Peril on the Royal Train (37 page)

‘No, he’s just an ignorant shepherd.’

‘You undervalue him, Mr Craig. The lad was clever enough to teach me something. He’d bought himself a telescope.’ He smacked his head. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? It’s how he was able to spot that trap going along the railway line. A telescope defies distance,’ Colbeck went on. ‘We must acquire one.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Leeming. ‘It will come in useful.’

Craig was intrigued. ‘How will you catch them, Inspector?’

‘We’ll arrange an ambush.’

‘Won’t you need more men?’

‘No,’ said Colbeck, ‘I fancy that the sergeant and I can manage, especially if we’re armed. I doubt if there are more than two or three of them. A large gang would be bound to attract attention and they’ve been careful not to do that. It only takes one person to set off an explosion.’

‘I still think it’s dangerous. You don’t know what you’re up against.’

‘Neither do they,’ said Leeming. ‘Because they got away with it the first time, they’ll think they can do the same again. They’ll be off guard when we pounce.’

‘I admire your courage in taking these fiends on.’

‘They have a lot to answer for,’ said Colbeck, ‘so we’ll do our best to capture them alive. If that’s not possible, I’ll have no compunction in pulling the trigger.’

‘I’ll
enjoy
doing it,’ asserted Leeming with almost bloodthirsty relish. ‘After the way they killed Patrick Scanlan, they deserve no quarter. We should save the cost of a trial and shoot them.’

Colbeck disagreed strongly. ‘We’d never understand their real motives if we did that,’ he argued. ‘And we’d never know if they were acting on their own or if they were merely part of a much larger movement. No, Sergeant, due process of law must be followed if at all feasible. We mustn’t sink to their level.’

‘My instinct is to support the sergeant,’ said Craig, slapping the arm of the chair. ‘These men are vermin. They should be exterminated.’

‘It’s a task we should leave to the public executioner,’ said Colbeck, sternly.

‘You’ll have to take them alive first.’

‘I believe that we can do that, sir.’

Craig got to his feet. ‘I knew that it was right to send for you, Inspector,’ he said, gratefully, ‘and I’m sorry for doubting you. It will give me so much pleasure to taunt Rae for a change. While he’s still burrowing around for suspects among NBR employees, you’ve actually found the culprits.’

‘Don’t breathe a syllable about this until they’re in custody.’

‘Rely on me. And excuse my poor hospitality,’ added Craig. ‘Can I offer you refreshment of any kind?’

‘No, thank you, sir,’ said Colbeck. ‘We dined at the hotel.’

‘But a glass of that whisky wouldn’t come amiss,’ said Leeming, covetously.

Colbeck grinned. ‘The sergeant speaks for both of us.’

‘Be my guest.’

After finding some glasses, Craig poured each of them a measure of whisky. All three of them were soon relaxing over a bracing drink. The mood had changed completely. Craig’s melancholy had been transformed into elation.

‘The inspector had an interesting thought,’ observed Leeming.

‘Oh – what was it?’

‘He wondered why the gunpowder was stolen from the barracks in Perth when there was a supply of it at the quarry near the site of the train crash.’

‘It
is
odd,’ said Craig. ‘Do you have an answer to that, Inspector?’

‘No, sir,’ replied Colbeck, ‘but I have a theory about how someone was able to gain entry to the barracks. The man must have been a soldier in the regiment. Who else would know where the arsenal was and what sort of guard was mounted on it?’

‘That makes sense.’

‘It’s highly likely that one of the people we’re looking for is a deserter. Nobody still in the army would plot against Her Majesty. They fight for Queen and Country. It would be instructive if we knew the names of any deserters from the Black Watch.’

‘I could have found those names for you.’

‘You wouldn’t even get past the main gate, sir,’ warned Leeming. ‘The sentries gave me the cold shoulder and sent me on the way. The regiment is in India.’

‘I know that, Sergeant,’ said Craig. ‘They were deployed to Lucknow. My brother went with them. He’s a lieutenant colonel in the Black Watch. Had he still been in Perth, he’d have willingly given me a list of deserters.’

Leeming was furious. ‘You
knew
that the regiment was abroad?’

