretched the sea, a great flat plane of deepest blue, with in the middle distance a small coaster threshing along, probably making for Lynmouth. On each side were bays round which ran the railway. That to the left ended in a headland, in the side of which showed the V-shaped cleft of the entrance to Cannan’s Cutting. To the right were several low lying points, one behind the other and reaching away to near Lydmouth, each fainter and bluer than the last. Below, showing here and there through gaps in the shrubs which covered the slopes, was the permanent way, its sleepers looking from the height tiny and placed with extraordinary neatness. As French gazed down a train passed—a toy on a model line. He followed its passage rond the curve of Browne’s Bay till it disappeared into Cannan’s Cutting.

He climbed down the slope to the railway, first through the shrubs, and then down the rather poor grass of the cutting. How long, he wondered, would it have taken a potential murderer to escape? A man in a hurry could, he thought, run up to the road in about two minutes. One more minute to retrieve a bicycle from the shrubs at the opposite side of the road would make three altogether from the leaving of the victim to the departure on the bicycle. French was now strongly of opinion that some unknown man had on the night of Ackerley’s death spent three minutes in just that way.

The marks of the man’s hurried climb discovered by Hart were still visible, but though French examined them with great care, they were too blurred to afford any clue. He then crossed the road and soon found the tracks of the bicycle, crossing a small patch of loose sand thrown up by a rabbit at the root of a small birch tree. This tree, as Hart had stated, had two stems about four inches apart, and the front wheel of the bicycle had been thrust between them, as into a stand. The patch of sand was very small and it bore no footprints.

French examined the ground all about in the hope of finding some little object which the unknown might have dropped, but without success. He did, however, discover a mark which for a short time puzzled him. On the left hand stem of the birch, about a foot from the ground, was a small cut or scrape in the bark. It showed first on the back and dragged round to a point almost opposite the other stem.

A little thought, however, told French what it was. A cyclometer evidently. The bicycle had been hurriedly withdrawn and the cyclometer had caught in the tree. Considerable force had obviously been used and French wondered whether the cyclometer had not been broken off. If it had, the unknown must have seen and removed it, as it was not anywhere to be found.

French stood thinking. Here at last was a clue: a push bicycle with a bent or broken cyclometer. To find it was surely a job for the local men. Would it be dealt with by Rhode and Dawe and Hart, or by the local staff at Whitness? He felt sure there must be a local staff at Whitness, and as the bicycle had disappeared towards that town, it was probably there that he should apply.

He set off to walk back and immediately had a minor stroke of luck. A ’bus appeared behind him. He got on board and ten minutes later was entering the police station at Whitness.

Sergeant Emery, the officer in charge, greeted him with surprise and respect. He was evidently keenly interested in French’s statement and eagerly promised to do what he could to help. Yes, he would certainly try to find anyone who had been on the road between Downey’s Point and Whitness on the evening in question and would make inquiries as to a push-bicycle having been seen. Yes, he appreciated the fact that the man was pedalling hard, and it should certainly have drawn attention to him. Emery thought also he could find out, by having the arrivals and departures at the contractors’ yard unobtrusively watched, how many bicycles belonged to the workers there, and he was sure he could make some excuse to examine closely any with cyclometers, or which had lost cyclometers. Also he would try to pick up as much of the gossip of the Widening as he could, and if he came on anything which seemed worth while following up, he would tell the inspector. And if there was anything else the inspector had only to ring him up.

‘Good man,’ said French heartily, ‘that’s just what I want. Now about the inquiries along the roads: how will you set about it?’

‘Our own men first, sir. Then coastguards, postmen, ’bus drivers, doctors, the district nurse, workmen cycling home to Redchurch: there are a good many people to ask.’

French was pleased. This Emery was evidently an efficient man. ‘That’s the style, sergeant. Peg away on those lines and you’re bound to get results. You’ll ring me up at the hotel if you’ve any luck?’

French turned away with the man’s cheery ‘Good evening, sir,’ ringing in his ears. There would, he thought, just be time for one more inquiry that night. Returning to the engineers’ hut, he managed to get Parry to agree to his searching Ackerley’s desk. Here, however, he had no luck. There was nothing in it which gave him the least help.

Having called in to tell Rhode the result of his first day’s work, French returned to his hotel to write up his notes and consider his next step.

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