“Till we get to Wootton. That’s when Vince takes over.”
Nick stared out at the unspoiled countryside. “Any chance I could meet the engineer when we get to Wootton?”
“Sure. Baden likes to show off for visitors. We have a ten-minute layover there. I’ll come get you.”
Their only stop was a brief one at Havenstreet, the little railroad’s main station, and they reached Wootton in twenty minutes. As promised, Lydon took him to the front of the train and they boarded the locomotive together. Baden Ormond, the engineer, was about Lydon’s age, with a smile that revealed a broken front tooth. “Always happy to show off my pride and joy,” he told Nick. “Would you believe we still run a coal-burning steam locomotive in the twenty-first century?”
Nick reached up to the knotted cord that hung overhead. “Is this the steam whistle I heard?”
“Sure is! Give it a tug.”
Nick was rewarded by the familiar blast of the whistle. As if on cue, a gaunt man with a curly red beard and hair to match came aboard the engine, wearing jeans and a T-shirt advertising the railway. “Who’s this?” he asked, gesturing toward Nick.
“My name’s Nicholas. They’re just giving me the tour.”
“Tour costs money,” the bearded man told him with a grin. “What do you think keeps us in beer?” He held out his hand. “I’m Vince Bundy. Glad to have you aboard.” He and Ormond exchanged a few words about the way the engine was performing and they both shoveled a bit more coal into the hopper. Then Ormond stepped off and Josh Lydon moved back to the passenger compartments to collect tickets.
“Mind if I journey back to Smallbrook Junction with you?” Nick asked.
The bearded engineer shrugged. “Long as you got a ticket to ride.”
Nick produced the other half of his round trip. “This good enough?”
“Sure.”
“I’m an American, you know.”
“You don’t say! I never would have guessed.”
“Still trying to learn about your currency.”
“It’s pretty simple, really.”
“Yes, but — Look, do you have a five-pound note? I want to ask you about that woman’s picture on it.”
“The Queen?”
“No, no — I mean on the back. Do you have a bill handy?”
Bundy tooted the whistle to signal their imminent departure, then took out his wallet. “What about it?” he asked, producing a fiver.
“Who is this Elizabeth Fry? We never heard of her back in the States.”
“Beats me. I think someone told me she was a nineteenth-century Quaker, something to do with prison reform.”
The bubble of Nick’s hopes burst. Getting a look at Bundy’s five-pound note had been easy enough, but it was the wrong serial number. He considered simply knocking the man out and stealing his wallet, but quickly discarded the idea. The note he sought might not be in the wallet and even if it was, the train was already in motion. Nick’s days of diving from moving trains were long past, if they’d ever existed at all. Besides, his instructions were to harm no one.
He left the steam engine at Smallbrook Junction but did not immediately board the electric train to the boat dock. He sat instead on the station platform for a time, trying to decide his next move. It seemed likely that the sought-after five-pound note must have writing of some sort on it. Perhaps someone had drawn a treasure map on the Queen’s cheek. In her job as a croupier at the Berkeley Square casino, Mona Walsh might have come in contact with all sorts of shady characters.
Someone exited the electric train and walked across the platform to join him on the bench. He glanced up, startled to see his erstwhile client. “So you came anyway,” Mona Walsh said.
“What are you doing here?”
“The man who tried to burn me might try again. I decided to stay away from the casino for a while.”
“So you’ve come here to do what?”
She shrugged. “Get my hands on that five-pound note, but I don’t know how.”
“I met Vince Bundy and a couple of the others. I even got him to show me a five-pound note from his wallet, but it had the wrong serial number.”
“He always has it with him. I’m sure it’s in his wallet.”
Nick thought about it. “Tough job taking a man’s wallet without mugging him. I’m no pickpocket.”
“Can’t you trick him somehow?”
“Maybe.” A plan was beginning to take shape. “It would help if you told me why this particular bill is so valuable.”
“It’s valuable because it’s not valuable.”
He smiled. “A paradox worthy of your British author Chesterton. If I get it for you will you explain it all then?”
“All right,” she agreed with a smile. “You’ll deserve the truth.”
“Will you be staying here on the island?”
She nodded. “I’ll be at a bed-and-breakfast place in Ryde. Here’s the phone number. When do you think you’ll have it?”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
Nick spent a busy evening in one of the nearby towns, finding just the right person for what he had in mind. On the following day he boarded the steam railway at Smallbrook Junction for the ten-thirty run. The conductor was a stranger but he told Nick that Vince Bundy was indeed at the controls. They rolled into Havenstreet right on schedule and the bearded engineer stepped out of the locomotive to stretch his legs. “That you, Nicholas?” he called out. “Can’t get enough of our steam trains, eh?”
“I decided to try it again,” Nick told him, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a young man dash forward, holding a spray bottle of liquid. When he was only feet away from Bundy he squirted his pants several times with the liquid, aiming at his groin.
“Stay away from my girl!” the man yelled, and immediately leaped from the platform to vanish into the underbrush.
The conductor and a few passengers were too shocked to do anything, but Nick jumped forward. “That was petrol!” he shouted at Bundy. “We have to get those pants off you before the engine sets them on fire!”
There was indeed a cloud of steam coming off the engine and the terrified engineer offered little resistance as Nick yanked the pants down. “Who — who was that crazy guy? I didn’t touch his girl, whoever she is!”
Nick had the pants off. “Do you have any spare ones?”
“I — yes, in the station house. I have a locker.”
Nick helped him to the locker and placed the petrol-soaked pants on the floor. “Here’s your wallet,” he told the engineer, handing it over.
“Thanks. Why in hell should anyone try to set me on fire?”
“I suppose it was a case of mistaken identity.” They’d been joined by the conductor and a couple of passengers, and Nick left as soon as he could.
Later, when he was safely back on the electric train, he examined the five-pound note he’d found in Vince Bundy’s wallet. It had the serial number Mona needed, ED56788658, but there seemed to be no mark on it. She was waiting for him on the dock and her tense expression relaxed when she saw the smile on his face. “You have it!”
“I have it,” he confirmed. “Now let’s stop for lunch and you can tell me all about it.”
Over a roast beef sandwich and beer in a private corner of a local pub, she studied the five-pound note on the table between them and said, “There it is, worth every pound of your fee.”
“You told me it’s valuable because it’s not valuable.”
“Exactly! It’s counterfeit.”
Nick picked up the banknote and examined it. “Who would go to the trouble of counterfeiting a five-pounder?”
“They did it as a test, to see if they could duplicate the security features of the new banknotes.” She took a wrinkled bill from her pocket and laid it next to the one on the table. “See? They have raised printing, distinctive paper, multicolored numbers, metallic thread, even a fluorescent number that appears under ultraviolet light. Vince Bundy has managed to duplicate every bit of it.”