The Excursion Train

'Did he have a meat cleaver with him?'

'Of course not,' retorted the other.

'One was found beside the body. It had Hawkshaw's initials on it.'

'It was not left there by Nathan.'

'How do you know?'

'To begin with,' said Newman, hotly, 'he wouldn't have been so stupid as to leave a murder weapon behind that could be traced to him.'

'I disagree,' argued Colbeck. 'All the reports suggest that it must have been a frenzied attack. If someone is so consumed with rage that he's ready to kill, he wouldn't stop to think about hiding the murder weapon. Having committed the crime, Hawkshaw could have simply stumbled off.'

'Then where was the blood?'

'Blood?'

'I spoke to the farm lad who discovered the body, Inspector. He said there was blood everywhere. Whoever sliced up Joe Dykes must have been spattered with it – yet there wasn't a speck on Nathan.'

'He was a butcher. He knew how to use a cleaver.'

'That's what they said in court,' recalled Newman, bitterly. 'If he'd been a draper or a grocer, he'd still be alive now. Nathan was condemned because of his occupation.'

'Circumstantial evidence weighed against him.'

'Is that enough to take away a man's life and leave his family in misery? I don't give a damn for what was said about him at the trial. He was innocent of the crime and I want his name cleared.'

Gregory Newman spoke with the earnestness of a true friend. Colbeck decided that, since he had supervised the campaign to secure the prisoner's release, he was almost certainly involved in the doomed attempt to rescue him from Maidstone prison and in the upheaval during the execution. For the sake of a friend, he was ready to defy the law. Colbeck admired his stance even though he disapproved of it.

'You heard what happened to Jake Guttridge, I presume?'

'Yes, Inspector.'

'What did you think when you learnt of the hangman's death?'

'He was no hangman,' said Newman, quietly. 'He was a torturer. He put Nathan through agony. When she saw the way that her husband was twitching at the end of the rope, Win passed out. We had to take her to a doctor.'

'So you didn't shed a tear when you heard that Guttridge had met his own death by violent means?'

'I neither cried nor cheered, Inspector. I'm sorry for any man who's murdered and for those he leaves behind. Guttridge is of no interest to me now. All I want to do is to help Win through this nightmare,' he said, 'and the best way to do that is to prove that Nathan was not guilty.'

'Supposing – just supposing – that he was?'

Newman looked at him as if he had just suggested something totally obscene. There was a long silence. Pulling himself to his full height, he looked the detective in the eye.

'Then he was not the person I've known for over forty years.'

Colbeck was impressed with the man's conviction but he was still not entirely persuaded of Hawkshaw's innocence. He did, however, feel that the conversation had put him in possession of vital information. If the butcher had been wrongly hanged, and if Colbeck worked to establish that fact, then Gregory Newman would be a useful ally. Though the boiler maker had little trust in policemen, he had talked openly about the case with the Inspector and made his own position clear. There was much more to learn from him but this was not the time.

'Thank you, Mr Newman,' said Colbeck.

'Thank you for taking me away from work for a while.'

'I may need to speak with you again.'

'As you wish, Inspector. Do you want my address?'

'No, I think that I'd rather call on you here at the works.'

Newman grinned. 'Are you that fond of locomotives, Inspector?'

'Yes,' said Colbeck, smiling. 'As a matter of fact, I am.'

Unable to hire a trap, they settled for a cart that had been used that morning to bring a load of fish to Ashford and that still bore strong aromatic traces of its cargo. When it set off towards Lenham and hit every pothole in the road, Victor Leeming could see that he was in for another painful ride. His companion was George Butterkiss, one of the constables in the town, a scrawny individual in his thirties with the face of a startled ferret. Thankful to be driven, Leeming soon began to regret his decision to ask Butterkiss to take him. The fellow was overeager to help, even in a uniform that was much too big for his spare frame, and he was desperately in awe of the Metropolitan Police. He spoke in an irritating nasal whine.

'What are our orders, Sergeant?' he asked, whipping the horse into a trot. 'This is wonderful for me, sir. I've never worked for Scotland Yard before.'

'Or ever again,' said Leeming under his breath.

'What are we supposed to do?'

'My instructions,' said Leeming, keen to stress that they had not been directed at Butterkiss, 'are to visit the scene of the crime, examine it carefully then speak to the landlord of the Red Lion.'

'I know the exact spot where Joe Dykes was done in.'

'Good.'

'Sergeant Lugg showed it to me. He and his men came over from Maidstone to arrest Nathan Hawkshaw. There was no point, really. They should have left it to us.'

'Did you know Hawkshaw?'

'My wife bought all her meat from him.'

'What sort of man was he?'

'Decent enough,' said Butterkiss, 'though he wasn't a man to get on the wrong side of, I know that to my cost. Of course, I wasn't a policeman in those days. I was a tailor.'

'Really?' said Leeming, wishing that the man had stayed in his former occupation. 'What made you turn to law enforcement?'

'My shop was burgled and nobody did anything about it.'

'So you thought that you could solve the crime?'

'Oh, no, Sergeant. There was no chance of that. I just realised how horrible you feel when your property has been stolen. It was like being invaded. I wanted to save other people from going through that.'

'A laudable instinct.'

'Then there was the other thing, of course.'

'What other thing?'

'The excitement,' said Butterkiss, nudging him. 'The thrill of the chase. There's none of that when you're measuring someone for a new frock coat. Well, I don't need to tell you, do I? You're another man who loves to hear the sound of a hue and cry.' He gave an ingratiating smirk. 'Would someone like me be able to work at Scotland Yard?'

'Let's talk about the case,' insisted Leeming, wincing as the wheel explored another pothole with jarring resonance. 'Do you think that Hawkshaw was guilty?'

'That's why they hanged him.'

'He wouldn't have been the first innocent man on the gallows.'

'There was no doubt about his guilt in my mind,' attested the driver. 'He and Joe Dykes were sworn enemies. It was only a matter of time before one of them did the other in. Joe broke into the butcher's shop once, you know.'

'Then why didn't you arrest him?'

'We couldn't prove it. Joe used to taunt Nathan about it. Boasted that he could walk in and out of any house in Ashford and nobody could touch him.'

'I'd touch him,' said Leeming, 'good and hard.'

'We gave him warning after warning. He ignored us.'

'What was this business about Hawkshaw's daughter?'

'It was his stepdaughter, Emily. Pretty girl.'

'Is it true that Dykes assaulted her?'

'Yes,' said Butterkiss. 'Someone disturbed them just in time.'

'Was the girl hurt?'

'Emily was very upset – who wouldn't be if they were pounced on by someone like Joe Dykes? It was a big mistake for her to go down that lane. It was one of his places, you see.'

'Places?'

'He used to take women there at night,' said the other, confidingly. 'You can guess the kind of women I mean. Even in a place like Ashford, we have our share of those. Joe would take his pleasure up against a wall and then, as like as not, refuse to pay for it.'

'And that's where this girl was attacked?'

'She thought she'd be safe in daylight.'

'It must have been a terrifying experience.'