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‘I’m afraid that Robert won’t be joining us,’ she explained.

‘Why is that, Maddy?’

‘He’s involved in a case that’s taken him to Worcestershire. The note he sent mentioned two passengers who’d disappeared on a train journey to Oxford.’

‘That’s hardly surprising, is it?’ he said, contemptuously. ‘They must have been travelling on the OWWR and it has no right to call itself a railway company. It’s a disaster. The person I blame is Brunel. He was the chief engineer when the project was first started. No wonder they had problems.’

‘Robert thinks that Mr Brunel is in a class of his own.’

‘Yes — it’s a class of fools and village idiots. The man is a menace.’

Madeleine Colbeck had achieved her aim of deflecting him away from his regular litany of woes but she had to endure a diatribe against Brunel instead. It went on for a few minutes. Since her husband was unlikely to return that day, she was glad of some company and had long ago learnt to tolerate her father’s impassioned lectures on anything and everything concerning the railway system. He was like a cantankerous old locomotive, pulling into a station and filling it with an ear-splitting hiss of steam. The noise slowly subsided and Andrews’ rage cooled.

‘Don’t ask me for details,’ she said, ‘for I have none.’

‘You don’t need any, Maddy. I can tell you what happened. If two people vanished on the Old Worse and Worse, it means that they were so horrified by the way that the train shook and rattled that they jumped off in a bid for safety.’ He wagged a finger. ‘You need to make your will before you travel on that line.’

Madeleine laughed. ‘You will exaggerate.’

‘I know what I know.’

Andrews was a short, wiry man of peppery disposition. Approaching sixty, he was showing signs of age, his back bent, his hair thinning and his fringe beard in the process of turning from grey to white. Madeleine, by contrast, was looking younger than ever as if marriage to the Railway Detective had rejuvenated her. She was an alert, attractive, buxom woman in her twenties with endearing dimples in both cheeks that reminded Andrews so much of his late wife at times that he had to look away. Madeleine had first met Colbeck as a result of the daring robbery of a train that her father had been driving. Andrews had been badly injured during the incident but had made a full recovery and was eternally grateful to Colbeck for catching those behind the robbery.

‘I wish that your mother could see you now,’ he said. ‘She wouldn’t believe the way you’ve settled into this lovely big house. It’s a far cry from our little cottage in Camden Town, yet you seem completely at home here.’

‘I don’t always feel it,’ she admitted. ‘It took me ages to get used to the idea of having servants at my beck and call.’

‘I don’t see why, Maddy. You had me at your beck and call for years.’

She stiffened. ‘That’s not how I remember it, Father. I was the one who looked after you.’

‘Don’t quibble.’

‘Then don’t tell lies.’

‘The important thing is that you’re happy.’ He gave her a shrewd look. ‘You are, aren’t you?’

‘I couldn’t be happier,’ she replied, beaming. ‘I have everything I want.’

‘Make sure that it stays that way. If you’re not properly looked after, I’ll need to have a stern word with my son-in-law.’

‘That won’t be necessary. Robert is a wonderful husband.’

Madeleine still couldn’t believe her good fortune in meeting and marrying Colbeck. At a stroke, she’d acquired a new social status, moved into a fine house in John Islip Street and been given the best possible facilities to pursue her career as an artist. Thanks to her husband’s encouragement, she’d reached a stage where her paintings of locomotives were commanding a good price. Inevitably, her father appointed himself as her technical advisor.

‘Another thing to remember about Brunel,’ he said, getting his second wind, ‘is the way he started a riot on the Old Worse and Worse. Have I ever told you what happened at the Mickleton Tunnel?’

‘Yes, Father, you have.’

‘It was a disgrace. Brunel should have been imprisoned for what he did.’

Madeleine sighed. ‘You’ve said so many times.’

‘I’ve kept the cuttings from the newspapers.’

‘I’ve seen them, Father.’

‘He took the law into his own hands,’ he went on, ‘and recruited an army of drunken navvies to take on the contractors responsible for building the tunnel. The police were called out and the Riot Act was read twice by magistrates, but did that stop Isambard Kingdom Brunel? Oh, no — he came back in the dark with his navvies, all of them armed with pickaxes, shovels and goodness-knows-what. There was a fierce battle. Brunel seemed to think he was the blooming Duke of Wellington, leading the charge at Waterloo. When the troops were called in from Coventry, they were too late to prevent bloodshed and broken bones. I tell you this, Maddy,’ he concluded with a favourite phrase of his, ‘the Mickleton Tunnel is a monument to Brunel’s stupidity.’

When they reached the tunnel, they were about to plunge into complete darkness. They’d come prepared. The two men were off-duty porters from Moreton-in-Marsh station and — when Sir Marcus Burnhope raised the alarm — they’d volunteered to join in the search. Travelling north-west, they went past Blockley and Chipping Campden to be confronted by the gaping hole that was the Mickleton Tunnel. Having lit their lantern, they entered with trepidation into a pitch-black, brick-lined tube some 887 yards in length. They were not afraid of being caught in there when a train shot through the tunnel because they’d taken the precaution of checking the timetable beforehand. What they feared were rats and other lurking creatures that might attack them. They’d also heard stories of tramps sleeping in the tunnel from time to time and of desperate criminals on the run who used it as a temporary refuge.

To bolster their confidence, they walked shoulder to shoulder. Peter Dale, the chubby man holding the lantern, let it swing to and fro so that its glare lit up both sides of the tunnel. They moved furtively into the gloom. After fifty yards or more, there was a rustling noise then a rat dashed past them, brushing against the trouser leg of the other man. He lost his nerve at once.

‘We’ll find nothing here,’ he said, shivering. ‘Let’s go back.’

‘We haven’t searched it properly yet,’ said Dale, lifting the lantern higher. ‘Sir Marcus Burnhope has promised a reward for anyone who finds his daughter. We may have a chance to claim it.’

‘There’s nobody in here, Peter.’

‘We need to be sure of that.’

As Dale walked cautiously on, his companion stayed reluctantly beside him. The thought of being bitten by some sharp-toothed denizen of the darkness made him flinch and he fought hard to control the queasiness in the pit of his stomach. They were halfway along the tunnel when the lantern’s beam revealed something that brought them to an abrupt halt.

‘Do you see what I see?’ asked Dale.

‘Hold the lantern higher, Peter. I can’t make out what it is.’

Dale took a tentative step forward so that the glow from his lantern illumined the object clearly. When he saw what it was, he grinned.

‘Now that could be interesting,’ he said.

It was late evening when Victor Leeming finally reached Scotland Yard but he knew that the superintendent would still be there. The indefatigable Tallis often worked on into the night yet still contrived to look alert and attentive in the morning. At the moment, the sergeant was neither of those things. As he delivered his report, his voice was weary and he came perilously close to yawning. Tallis was not impressed.

‘I expected something more tangible out of this investigation,’ he said.

‘It will take time, sir.’

‘We don’t have time. A young woman’s life is at stake here. I’ve got Sir Marcus hounding me with telegraphs and