The End of the Line (29 page)

“Mr. Wilcox, I have a few questions for you.” An expression of exasperation crossed the general manager's face. “May I step inside?”

Silently, Wilcox stepped from the door to allow Durrant inside, who found himself in a the small but ornate room. The caboose looked as if it had been decorated by a top designer from Chicago or New York City. A plush couch rested against one wall, bordered by small round tables that held the finest Tiffany lamps. A deep pile carpet lay on the floor in front of the couch, a low stool in the middle. Two equally well-appointed chairs sat at angles next to the couch. A gramophone was positioned against the opposite wall.

“You have a nicely made up accommodation, sir.”

“It was a gift. A
loan
, in fact, for my use while here at the end of track for the winter.”

“From whom?”

“From the
CPR
.”

“Is that so?” Wilcox stood by the far wall, as if Durrant had backed him into a corner. Durrant shut the door behind him, but was careful not to throw the bolt. He looked around the room. Paintings of pastoral countrysides adorned the walls.

Wilcox did not ask him to sit, so the two men stood staring at one another. Durrant noted that door next to him was closed and imagined that it led to the man's bedchamber. “This doesn't look like a
CPR
-appointed carriage,” said Durrant.

Wilcox stared at the man, his eyes dark. He said, “It's for use by the company brass while they are inspecting the line.”

“I see,” said Durrant. “Might I inspect your quarters?” he asked impulsively.

This caught Hep Wilcox off guard. “They are private, sir.”

“This is a murder investigation, Mr. Wilcox. There
is
no privacy.”

“You have
no
right.”

“I have
every
right!”

Wilcox looked away and seemed to be considering his options. “I have nothing to hide. Go ahead if you will, Sergeant.”

Durrant walked across the room, trying not to catch the nails of his crutch on the lavish, but borrowed, carpet. Wilcox stepped aside and Durrant opened the door to the bedchamber. It was a compact space, but adorned in similarly lavish fashion. A four-poster bed took up much of the room's space, and a heavy feather quilt was heaped on top. In the corner a small stove with brass trimming rumbled. A window looked out toward the banks of the Bow River. “I should like to look in your wardrobe, Mr. Wilcox.”

“I really object to this treatment, Sergeant.”

“I assure you, Mr. Wilcox, that each of my suspects likewise objected to such a search. You are no different than they are, sir.”

Wilcox looked as if he had been slapped. Red-faced, he stepped into the room and opened the upright wardrobe that was crowded into one corner. Durrant looked through it, and finding several coats there, took them from their pegs and laid them out on the bed. He examined each of them in turn.

“Thank you, sir,” he said, and stepped from the room. Wilcox said nothing. When he rejoined Durrant in the parlour, he found the Sergeant sitting in one of the chairs.

“I hope you don't mind me making myself comfortable,” Durrant said.

Wilcox began, “Sergeant, I really must get back to work.”

“This shouldn't take long. I have an offer to make you.”

“Really?” said Wilcox. “What kind of an offer could you possibly make?”

“You tell me the truth about what happened the night Deek Penner died, and I will see that the Crown is lenient with you.”

Wilcox laughed a harsh laugh. “I have nothing more to tell you about that night, Sergeant Wallace. I deeply regret Mr. Penner's death, as I have already attested over and over, but I had nothing to do with it.”

“Oh, I don't think
you
killed Mr. Penner, but you are far from
innocent
.” Durrant looked at the man.

The general manager still stood by his bedroom door. “What, exactly, are you accusing me of?” asked Wilcox.

“It's not so much an accusation, Mr. Wilcox; it's a question, and an honest one, at that. I know you've been sending wires to a station in Parliament. Who have you been corresponding with?”

Wilcox looked confused a moment. “Mr. O'Brian and I have shared correspondence, as he is Vice-Chair of the Select Standing Committee on the Railways.”

“Your log books show dozens of wires sent.”

“Did Christianson give you that information?”

“The log book is simple enough to interpret, Mr. Wilcox. My orders to people here are only being followed.”

“Since when are you giving the orders in Holt City, Sergeant Wallace?”

