Part 6

This was the state of things when the cigar robberies began. Parcels of cigars came up regularly from a certain firm and from a certain local station, sometimes for delivery in London, sometimes for transfer to another railway; one parcel in four reached its destination in good appearance outwardly, but with part of the contents abstracted. The firm made heavy claims, wrote furious letters, and at last managed to get a communication into the public press in which bitter reference was made to the supineness and slothful behaviour of the railway company. The Superintendent of the Line sent for Bellchambers, withdrawing him from easy duties on the station square.

“The only question is—” said the high official.

“Where do these robberies take place?” suggested Bellchambers. “That’s the point,” he added sagely, “that’s what we’ve got to get at.”

“What is your opinion, Sergeant?”

Sergeant Bellchambers made a fine pretence of taking thought before he answered. Then with red-ink pen he wrote on an envelope and passed it across the table.

“Up Office,” read the Superintendent.

“’Ush,” said Bellchambers warningly.

“Do you think you can find the thieves?”

“If I’m given a free hand,” said Bellchambers, “and no quibble raised, sir, about my petty disbursements.”

“Go in and win,” said the Superintendent. “When do you start?”

“This very night, sir?”

“Let me have a report in the morning.”

That evening the head of the department sent to the Up Office a new hand to assist the late-duty men. He was black-bearded with a very ruddy face, and he wore a uniform that had apparently belonged to a shorter and a slimmer person. His name, he said, was Edward Jones, but the Up Office seemed not contented with this and decided on the suggestion of a junior clerk to call him by the title of “Sunset.” He settled to the work with moderate determination, calling off parcels and sorting them into bins for delivery with perhaps more intelligence than the raw amateur usually showed: he spoke in a hoarse voice, and this he accounted for by confessing himself a slave to tobacco; he discussed the matter with the other men, between the arrival of trains, and seemed, not unnaturally, more interested in those who smoked than in the one or two who limited themselves to a cigarette a week, consumed after dinner on Sundays. The Up Office always had a composite scent, in which fruit, game, cheese, and other things mixed, with sometimes one gaining ascendancy, sometimes another; a new flavour of a more pleasant and a vaguer character was contributed presently by a small brown-paper-covered box, brought in from an arrival platform, bearing a proud label:—

VALUABLE CIGARS.

KEEP DRY.

“’Ere’s a chance for some one,” said the porter, as he called it off. “Sunset, old chum, these’d do your palate good.”

“Silly thing to mark ’em like that,” remarked the new man. “It’s throwing temptation in anybody’s way. I should say they’re likely enough worth about fifteen pence to one-and-six a-piece.”

“How d’you know?”

“I don’t profess to know,” said the new man hurriedly. “I’m only giving a rough estimate. But bless my soul,” he went on after a pause, “what a refining influence a cigar has.”

“If it’s a good one,” suggested a boy porter.

“They’re all good,” declared the new man with enthusiasm. “They’re like the ladies in that respect. Some are better’n others, but they’re all good.”

“Not a married man, then?” asked a foreman.

“I’m a bloomin’ bachelor,” said the new chum. “And what a thing it is on your Sunday off, when you’re waiting at the end of her road, to light up a cigar with a fine aroma to it. It not only gives you an air of belonging to the ’igher aristocracy, but it also carries away any suspicion of corduroy that might be ’anging about.”

“I’ve never give less than twopence,” remarked the boy porter.

“I’m sorry for you,” said the new man. “I should have thought a chap with your fore’ead had got more ambition. Why, when I was a lad of your height—”

“Pardon me,” interrupted the foreman, “you seem to ’ave a most extr’ordinary flow of conversation.”

“I’m celebrated for it.”

“I wonder,” said the foreman curiously, “whether you’d mind stopping it for a moment and doing a bit of work instead. Reason I suggest it is that the Company pays you for what you do and not for what you talk.”

“I can take a ’int,” said the new man coldly.

