I'd had four glasses by the time we pushed out into the snow again, with the consequence that my own barometer had swung a bit further towards 'fine'. The programme was that we would go back to the office of The Railway Rover, where Bowman would do another hour's work while I drank coffee, filled out my notebook and telegrammed to the wife to say that I would be returning by the last train of the day, or the first of the morning. Then we would go to Wimbledon and challenge the mysterious man. There had to be something in it all, and if the fellow cut up rough, that would only prove me right. It was all quite above board - an almost routine bit of police work. I told myself that I was not some child playing truant from school; I'd had no choice but to come to Bowman's aid - anything else would have been a breach of duty. I had the solving of one murder to my credit; if I solved another, I would be invincible. They could not then stand me down, or refuse me promotion. What could Shillito show to match the solving of a murder? He spent all his time chasing folk who'd pulled the communication chains without good reason, or defaced notice-boards, or failed to shut gates set up alongside railway lines.
We were back on Fleet Street now, into the great tide of men and traffic. They moved in all directions, like the snow. We were passing the Yorkshire Observer once again, and I was glad that my home county had a footing in Fleet Street - it made the north seem nearer. I would make sure I was on the last train of the evening rather than the first of the morning. I hadn't seen Harry in what seemed like ages, and I still had his present to buy.
'I'm after a toy aeroplane for my boy,' I said to Bowman, as we marched on. 'Any likely shops hereabouts?'
'In Fleet Street?' he said. 'Only paper aeroplanes here.'
I thought of the way the letters would swoop through into our parlour at Thorpe-on-Ouse. Might there be one waiting from John Ellerton, governor of the Sowerby Bridge shed? All the wine in Algeria couldn't make that a likely prospect. And the picture of Shillito flat on his back in the York police office would keep coming to mind, but the Chief would see my side of it. Shillito had been putting in the poison for three years... And hadn't the Chief told me to clout him?'
We'd turned off Fleet Street into a dark, narrow road with buildings that were too high: Bouverie Street. We passed a single black door, and a brass plaque six inches square. The Railway Magazine, it said, and it was hard to believe it came from such a small place. The windows were lit with a greenish light, and I could see men moving about inside. None looked like a Railway Magazine type.
'Would you credit it? They're all back from the pub,' said Bowman.
He was down on the Railway Magazine, all right. Probably sour grapes, for The Railway Rover was located further along, where Bouverie Street became darker and narrower, and subject to the river winds, although the lane kinked, so you couldn't see the water, but only hear it. There was no plaque on the door either.
'I've put in my three years here,' said Bowman, pushing at a narrow door. 'I'll be moving on shortly, I suppose.'
'Where to?' I said.
We were climbing cold stone stairs.
'Another paper;' he said with a sigh.
'I think I'll be moving on as well,' I said, 'or moving back.'
He stopped and looked at me.
'Back to what?'
'Firing engines,' I said, and I only did so to see how it sounded.
'You did that before, did you?'
'Aye,' I said, 'but I got stood down - unfairly.' Again, I was trying the word out for size.
'I wouldn't go in for that,' Bowman said, as we continued our climb. 'I'd stick with the collar and tie job. The governors are very hard in that line, from what I hear.'
'They can be with a young bloke,' I said. 'There's a good deal of leg-pulling: "go and fetch a bucket of steam" and so on.'
'What a lark, eh?' said Bowman, as he pushed through double doors on the first landing. The office of The Railway Rover looked so much like a school form-room (being over-lit with white gas flares and with the desks all in a row) that it was surprising to see full-grown men in there; and to see that one of them was laughing out loud.
'That's Randall,' muttered Bowman. 'He does the obituaries ... decent man, but he holds a BA from London University, and you'll never hear the last of it. And that's Fawcett,' he ran on. 'Go up and ask him about trains that don't stop at Truro.'
'Afternoon, Steve,' the one he'd pointed out as Randall called. 'You all right?'
'Quite thoroughly chilled, thank you,' Bowman replied, at which there was some muttering between Randall and the man sitting next to him. A few of the blokes nodded at me; nobody seemed to mind a stranger in the office.
The desks stood in rows, but were not all the same. Bowman's was tall - counting-house style - and it seemed that he wrote by hand. Some of the other blokes had flat desks with typewriters on. Bowman had got down to his work straightaway, but a lad of about sixteen - assistant to the editor - was put to looking after me. I wrote out a telegram form, and he went off to another room to get it sent to the post office in Thorpe-on-Ouse. I made it as reassuring as I could, given that such fun and games as might be in wait had not yet started. The wife would have it within two hours, and it seemed The Railway Rover would stand the cost.
The assistant then brought me a cup of coffee from a small spirit stove on a table by the mantelpiece. The man I took to be the boss - the editor - sat inside a glass-walled cubicle. Alongside the main office hearth were some ordinary fire irons for home use, and a set of the eight-foot-long irons used on any locomotive: dart, pricker and paddle. They'd never seen a day's work, and were highly polished, being kept no doubt as trophies or symbols of what the magazine was about.
As Bowman wrote, I walked about the office, looking slyly at the work going on. Over the shoulder of the man called Fawcett, I read: 'It is with pleasure that we advert to the introduction, in November, of
He was the one better up on railways than Bowman. 'Don't put me out, old man,' he said, waving me away without looking up.
Then the jolly obituaries man, Randall, called across to me: 'Go and see old Hicks there. He has plenty of time to chat.'
I walked over to the bloke indicated, who was drawing lines with a ruler, a rusty bowler perched on his head.
'I'm Hicks,' he said, without looking up. 'Known to the readers as Querio.'
I knew what he was about: he was the puzzle-page man, and he was setting out a shunting problem for the readers. He had drawn two train diagrams, a curved line running between. Sidings stretched before each train; a signal was indicated at the beginning of each siding.
Hicks (or Querio) said, 'Two trains with sixty vehicles - fifty- nine wagons and a van - meet at a bank situated on a single line. The thirty-first wagon from the engine on both trains has unfortunately been brought along by mistake. Are you with me?'
I nodded. 'Happens all the time,' I said, grinning.
'The two trains are required to pass each other,' he continued, 'and at the same time transfer the two wagons referred to, so that they may be taken back again, likewise in the thirty-first position from the respective engines. Now then - are you still with it?'
I nodded.
'With these exceptions,' Querio continued, 'the trains will depart with the wagons in precisely the same order as before they met.'