Death on a Branch Line(40)

And he clasped the salesman’s hand, saying, ‘Pleasant journey back, now!’

Gifford stepped into the lane that stood between the vicarage and the graveyard, and gave a start of surprise when he saw the two of us lounging there, no doubt recalling in that instant his secret visit to our room.

‘You’re the pair from The Angel, ain’t you?’

I could see the sweat leaking out from over his stand collar.

‘We’ve just taken a stroll around the back,’ I said. ‘… Saw you chatting to the parson, and couldn’t help over-hearing a bit.’

‘Not a lot to bloody well hear,’ said Gifford in a glum tone.

‘Came out badly, did it?’

‘Don’t it always?’ replied Gifford, and he removed his brown bowler to mop his brow. He had not made his sale, and he was stifled besides. His centre parting looked like a guide-line for a saw. His moustache was also arranged in two halves. The man was a martyr to his fine-toothed comb.

‘I travel in model locomotives,’ he said. ‘You might think that’s a pretty good joke?’

And he looked at us expectantly.

‘But I ain’t seen the funny side in years – not in years.’

We had entered the graveyard, and come to a stop by Sir George’s grave.

Gifford was saying, ‘Steam-powered, electrical and spring-motor mechanism – well, that’s clockwork, if you must know. But it’s all a bloody mug’s game, pardon my French, lady. He’s one of the biggest collectors in the whole country,’ Gifford continued, indicating the vicarage. ‘“Well worth a visit to Reverend Ridley,” I was told. “Makes a purchase every time. Never misses.”’ He shook his head. ‘Calls himself a vicar … Christian thing would’ve been to buy the little red loco. Brass boiler, steel frames. Double action piston valve cylinders with reversing motion worked from cab. All wheels to scale throughout.’

Gifford stepped back from the grave, and his boot-heel went into some fresh sheep dung.

‘Who let a bloody cow in here?’ he said, and I hadn’t the heart to put him right. ‘Bloody cattle!’ he said, looking down. ‘They do make a litter. I’ll be bloody glad to be leaving this ’ole, I can tell you.’

I looked towards the vicarage, where the Reverend Ridley was standing at one of the ground-floor windows, watching us with folded arms.

‘Have you two heard of his layout, by the way?’ Gifford continued in a lower voice, as though he felt the vicar might be able to hear him. ‘Famous, it is – been photographed in all the railway papers. It’s in his dining room I believe, though the pill wasn’t about to show me it, and I hadn’t the nerve to ask. King’s Cross and environs in one and a quarter inch to the foot. Shown in the rush hour, the Cross is. Hundreds of little lead people charging about all over the shop – well, they’re not charging; they’re completely fixed, but that’s the effect. Thing is, being a parson, he’s rotten with money and ain’t got anything else to do.’

‘Except save the souls of the villagers,’ said the wife, who was one of the religious sort of feminists, and set a lot of store by the behaviour of vicars.

‘Do leave off, lady,’ said Gifford.

‘You have a line in German models?’ I said.

Gifford pulled at his collar.

‘The best models today are German,’ he said. ‘You’ll generally find with your German models the smoke-box door will be made open-able. Little touches like that. It’s in the finishing too, of course. The enamelling and lining is always of the first order. But try telling him that!’

It struck me that the vicar might be looking on because he’d seen us stop by Sir George’s grave. Did he think we were discussing the murder?

‘That’s the fellow was murdered,’ I said to Gifford, indicating the grave.

‘I know,’ he said, which surprised me. ‘It’s a queer spot this is, just the place for a murder. Gives me the jim-jams, I don’t mind telling you.’

‘Do you not find it peaceful and quiet?’ asked the wife.

‘The quieter a place is,’ he said, ‘the noisier it is. You hear every little thing. Here now, I meant to have a word with you,’ he continued, addressing me particularly. ‘You’re a copper, aren’t you? Railway police.’

‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘How do you know?’

He stopped dead; all the life went out of him. But he rallied after a few seconds, saying, ‘I don’t rightly know. Just something about you, I suppose. Something about your looks.’