There seemed a desire on the part of the others that night to make Porter Jones work as hard as it is possible for a man to work. The heaviest hampers were confided to his care; the slimiest cases of fish were placed upon his shoulder; he it was who was told off to see to some consignments of rather advanced venison. The parcel of valuable cigars remained in the Number Five bin to be transferred to another Company by the first delivery in the morning, and it was observed that whenever Porter Jones came into the office he glanced in that direction. Now the Up Office, as I have hinted, had been perturbed over the recent complaints, and the mere fact that they had to fill up memoranda in regard to the various investigations, to the effect that, “I beg to say in reference to the attached papers that I know nothing whatever of the matter, I am, sir, your obedient servant,” this in itself was enough to put a keener edge on observation. Wherefore, a secret meeting was held near the gas-stove by the booking-up desk, and it was decided that the new man should be watched closely; it was felt it would be a proud and estimable thing for the office, the character of which was at this period slurred, if it could itself detect a wrong-doer and take him to justice. And should it happen that the detected one proved to be a new man with no friends in the department to lament his fall, then the most doubtful would have to revert to old beliefs in a wise and thoughtful Providence. Their suspicions were increased by the fact that whenever Porter Jones, in the brief intervals between work from nine o’clock onwards, resumed conversation, he invariably bent its direction towards the subject of cigars.

“Take no notice,” whispered the foreman to his colleagues. “At least when I say take no notice, I mean take all the notice you can, but keep your little heads shut as tight as possible.”

“Shall one of us lay up for him?”

“Who’s the smallest?” asked the foreman, with an air of having already thought of this device.

“I are,” said the boy porter.

“Evidently,” remarked the foreman, looking down at him, “evidently a chap of superior education. Country born, ain’t you?”

“I were.”

“Then,” said the foreman, “up you jump behind them ‘books off’ and you watch, my lad, watch Sunset for all you are worth.”

The Up Office closed at midnight in order to sleep for a few hours. Before that time the men had made preparations for departure, packing shining hand-bags and exchanging the official cap for a bowler hat, and brushing their boots; this last act is one of which the railway man never tires. Porter Jones alone seemed to be taking no preliminary steps, and when asked where he lived replied lightly and evasively that he should probably finish up at the Carlton Club. The gas lights were turned down one by one and darkness increased its possession of the office. Porter Jones went up to the end where Bin Number Five was situated; the others hummed to give a suggestion of unconcern. Suddenly there was commotion at the darkened end of the office, and seizing hand lamps, they hurried forward.

“’Old him, ’old him,” cried the boy porter. The counsel seemed unnecessary, for he gripped Porter Jones most effectively by the collar of the corduroy jacket. “Set on his ’ead. Lam him one.”

“What’s all this fuss about?” demanded the foreman.

“He’s got it,” screamed the boy porter. “Sunset’s got it hid under his jacket.”

“Got what hid?” asked the foreman. “Let’s ’ave the facts first of all.”

“I can easily explain,” gasped the new man. “I only wanted to see if— Make him leave go. He’s—he’s throttling me.”

“He’s a-trying to,” admitted the boy porter.

“Let him loose,” ordered the foreman. “Men, stand around him so as he can’t make his escape. What’s that bulging under your arm, matey?”

The new man gave an awkward laugh, as he withdrew the labelled parcel.

“I can explain it all to you,” he said, addressing the foreman and trying to rebutton his torn collar, “if you will favour me with two minutes alone outside.”

“Don’t you do it,” advised the others. “See him ’anged first.”

“Whatsoever you ’ave to say,” declared the foreman steadily, “you’d better say it here and now.”

“Well, it’s like this. I’m the detective.”

“Ho!” said the foreman satirically. “Detective and thief in one, eh? Vurry ’appy combination, I must say.”

“See here,” said the other, annoyed at the incredulous tone, “I’ll take off this beard and then you can some of you identify me.”

As he did so the foreman held up his hand lamp, examining the features carefully.

“Do any of you chaps recognise him?”

The staff replied at once that to the best of their belief they had never before in this world set eyes on him.

“Don’t play the goat,” he urged anxiously. “We’ve all got our duties to perform.”

“That’s true; we shall ’ave to lock you up for the night.”

