The Railway Viaduct

'I'm too afraid of what God would say to me, Brendan.'

'Confess your sins and cleanse your soul.'

Kilfoyle was uneasy. 'I'll think about it,' he said. 'One day.'

'Make it one day soon.'

'You're starting to sound like a bastard priest now!'

'Sorry, Liam,' said Mulryne, jovially. 'What can I do for you?'

'It's the other way round. I may be able to do you a turn.'

'How?'

'Are you still looking to earn some extra money?'

'I'm desperate.'

'And you don't mind what you have to do to get it?'

'I draw the line at nothing,' Mulryne told him. 'As long as I get paid, I'll do whatever I'm asked. And there's another thing you ought to know about me.'

'What's that?'

'When it's needed, I can keep my big mouth shut.'

'Good,' said Kilfoyle. 'I'll pass the word on.'

The letter came as a complete surprise. Written in an elegant hand, it was addressed to Colbeck and had been sent to Thomas Brassey's office. It was passed on to the inspector as a matter of urgency. He did not at first recognise the name of Hortense Rivet. As soon as he read the letter, however, he realised that he had met the woman when he called at Gaston Chabal's house in Paris. Madame Rivet had been the engineer's mother-in-law. Since she requested a visit from Colbeck, he did not hesitate. He caught the next available train from Mantes and arrived in Paris with his curiosity whetted. As she was so anxious to see him again, Colbeck hoped that Madame Rivet might have valuable information to pass on to him.

A cab took him to the Marais and he rang the bell once again. On his previous visit to the house, Chabal's wife had opened the door with a glow of anticipatory pleasure on her face. This time, he was admitted by an old, black-clad servant with sorrow etched deeply into her face. She conducted him into the drawing room. Madame Chabal was still prostrate with grief in her bedchamber, but her mother came at once when she heard that Colbeck was there. Hortense Rivet was genuinely touched that he had responded so swiftly to her letter. As she spoke little English, they conversed in French.

'I was not sure that you were still here,' she began.

'I still have many enquiries to make in France, Madame.'

'Do you know the name of the man who killed Gaston?'

'Not yet,' he confessed, 'but we will. I'll not rest until he's caught and punished.'

She looked into his eyes for a full minute as if searching for something. Then she indicated a chair and sat opposite him. Hortense Rivet had impressed him at their first meeting. When he had told Chabal's young wife that her husband had been murdered, she had been quite inconsolable but her mother had shown remarkable self-control, knowing that she had to find the strength to help them both through the harrowing experience. Madame Rivet's beauty had been somehow enhanced by sadness. Wearing mourning dress, she was a slim and shapely woman in her early forties. The resemblance to her daughter was evident. Colbeck could see exactly what the young widow would look like in twenty years' time. It made him wonder yet again how Gaston Chabal could have betrayed such a lovely wife.

'How is your daughter, Madame?' he asked, solicitously.

'Catherine is suffering badly. The doctor has given her a potion to help her sleep. When she is awake, she simply weeps. Since we heard the news, Catherine has hardly eaten.'

'I'm sorry to hear that.'

'I wanted to thank you for the way that you broke the tidings to us, Inspector. It was difficult for you, I know, and I was not able to express my gratitude to you at the time. I do so now.'

'That's very kind of you.'

There was a long pause. She studied his face before speaking.

'You strike me as an honest man, Inspector Colbeck.'

'Thank you.'

'So I will expect an honest answer from you. I would like you to tell me how Gaston was murdered.'

'I've already told you, Madame,' he reminded her. 'He was stabbed to death in a railway carriage.'

'Yes,' she said, 'but you did not tell us where the train was going at the time and what my son-in-law was doing on it in the first place. You spared us details that would only have caused us even more pain. I would like to know some of those details now.'

'The French police were given a full account of the murder.'

'There are reasons why I do not choose to turn to them, Inspector. The main one is that the crime did not occur in France. They only know what they have been told. You, on the other hand,' she went on, 'have been in charge of the investigation from the start. You are aware of every detail. Is that not true?'

'There are still some things we don't know,' he warned her.

'Tell me the things that you do.' She saw his reluctance. 'Do not be afraid that you will hurt my feelings, Inspector. I am not as frail as I may look. I have already buried my husband and seen my only son go to an early grave. They both died of smallpox. I have survived all that and found a new life for myself. What I must do now is to help Catherine through this tragedy.'

'I'm not sure that you'd be helping her by disclosing the full details of her husband's death,' said Colbeck, gently. 'They are rather gruesome, Madame.'

'What I am interested in are the circumstances.'

'Circumstances?'

'I think you know what I mean, Inspector.' She got up to close the door then resumed her seat. 'And whatever you tell me, it will not be passed on to Catherine. That would be too cruel.'

'Madame Rivet,' he said, 'we are still in the middle of this investigation and I can only speculate on what we will discover next. As for what you call the circumstances, I fear that you might find them very distressing. Some things are best left unsaid.'

'I disagree, Inspector Colbeck. I do not believe you can tell me anything that would surprise me.' She took a deep breath before going on. 'When he was working on this new railway, my son-in-law rented a room in Mantes.'

'I know. I visited the house.'

'Did it not seem odd to you that he did not live at home and travel to Mantes every day by train? It is not very far. Why did he have to be so close to the railway?'

'He worked long hours.'

'That was one of his excuses. There were several others.'

'I hear a rather cynical note in your voice, Madame.'

'It's one that I take care to hide from Catherine,' she said, grimly. 'You may as well know that I did not wish my daughter to marry Gaston Chabal. He was a handsome man with a good future ahead of him, but I did not feel that I could ever trust him. Catherine, of course, would hear none of my warnings. She was young, innocent and very much in love. For the last two years, she thought that she had been happily married.' She pulled a piece of paper from the sleeve of her dress. 'This is something you may have seen before, Inspector.'

'What is it?'

'One of the letters that were found at the house where Gaston was staying in Mantes. The police returned his effects to us earlier this week. Fortunately,' she said, unfolding the letter, 'I was able to see them first. I've destroyed the others and will make sure that my daughter does not see this one either.'

Colbeck remembered the billets-doux he had seen at the lodging. Out of consideration to her, he had taken it upon himself to tear up the letters from Hannah Marklew but it had never crossed his mind that he should also get rid of the anonymous correspondence from the young Parisian woman. He felt a stab of guilt as he realised the anguish he had inadvertently caused and he was grateful that Chabal's wife had not been allowed to read the letters from one of her husband's mistresses. He knew how explicit they had been.

'Did you see any letters, Inspector?'

'Yes.'

'Then you must have read them.'

'I glanced at one or two.'

'Then you appreciate the sort of person who wrote them.'