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‘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.