“Right you are,” said the other gleefully. “Take me round to the nearest police station and then—”

“That would mean losing our last train ’ome,” pointed out the foreman.

“I s’pose,” said the boy porter respectfully, “it wouldn’t do to put him in the lamp room?”

“Chaps,” said the foreman, “my idea is we’d better, I think, put him in the lamp room. Get Porter Swan to lend you the keys, my lad. As for you, you scoundrel—”

“If you so much as dare to lock me up there I’ll see that you regret it every day of your lives.” He argued vehemently.

“Look ’ere, me man,” said the boy porter, returning with the keys, “we want none of your empty threats. If you think we’re going to be bluffed by a chap of your calibre—”

“My what?” shouted the indignant man, struggling to get at the lad.

“Go on, my child,” said the foreman approvingly. “Let him have some of your long ones.” The foreman turned to the others.

“This is where your school teaching comes in ’andy,” he whispered.

“A chap of your calibre,” repeated the boy porter, encouraged; “you’re labouring under the very worst misapprehension—”

“Good!” said the others.

“Worst misapprehension that you ever suffered from or endured or tolerated or submitted to or underwent or—”

“That’s enough for him,” interrupted the foreman, “we’d best not overdo it. Got his arms tied, lads?”

“You’ll suffer for this,” he cried.

“I’ll take me oath you will,” said the foreman. “Now then, two of you at each arm and—march! Boy, blow out the gas and lock up.”

No one was encountered on the way to the lamp room who had authority to interfere with the plans of the Up Office, and the unfortunate man was conducted at a sharp walk to that gloomy, sooty, greasy haven. The place reeked with oily waste, and some appeared to have been smouldering, giving a result that nice people would call displeasing. The uneven flooring was laid out with lakes of dirty water; zinc counters did not permit themselves to be touched. The foreman turned out the one glimmer of light as though by accident.

“Got a match on you?” he asked the prisoner in a kindly tone.

“Only one box.”

“Hand it over,” ordered the foreman, “for a moment. Thanks,” slipping it into his pocket. “Now we can catch our twelve-fifteen. Good night, old sort.”

“’Appy dreams,” cried the others.

“Don’t be late in the morning,” called out the boy porter.

The imprisoned man, not daring to trust himself to reply, heard the door close, heard the lock shoot. He groaned, and began to reckon the black hours that he would have to endure in the place; at the least, the number would be six; he did not care to think what it might be at the most. Throughout the whole of the time he was unable to close his eyes, and his only relief to the length of the hours came by thinking of the report that he would indite the following morning. He polished up in his mind some of the references to the boy porter, and to the man who gripped his arm in bringing him from the Up Office; it seemed that his suspicions in regard to the pilferages were centred, for some reason, on those who had most aggrieved him. Before daylight began to grin at him through the barred window of the lamp room he had mentally completed his report, and the last paragraph he felt was especially good.

“I am able to speak with absolute certainty, and I can go so far as to say the men who are undoubtedly responsible for the recent pilferages are those I have named, and I beg to suggest respectfully that steps be taken to relieve them of their present duties at the earliest possible moment. The only alternative is a clean sweep of the whole of the Up Office staff, and this, sir, I hesitate to recommend. But for reasons that I have stated, and for others which I think it wise not to place upon paper, I earnestly hope that the recommendation I have made will be acted upon without delay.

“W. BELLCHAMBERS.

“P.S.—Especially the foreman and the junior.”

“Can’t make it hotter for them,” said Sergeant Bellchambers to himself regretfully, “without it looking as though I’d got some personal spite.”

The night seemed endless, but it proved to have a finish, and Bellchambers, when the lamp-man opened the door in the morning, went out, a tired, oil-scented, yawning, but a determined official. A wash and a shave increased the last quality, and when the Superintendent arrived at nine o’clock, morning paper under his arm, Sergeant Bellchambers was waiting for him in the lobby of the office with confidence written all over his face in large letters.

“Evening, sir.”

“Good-morning, Sergeant.”