“Since a man was killed here,” said the Mountie. Durrant could see that he was going to get nothing more from Wilcox on this topic, so he changed direction in his questioning. “You used to make explosives, I gather.”

Wilcox looked taken aback. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

“With whom were you employed?”

“I have . . . I should say I did, but that was . . . What has this got to do with your mandate here?”

“Mr. Wilcox,” said Durrant, “how long ago did your association with an explosives manufacturer end?”

“Some time ago, Mr. Wilcox. Are you questioning my integrity? How is this relevant?”

“Everything is relevant, sir. Everything is relevant until
I
say it isn't.”

Wilcox regarded the Mountie. He shook his head, “I worked for a time for an outfit that held the explosives contract for a spur line of the Burlington Vermont Railway. It was more than three years ago. It's why Deek and I got on so well, you see. I understood his work. He came to me for advice.”

Durrant nodded, marvelling at the man's about-face. He pushed himself up and looked around the carriage one more time before stepping out onto the railway line, leaving a confounded Wilcox in his well-appointed sleeping car.

•  •  •

“Things just keep getting more and more convoluted,” Durrant confessed to Charlie. They were sitting in their cabin; outside, snow had started to falling lightly. Durrant was sitting at his desk, and Charlie sat cross-legged on his bunk. He held the wire correspondence from Kauffman in one hand, and the writing tablet in the other. For most of the afternoon he'd been reading over the code, trying to find patterns that could be transcribed into English.

“Tomorrow, I'm going to track down all our suspects and see if I can't start putting the squeeze on people. It's going to heat up around here, I think,” said Durrant, looking over his shoulder at Charlie. The boy looked up at him. “Okay, it's going to heat up even
more
. I think it best if you move about the camp as little as possible.”

Charlie wrote a question mark on his tablet. “If someone has an axe to grind, I want it to be me they come to find. Not you.” Charlie shrugged and returned his attention to his coded message.

Durrant looked down at the rudimentary list he was constructing on a piece of writing paper, using a nub of pencil he'd found in the desk. He'd written down the names of all the suspects he had amassed for the murder of Deek Penner, and then jotted down the words “means, motive and opportunity” and scribbled notes in each crude column. He was absorbed in this list when he heard the crunching of snow on the path to the cabin. Charlie heard it too, and put down the tablet. Durrant, seated next to the door, unholstered his Enfield and placed it on the table before him. The two men sat listening. The sound of the approaching footfalls seemed to echo in the dense, snowbound air. Despite their anticipation, the loud rasp at the door surprised them, and Durrant grabbed the handle of the pistol.

“Sergeant Wallace, it's Tom Holt.”

Durrant breathed out.

“Come in, sir. The door is unlocked.”

The door opened, and a swirl of snow entered the little cabin. The man who came in was wrapped in a heavy coat, and scarf and wearing a woollen cap like the one Dodds' sawyers wore. He closed the door behind him and brushed off a little of the snow onto the floorboards then unwrapped his face.

“Sergeant,” he said, “I'm sorry not to have been around for your investigation; business has taken me to Padmore, to oversee the delivery of supplies. I just returned on the mid-day freight. There has been much to attend to.”

“Well, thank you for stopping by. Would you care for tea? Charlie could brew up a pot.”

“No, thank you both,” the man said, waving Charlie to sit back down. “I can't stay long. I've got five cars of freight arriving for the stores tomorrow and I need to prepare the papers. I came to deliver something. Something I think you'll find very interesting.”

“What is it?” Durrant asked.

Holt pulled a thick envelope from his jacket. He reached inside it and drew forth a sheet of paper. Charlie sat forward. “It's wire correspondence,” said Tom, “intended for Deek Penner and sent a day before his death.”

“Where was it? Why did he not receive it?”

“It was in Banff. Sometimes, if John doesn't receive a transmission, our man in Banff will pick it up; the signal for the two stations is practically the same. This has been sitting at the station there for two weeks. I was just made aware of it today.” He handed it to Durrant.