‘Of course, I did. I’m proud to say that their journey began on the Caledonian. We put out all the flags for them. They were going on a hazardous mission. It wasn’t only a deadly enemy they had to face. India is rife with terrible diseases.’

‘You could have saved me a miserable journey on the train, sir. Why didn’t you
tell
me that you knew that the Black Watch was abroad?’

‘You never asked me, Sergeant.’

‘That’s true, alas,’ said Colbeck. ‘It was a foolish omission.’

‘If you lived in Scotland,’ Craig told them, ‘you’d know that many of our regiments were sent to India in the wake of the mutiny there last year. Apart from the Black Watch, we waved off the Gordon Highlanders, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the Seaforth Highlanders, the Camerons and so forth.’

‘You seem well versed in troop movements,’ remarked Colbeck.

‘It comes from having a soldier in the family.’

‘Tell me a little more about your brother.’

‘Yes,’ said Leeming, testily, ‘and ask him to give us fair warning next time he’s likely to vanish overseas. It would be helpful to know.’

‘Listen to what Mr Craig has to say,’ advised Colbeck. ‘He might be about to solve another thorny problem for us.’

‘What’s that, sir?’

‘Why the Caledonian was singled out as a target.’

Madeleine Colbeck felt that she’d been unduly harsh on her father. She was still appalled by what he’d suggested but decided that she’d reacted too bluntly. In order to repair the rift, she went off to see him the next morning. As the cab dropped her off outside the little house in Camden Town, she looked up at it fondly. It was a treasure trove of memories. Some of them were sad but the overwhelming majority were happy. Born and brought up there, Madeleine would always regard it with affection. At the same time, however, it was a measure of how far she’d gone in the world. Had she not met and married Robert Colbeck, the most that she could have hoped for was to pass the rest of her days in a similarly modest abode. Instead of that, she occupied a fine house in Westminster with servants to relieve her of the routine chores she did when she lived with her father.

Having seen her through the window, Andrews opened the door to greet her.

‘I wasn’t expecting you, Maddy,’ he said, giving her a kiss.

‘I thought I’d surprise you.’

‘You’ve certainly done that.’

They went inside the house and sat down. The familiar surroundings enveloped her in a warm hug. Her father had made a few changes to the parlour. New ornaments had appeared on the mantelpiece and he’d rearranged the furniture but the room remained essentially the same.

‘I came to apologise, Father,’ she began.

‘Whatever for?’

‘I was too sharp with you yesterday.’

‘You weren’t sharp enough, in my opinion,’ he said, penitently. ‘I should be the one saying sorry to
you
, Maddy. It was wrong of me to want money for what I did. I can see that now.’

‘It shocked me at the time.’

‘I feel ashamed for having such thoughts. When I got back here, I remembered all the times when you helped Robert in an investigation. Yet you never asked for a brass farthing in return.’

Madeleine smiled. ‘I got the reward I wanted,’ she said.

‘Can you forgive me?’

‘I’d rather forget the whole thing, Father.’

‘So would I.’

‘The matter is closed.’

‘It would be nice to think that, Maddy,’ he said, ‘but it’s not true, is it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, when I went to bed last night, I lay awake thinking about it. I must have spent hours going over and over it. I had this dreadful thought.’ He swallowed hard before speaking. ‘What if I was wrong?’

‘I don’t follow you.’

‘It was only a guess, after all. When you told me what Mrs Renwick had said to you, I was too quick to jump to a conclusion. That burglar may have had no interest in the timetable of the royal train. He went there after money. It could be that I started a panic for no reason at all.’ He reached out to pick up a letter from the table. ‘Think how red my face will be if I made a mistake, Maddy. This letter from Superintendent Tallis will have to be thrown away. When he knows that I’ve misled everybody, he’ll send me a much nastier letter.’

‘You’re talking nonsense, Father,’ she said.

His face creased in concern. ‘Am I?’

‘They found that burglar,’ she reminded him. ‘He’d been murdered. Robert was certain that he’d been killed because he knew too much. Then there was the dead man’s servant. He talked about two strangers hiring his master.’

‘But he said nothing about them asking for details of that timetable,’ insisted Andrews. ‘If the servant had heard about that, Robert would have told us.’