“I mean morning,” corrected Bellchambers. “I’ve been up all night over that little affair you spoke about.”

“Ah!” said the Superintendent, sitting down in his arm-chair, “with no result?”

“On the contrary, sir,” said Sergeant Bellchambers importantly. “If it isn’t troubling you too much I’ll trouble you to cast your eyes over this report of mine.”

The Superintendent let his glasses flick open and adjusted them on his nose. The Sergeant, leaning one arm on the mantelpiece, watched his superior officer, waiting for the sign of gratified approval. This, to his great astonishment, did not come, and the Superintendent’s face remained unchanged when he had thrown the report on the shining table.

“Do you mean to say that you want me to get rid of these men?”

“That was the impression,” said the Sergeant, with a touch of acidity, “I intended to convey.”

“And you think they’re guilty?”

“I’ll stake my reputation on it, sir,” said Sergeant Bellchambers.

“That is not much of a bet,” remarked the other.

“You can take it from me that these pilferages will never cease until the men I’ve referred to are turned out.”

“I’m very anxious to do something,” said the Superintendent, taking up a ruler thoughtfully.

“Like myself, sir,” said Bellchambers. “That’s me all over.”

“But not,” said the Superintendent, hitting the table, “not in the direction you suggest. Read this!”

He handed over the morning paper to Sergeant Bellchambers, pointing to a letter headed “Recent Complaints of Pilferages.”

“Ah!” said the Sergeant exultingly, “they’re going for us again, then. ‘Dear Sir,’ he read. ‘With reference to our letters to you complaining of abstraction from our parcels of cigars sent by railway, we think it only right to inform you that we have discovered these pilferages were made by one of our own men. It appears that after delivering the parcels at the station here, and after they were weighed, he was in the habit of offering to take them to the train, and whilst doing this effected the robberies to which reference has been made. We need scarcely point out that if the station had been wisely managed these lamentable occurrences would in all probability never have taken place; the only question is, who is responsible? We are, dear sir, yours faithfully—’”

“A paltry trick to play on anybody,” said the Sergeant. “At the same time, sir, I think there’ll be no harm in making a change in the staff.”

“I intend to do so. Will you keep your eyes open, Sergeant—”

“Ain’t they always?”

“And,” said the Superintendent, “look out for another berth. Shut the door quietly after you.”

VIII—QUESTION OF TEMPERATURE

L.O.M. caught sight of M.R. two or three times on the journey, and M.R. made more than one effort to obtain completer details by inspection of the blue card label on L.O.M.’s bag. A certain coolness on M.R.’s side marked their first meeting, but this was the fault of the English Channel; it certainly looked like a practical joke, not quite in good taste, when a sudden lurch of the steamer sent him against her on the upper deck; despite his apologies, there was about the incident a suggestion of Holloway Road on Sunday evenings. M.R. told her married sister that she considered him a bounder; the married sister replied that this description could be applied to men in general, with one single exception.

“Be very careful, Margaret,” she added, “how you make acquaintances. We shall run up against all sorts.”

“All sorts,” complained the girl, “seem to be running up against me.”

At the Paris Station of the Lyons railway, L.O.M. appeared in a more favourable light, rescuing the married sister’s coat which had been taken from a peg in the buffet by a Frenchwoman who was either short-sighted or deficient in honesty. At Vallorbes, it was he who came to the window of their compartment—the hour being five a.m., and snow on the ground—and gave the welcome news that their registered luggage was not amongst the packages selected for examination at the Swiss frontier.

“Do you think I might get you some coffee?” he asked.

“Certainly not!” answered the married sister promptly.

The incident constituted a subject for discussion, the younger girl contending that the obliging male should never be curtly repulsed; the other arguing that a difficulty would have been found in persuading the youth to accept cash for refreshments supplied, and, consequent on this, the trouble in preventing him from becoming intrusive could scarcely be measured. At Lausanne, where passengers took breakfast, he very properly kept his distance. At Bex, in the tram-cars, which were to make the climb with the aid of motive power at the back, he gave up his place to the elder of the two and sat side by side with the girl in the crowded luggage van.