Durrant turned to Charlie. The boy stood up and looked at the paper in Durrant's hands. “It's the same code, Charlie. Look here, it's signed Kauffman,” said Durrant, pointing with his twisted right hand. “Can you decipher this code, Mr. Holt?”

“I don't recognize it. It's not one the
CPR
uses.”

“It's a mystery to us as well, unfortunately.”

“I'm sorry that Deek didn't receive it.”

“So am I,” said Durrant.

“Well, then, good night.” Holt wrapped his scarf around his face and put his hat back on his head, opened the door, and stepped back into the swirling storm.

“Good night, sir.”

Charlie indicated that he'd like the wire correspondence. Durrant handed it to him. The boy sat back down the bed and compared the two transmissions. Every so often he would jot a word or two down on his tablet, counting the letters, and then erase them. What struck Durrant about the lad was the intensity of his concentration. Half an hour passed and he didn't look up once.

Suddenly Charlie looked up, a broad smile on his face. He moved to where Durrant sat and pointed to a word on both pieces of correspondence, then to his tablet. He wrote “explosives.” Durrant nodded. Charlie then pointed to more words and wrote “shipment,” then “Northumberland Glycerol Company.” Finally he circled a name that appeared halfway down the page on the second wire transmission: “O'Brian.” Durrant looked at the boy. They both smiled widely.

THIS DAY BEGAN AS THE
previous one had ended—with the arrival of wire telegrams. Before Durrant and Charlie had left their bunk to take breakfast in the mess tent, Christianson had knocked at their door. Pistol in hand, Durrant opened it to see that the snow was falling steadily in the woods around their bunk. The wind had abated and the temperature risen so that now, rather than blowing sideways, the flakes fell soft and thick on the ground. A foot of snow had settled around the cabin in the night.

“Do you want to come in?” asked Durrant.

“No sir, I've got to be getting back. Mr. Holt's got a huge shipment of supplies for the Kicking Horse today, and I've got to lend a hand. I thought you'd want this.” He handed Durrant the coded message.

“Thank you, Mr. Christianson,” Durrant said and took the message. “Hell of a snowfall,” said Durrant to Charlie, pushing the door closed.

Charlie nodded as Durrant turned his attention to the wire. He took up the stub of a pencil and decoded it. “It's from Steele. He says we've gotten some assistance from the Montreal constabulary. They've seized the log book of the Grand Trunk: a man named Patrick Carriere is our spy.” He looked up.

•  •  •

After breakfast Durrant dispatched Charlie back to their cabin while he went to learn the whereabouts of Patrick Carriere. He first inquired with Bob Pen, and was directed to Grant McPherson. He found the new foreman in the munitions warehouse. They exchanged greetings and then Grant pointed out Patrick Carriere. “What do you want with him?” McPherson inquired.

“Friend of the family,” quipped Durrant, turning his back on the man.

Carriere was of an average size, standing five foot ten, but thick through the chest. He wore a wool cap and a heavy wool sweater as he hefted sacks of kieselguhr, the thin powdery soil used to make nitroglycerine. He was loading them onto a handtruck for transport to the munitions factory—now under construction—at Kicking Horse Pass.

“Mr. Carriere?” Durrant asked.

“That's me,” the man said, not looking up.

“I'm Sergeant Durrant Wallace. North West . . .”

“I know who you are, Sergeant. What do you need?” The man grunted as he hefted another load. “I've got to finish this before the next sled leaves for the Pass.” Carriere stopped and looked at Durrant for the first time. The labourer was sweating. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

“I want a minute of your time. Mr. McPherson won't mind.”

Carrierre looked up at him. “You want to talk here?”

“Suits me fine. You know what this is about?”

“I haven't the foggiest idea, Sergeant.”

“We've raided the Grand Trunk offices in Montreal. We know that you're working for them. We know that you've been sending them cables with information on the
CPR
's progress here at Holt City.”

Carriere folded his arms across his chest. He was silent a moment. “You going to arrest me?”

“I imagine there will be some charges. At the very least you're going to have to leave Holt City. But I have more important business that I need to ask you about.”