‘Robert didn’t interview him. It was Victor Leeming and the superintendent who did that and they were left in no doubt that Patrick Scanlan had been dragged into a plot to assassinate members of the royal family.’ She went across to put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Sleep soundly tonight, Father,’ she said. ‘You weren’t wrong at all. So you can keep that letter from Superintendent Tallis. It’s a rarity. According to Robert, he’s very frugal with praise yet you’ve got whole paragraphs of congratulation out of him. That’s very unusual.’

‘Thank goodness you came, Maddy,’ he said, beaming. ‘You’ve taken a load off my mind. As for this,’ he went on, holding up the letter, ‘I may even frame it.’

After breakfast at the hotel, Colbeck and Leeming scoured the local ships’ chandlers in search of a telescope. They eventually found what they wanted. Leeming was struck by its weight.

‘This could be used as a weapon,’ he said.

‘We bought it for a more peaceable purpose, Victor.’

‘My children would love to look through it.’

‘Perhaps they will one day,’ said Colbeck.

They were seated side by side in a cab that was taking them back to the Strathallan Hotel. Their meeting with Craig on the previous evening had given a whole new slant to the investigation.

‘At last we have some idea why the Caledonian was chosen,’ said Colbeck. ‘There’s a direct link between the railway and the military. It transported several regiments on their way to India but there was a special connection with the Black Watch. Mr Craig’s brother holds a senior rank in it. No wonder they saw the regiment off in such style.’

‘Yes,’ said Leeming. ‘The Caledonian treated them like returning heroes before they’d even left. They spent a lot of money on that farewell.’

‘Someone clearly resented that. I think it was a soldier.’

‘Could it be that deserter you talked about?’

‘It’s more than likely. Everyone in the regiment would have known that their lieutenant colonel’s brother was the general manager of the Caledonian. It was the reason the Black Watch was given preferential treatment by the company.’

‘Why did the soldier desert?’ asked Leeming.

‘I don’t know.’

‘And why turn against the Queen he vowed to fight for?’

‘That, too, is a mystery.’

‘Deserters are usually cowards, aren’t they? There were newspaper articles about them during the Crimean War. When they saw how dangerous it was on the battlefield, they ran away in fear. The army executed every one of them caught.’

‘People are not only motivated by fear,’ said Colbeck. ‘The horrors of warfare can disgust them so much that they become pacifists. Or they can be seized by a religious fervour. They might even sympathise with the values of the enemy. It’s wrong to brand them all as cowards, Victor. There’s a degree of bravery in an action that renders one liable to be hanged summarily if arrested.’

‘Cowards are cowards in my book, sir,’ said Leeming, brusquely.

‘Remind me what Ned Layne said about the two men who hired his master to break into Mr Renwick’s house. Could either of them have been a former soldier?’

‘It’s possible. The one who spoke was a hefty man in his thirties with a full beard. He had a Scots accent, apparently. I suppose that he could easily have once belonged to a Highland regiment.’

‘What about the man who didn’t say a word?’

‘He was short, slight and older – oh, and he was a little swarthier.’

‘Did he look foreign?’

‘No,’ replied Leeming. ‘Not according to Layne, anyway – though he did say that there was something peculiar about him even though he couldn’t put a finger on what it was.’

Colbeck’s smile was bleak. ‘I look forward to meeting this gentleman.’

George Hibbard was pleased with the hiding place. It had been well chosen. The three of them had spent the night in a clearing in the middle of the wood. Because it was set on a hill, they had a good view in all directions. It was safe and secluded. Davey Ure had been responsible for choosing the location. He’d erected the tent and brought in food supplies. A nearby stream provided water and he’d even managed to catch a few fish there. Since they were related, there was a faint resemblance between Ure and Callum Matthews and both were muscular. Hibbard, by contrast, was slim and sinewy. He had a European cast of feature but, in the morning sunshine, his dark complexion was exaggerated. He was the acknowledged leader of the trio.

As they ate breakfast, they discussed their plans.

‘Everything has gone well so far,’ said Matthews, smugly.

‘No, it hasn’t,’ countered Hibbard. ‘We weren’t able to kill Scanlan’s servant. That was a bad mistake. He saw us and will be able to give the police descriptions of you and me.’

‘What does it matter? They might search for us in London but they’d never dream of looking here. We’re safe, George. Ye made sure that the servant didn’t hear ye speak.’