‘In God’s name, why?’ said Tom.
‘Why? I’ve always wanted to pull the communication cord on a train.’
‘Why do you want to harm us, I mean?’
"Cause I can,’ said Eaves. "Cause you got in my way.’
Eaves raised the gun and wavered in his aim, angling it first towards Tom then Helen. And back again towards Tom. Helen, who was still holding her sensation novel, threw The Shame of Mrs Prendergast at Eaves. He was taken by surprise. The book — it was a thick volume, full of incident — struck him in the chest and the gun flew out of his grasp and landed at Tom’s feet. Without thinking, he scooped it up and pointed it at Eaves.
‘It’s not loaded,’ said the gardener. ‘I was only joking.’ ‘Try me,’ said Tom. The gun, a woman’s weapon undoubtedly but small and potent, was in his hand. It had two barrels, one on top of the other. It was not cocked. Tom put one hand on the trigger, set far back in the handle, and the other on the hammer. He heard a thudding in his ears, over and above the clacking of the train. There was a kind of red mist before his eyes. He scarcely recognized the sound of his own voice.
‘Try me,’ he said again. ‘I would as soon kill you as look at you.’
‘I believe you would, Mr Ansell,’ said Adam Eaves.
With a swift movement, encumbered as he was by his female clothing, Eaves swung round and put his hand on the door handle. The train was travelling at speed on an embankment, and there was a drop on either side. ‘No time for the cord but c’est la vie,’ said Eaves, and he opened the door.
Once he’d opened it a fraction, it slammed back against the side of the carriage, propelled by their forward motion. The smoke from the engine entered the compartment. Adam Eaves half jumped, half threw himself outward into space. Later Tom was reminded of the way in which Seth Fawkes had been cast from the cathedral spire.
By the time Helen and Tom had recovered themselves sufficiently to pull the communication cord — moving warily towards the gaping door, watching the countryside whirr past their feet, Helen holding on to Tom while he fumbled on the exterior of the carriage for the cord — the train had moved on at least a couple of miles.
Mackenzie’s Castle, Again
‘Tell me again,’ said David Mackenzie. ‘You two seem to have had a very exciting time of it while I have been laid up here.’
Tom and Helen were taking tea in the Highgate house with Tom’s senior. They had been greeted enthusiastically by Mrs Mackenzie. That mannish lady had embraced Helen and winked, actually winked, at Tom. Outside the window of David Mackenzie’s room the weather was the same as on Tom’s last visit, with the fog licking at the window and a general gloom descending. Inside, the fire was slumbering and Mr Mackenzie was sitting in the same armchair, puffing at the same pipe, and wielding the same back-scratcher to reach the tricky points on the leg which was encased in plaster. Perhaps in deference to Helen, he was drinking tea rather than brandy. Otherwise it was as if he hadn’t moved in the several days that Tom Ansell had spent in Salisbury, witnessing murder, being nearly accused of it, and then seeing the demise of the real villain.
Tom had given his account of everything which had happened. He described his one meeting with Canon Slater, his glimpses of the Salisbury manuscript, the journey to Northwood House, his brief sojourn in Fisherton Gaol, the tangled affairs of the family, the true relationship of Walter Slater to Felix and to Percy, and so on. Tom no longer felt under any obligation to keep things secret, now that both the Slater brothers were dead. Most of this was new to Mackenzie, and he listened with profound interest.
At one point he said, ‘Well, there is no telling with people, is there? They are not what they appear to be. It’s like the Tichborne Claimant. No doubt if any of our affairs were examined in the harsh light of open court, all sorts of inconsistencies and impostures would be revealed. Felix Slater seemed to be the respectable one while Percy was the wastrel of the family. Yet it was Felix the churchman who caused his wife to disown his son, and Percy the gambler who agreed to take him as his own. There was perhaps more kindness in Percy than there was in his brother, even if there was no love lost between them.’
They weren’t the only unloving brothers in the business, thought Tom. There was also Seth Fawkes and Adam Eaves.
When Tom reached the final encounter with Adam Eaves on the train, he brushed over it, perhaps out of reluctance to relive the dangerous moment. He had been talking for the best part of an hour, and through several cups of tea. But David Mackenzie said, ‘Tell me that part again,’ so now Helen took up the climax of the story and repeated it in more colourful and vivid language than Tom could have managed. She stressed the murderousness of Eaves, their hair’s-breadth escape. Tom wondered, not for the first time, whether the episode would find its way into the novel she was composing.
After Tom had tugged on the communication cord — a small part of him being curious to see whether it would work, and the bell ring in the driver’s cabin and the train come to a halt (which it did) — there followed a period of confusion.
The guard arrived outside their compartment together with other interested passengers, and Tom explained how they’d been attacked by a fellow traveller, who had made his getaway as the train was moving. He did not mention the gun, which he had slipped into his pocket, or that he knew the attacker’s identity or the fact that he had been disguised as a woman. The story was far-fetched enough as it was. But the presence of Helen and her own words, together with the evident respectability of the couple, and the capacious bag (belonging to the ‘old lady’) which was still in the luggage rack, was sufficient to convince.
The train could not stay blocking the line. The fireman had already placed a red light on the rear carriage to warn any approaching engine on the up line, and the driver was agitating for them to move on. So they chugged on to Andover. From there, the Salisbury police house was telegraphed, and Helen and Tom were left to await the arrival of Inspector Foster while the train proceeded on its way.
Foster arrived with Constable Chesney, also by train from Salisbury. For the second time, Tom and Helen told their tale. He handed over the little gun, which Inspector Foster declared to be ‘not of English manufacture’. The large bag which Eaves had abandoned when he quit the train was opened and found to contain a peculiar assortment of clothing. ‘Looks like disguises, guv,’ said Chesney. The sight of an elaborately embroidered tunic-like garment, definitely not of English manufacture, prompted the constable to add, ‘Do you suppose he was going to pass for a Chinee next?’
By now, a couple of hours had elapsed and it was at least another hour before a search of the line several miles down the track could be instituted by the police and employees of the railway. Tom and Helen, who’d spent the time in the station refreshment room, were convinced that Eaves would never be found, living or dead. The man seemed to bear a charmed life and there was no reason to believe he wouldn’t be equally charmed in death.
In due course, however, Inspector Foster announced that they had discovered a body at the bottom of an embankment, in roughly the place where the murderer had leapt from the carriage. Tom’s first thought was that this must be another sham. But, no, it seemed not. The body was that of a man garbed in woman’s clothing. It was not in such a battered condition as the corpse of his brother retrieved from the roof of the cathedral cloister, since it had not fallen so far or met with such rough obstacles on the way down. Eaves was identified by the Inspector, who had seen the gardener on more than one occasion.