Just then a bicyclist came crashing along. 'Evening!' he called, which was gentlemanly of him because by the looks of things he had all on staying alive. I thought his lamps were going to shake right off his machine, and he did look worried, but he wanted to keep up the speed. All my work started and finished down in that groove he was racing towards. There was too much life down there, and too much death too, because that's what the smoke was, and the black smuts floating along: that was your death certificate coming towards you. One in thirty million passengers might be killed on the railways, but your chances of coming a cropper if you worked on the railways, or anything that moved, were a good deal higher, and you could not avert what was coming.
The black mill was right above us now, made up of three buildings chasing each other in a circle, like a castle in a child's story book. A fellow in a gig was waiting outside in the darkness. As we looked on, a small door within the main door opened; light came out like something falling forwards and just stayed there for a while.
Presently, an old man emerged from the door, walking with two sticks. Well, he was practically a spider, or a little rickety machine. The man in the gig climbed down, and he didn't help the old man, but walked alongside, looking on very closely. He did give him a hand up into the gig, though. The old man was wearing a heavy black coat in spite of the heat, a high white collar that shone like moonlight, and a black necker. He looked all ready for death. His face was small and crumpled, almost a baby's again; he had one lock of no-colour hair going across the top of his head and, as he took his seat in the gig, this fell forwards like the chinstrap of a helmet or the handle of a bucket.
'What's the name of this show?' I asked the wife.
'Did I not tell you?' she said. 'It's Hind's Mill.'
I looked at the wife, but decided to hold my tongue for the time being.
'That must be Mr Hind Senior,' said the wife. 'He's the chairman and founder.'
As we watched, the manservant leant across to put the old man's hair straight, like somebody training a vine. Then the mill door closed and the light went. A moment later, the trap rattled off into the hot night.
Chapter Five
The rest of the week I spent dreaming back and forth on the Rishworth branch, and trying to read a book by a fellow called Rider Haggard, for I was out with the Railway Magazine, having developed a strange fear of coming across an item about obstacles placed on the tracks.
Most of the time, the stone on the line was on my mind, and I had made my little speech to the wife after explaining that she had been taken on by the mill that had suffered the smash: 'You go and work at Hind's Mill if you like, but you are not to go on their summer excursion.' 'Why ever not?' the wife had said, and my words had seemed completely daft in an instant. But I had not taken them back.
The Board of Trade had come to Sowerby Bridge Shed. Rather, Major Terence Harrison had come, late of the Royal Engineers. Clive had said the Board always took its inspectors from that show if possible. The major had worn a very good, very tight suit. He was not a full inspector, but a sub- inspector, yet all the fellows in the shed gave him a very wide berth, fearing he was trained to detect ale on a railman's breath at fifty paces. He had talked to Clive in John Ellerton's office, and Clive had come out laughing. Then it had been my turn. Speaking to Major Harrison, I did not sound like myself. I kept saying things like: 'I jumped down from the cab to see whether I could render any assistance.'
He had not wanted to know about my medical attempts, but was concerned only with the engine, the track, the stone and other things not living. He told me he would write a draft report, and that this would be properly finished off when the police investigation was completed. I told him I thought the culprit would most likely be someone owing a grievance to the mill, and Major Harrison said he was sure they would turn out to be from Blackpool. 'It's a damn strange town, you know,' he said.
Well, I thought he was a blockhead, but he did pass on two handy pieces of information after I'd got up the nerve to question him a little. The train before ours over that two-line stretch had been a Blackpool to Preston. It was an ordinary train, not an excursion, and it had gone between Salwick and Kirkham a full hour before we'd arrived there. Nothing out of the way had been seen on the opposite line. So the stone had been placed an hour or less before the smash.
As for the North Eastern train that had hit the branch on the way to Scarborough, he said that to his knowledge no investigation would be held, because the engine had not left the tracks.
He asked me why I'd asked, and I said: 'Well, perhaps it was put there on purpose.'
'You can't drag a great branch down off a tree, you know,' he said, and it was as if he'd tried.
No, you clot, I thought to myself, but you can shift one that's already fallen.
‹o›--
Come the Friday, knowing that the wife was off to a meeting of the Women's Co-operative Guild, I fixed on the idea of going up to the Palace directly after booking off, but I was all in, and it seemed to take an eternity for me to walk up Horton Street in the late hanging heat. Sugden was there, with his ice-cream barrow and his little white pony.
'Weather suiting you, chief?' he called.
'Champion,' I said, and it was then that I saw a long-haired man, halfway up the hill, handing out newspapers. He was not one of the Horton Street regulars. He wore a cap on top of his long black hair, so that his head was somehow very crowded. I walked towards him, and he put one of the papers in my hand.
'Cop hold, guv,' he said.
The paper was called the Socialist Mission, and there were no more than about four pages to it.
'Take it,' said the long-haired bloke. 'Gratis.'
I looked at the front page. At the top of one column were the words: 'Speech by Alan Cowan at Hull Dock Gates'. The rest of the page repeated all the questions that had been on the poster – for it was the same show – but with words beneath: the answers, I supposed. The answers according to this Alan Cowan.
'Are you Alan Cowan?' I said to the long-haired fellow. He took off his cap and brushed his black hair back with a shaky long white hand. He seemed quite surprised to be addressed.
'Me?' he said; 'no, though I keep in touch with him by telegram and letter. We're in the Mission together, the Socialist Mission.'
I looked again at the paper, and the words: 'Blackpooclass="underline" A Health Resort?'
'Where is Alan Cowan just at present?' I said.
'Dunfermline,' the long-haired fellow said instantly. He was thin and white, like a plant kept out of the light. All the energy and life that might have gone into giving him a bit of colour had instead been directed into the growing of his hair. 'He's at a speaking engagement.'
I nodded.
This fellow could have taken the bottom ends of his hair, and put them in his mouth. But the hair was something forgotten about, like his suit.
'Do you work for him?'
'Publicity Officer,' said the long-haired fellow. 'Mr Cowan pays me fair wages.'
I knew I'd already missed Early Doors at the Palace Theatre, but I said: 'I've a couple of questions of my own, if that's quite all right?'
The long-haired fellow said, 'Aye', though he looked a little anxious.
'What's he, Alan Cowan, I mean… What's he got against folk going to Blackpool?'
'Well,' said the long-haired fellow, 'I'd better start at the beginning of you're asking that.'
'Will you step in here for a pint?' I said, nodding towards the Evening Star.
The long-haired man shook his head. 'Don't drink,' he said.