“Yes,” she replied, “I skate, and I should like to learn to ski. Do you?”

“Moderately good at it,” replied L.O.M. “Did some in Norway.”

“Then, perhaps—”

“You will find an instructor up there,” he said.

She turned away huffily.

It was not, however, easy to avoid joining in the general conversation. Everybody had projects for the filling up of the winter holiday; the conductor, as the car went slowly up the hill, was appealed to for information concerning weather, and being a man of cheerful temperament, gave exactly the particulars that were hoped and desired, without allowing truth to mar the effect. Thus an atmosphere of hopefulness pervaded the luggage van, and even retiring military men perched upon trunks became vivacious, talking of desperate deeds already accomplished in other places on toboggans, and speaking with relish of the appetite that came after these exercises. The two were soon again in conversation, and the girl mentioned that her sister’s maiden name was Rodgers, a fact which enabled him to perceive acutely that this must be also the girl’s name. Turning the label on his valise, he introduced himself.

“Masterson,” he said.

“I like names of three syllables,” she remarked.

The hour and a half occupied by the journey was lessened by all this, and by the increasingly snowy aspect of the mountains on either side of the track; the conductor derided this as trifling, and endeavoured to give some idea of the downfall that had taken place up near the summit. At Gryon the steep part finished, and the cars went on with the assistance of overhead wires.

“You play and sing, I suppose?”

“I perform no parlour tricks of any description,” said Miss Rodgers definitely. “I leave these accomplishments to others.”

“Really?” Rather taken back, and the movement of his forehead slightly lifting his cap. “I had an idea—I’d got the notion that every girl did. My sisters—”

“I am the exception,” with pride. “Outdoor sports constitute my strong point. I could live for ever in the open air.”

“What about the bad weather?” inquired Masterson.

“How can you talk of bad weather at a time like this? Look back and see that dear, white, delightful little village. Tell me, do you think there will be a carnival on the ice rink? I’ve brought the sweetest fancy dress you ever saw. You won’t find me staying indoors, excepting for meals.”

When the cars reached the destination, the two alone out of the whole party exhibited scarcely any signs of the twenty-five hours’ journey from Charing Cross and London; the married sister compensated by showing every symptom of collapse, and he very courteously assisted her up the wooden steps and over the bridge to the hotel. There the flurried manager checked names as they entered; assigned the double room on the first floor to Mr. Masterson, and the single room on the third floor to Miss Rodgers and her exhausted sister; they united forces in protesting against this, and became more friendly in the presence of a common grievance. Despite the warmth of arguments used by visitors, the thermometer near the pile of brushes and toboggans registered four degrees of frost.

Lunch was served at once, and immediately after the meal the married sister, discovering that she had eaten veal under the impression it was mutton, announced her intention of resting indoors during the afternoon. The other two came down in jerseys and white caps, and the married sister gave Masterson gracious permission to escort Miss Rodgers to the rink.

“Mind you bring her back safely,” she commanded.

“I’ll do my best,” he said.

“Quite capable of taking care of myself,” remarked the girl. “Just lace up my boots for me, please.” They left the lady in the vestibule perusing a Cardiff journal bearing date of a Tuesday in the previous month.

One could see on their return that the afternoon on the rink had reached highest expectations; their animation caused some compression of the eyebrows on the part of sedater folk taking tea. Everything had happened as the flushed, excited girl wanted it to happen. Her ability had excited favourable comment from other skaters; one of the professionals gave a compliment; the band played delightfully, and she—not caring for indoor dancing—completely and thoroughly enjoyed a waltz. Sun shining all the time.

“After tea,” she explained, “we are going out to do some ski-ing.”

“Who is meant, pray,” asked her sister carefully, “by the word ‘we’?”

“Mr. Masterson and myself, of course!”

“Oh!” commented her sister, giving an inflection which the printed word cannot convey.

“What’s your objection, Ellen?”

“It would be useless for me to offer any. I shall stay in and write. Does he know that you neither play nor sing?”

“I’ve told him,” snapped the girl.