Death on a Branch Line(62)

‘I’ve seen him once or twice,’ said Chandler. ‘My brother-in-law told me to look out for him as one of the leading curiosities of the village. To George, the man was a buffoon, plain and simple, but I wonder. He’s an amateur historian, you know – hides from the world. His only refuge is with those toy soldiers of his. Seen them, have you?’

‘A lot of people around here like midget objects,’ I said, for some reason.

More claret came.

‘Could you manage some more?’ asked the manservant, and I replied ‘Yes’ but I knew it would be a struggle. I was crippling myself with this stuff – it was beyond all reason. Was I alcoholic? If not, it was probably because of Lydia. That was the great thing about having a wife. She checked your drinking.

Chandler was moving away from me; John Lambert remained sitting on the far step. My hand still rested on the paper in my pocket. I took it out, and saw the docket that Will Hamer the carter had given me – the proof of the wire having been sent.

Usher was still speaking to Lydia, and still his speech was well-greased.

‘The ladies might break a few windows in Oxford Street,’ he was saying, ‘but is that so serious a matter? It seems to me they are driven to it not by a deep malice, but simply by the excitement of the moment.’

‘No,’ the wife cut in.

‘I’m sorry?’ said Usher.

‘They are not driven to it by the excitement of the moment, but by the injustices of the centuries.’

‘The excitement of the moment or the injustice of the centuries,’ said Usher. ‘I am not going to split hairs over that. The point I wish to make is that they are handled too roughly by the ordinary constables.’

I watched the wife’s face. I knew when she was likely to give trouble, and all the warning signs were there, but Usher of course could not see them. He was lighting another cigarette. He drew a line of fire in the dark-blue air as he waved out the Vesta, saying:

‘The ladies have a will of iron. Unfortunately, their bodies are not made of iron, and all concerned should act accordingly. The watchword of the constables ought to be: “Remember these are ladies – handle with care.”’

The wife stood up from the sofa and folded her arms. Poor old Usher had jarred, for if there was one thing the wife disliked more than unkind remarks about the women’s cause, it was kind remarks about it.

I addressed myself again to the data on the docket or receipt in my hand, which seemed to be perpetually being replaced by another version of itself dropped from above, like raindrops repeatedly falling on the same spot. I would make out one or two words, and then it would drop again. As I finally made sense of the receipt and lowered it slowly onto my knees, I noticed that the Chief was looking across the terrace towards me.

He had arrived before the telegram had been sent.





PART THREE


Sunday, 23 July, and Monday, 24 July, 1911





Chapter Twenty-Four


The butler or manservant gave us a storm lantern, and we used it to light the way back to The Angel. It made the trees swing and rear up as we pushed on, the wife talking about Usher, and how he’d said the women’s cause could ‘bring the women up’, and other wrong things.

‘I don’t think John Lambert’s in any danger,’ she said. ‘Usher’s an ass. But still, you can see that Lambert needs to be taken in hand. He has a condition of some kind, a mental … a sort of hysteria, I’m sure brought on by what’s going to happen to his brother.’

Her success at the party had made her over-confident, it seemed.

‘We women have wills of iron but very frail bodies, you know,’ she ran on. ‘I suppose Captain Usher’s body is made of iron. I’d say his brain probably is.’

She broke off in her speech when our light showed a fox on the track before us.

I was drunk but not, as it turned out, in the worst way, for it had been good wine. I felt outside of myself somehow, and revolved my new discovery just as though it had no power to harm me. The paper in my pocket showed that the wire asking the Chief to come to Adenwold had not been transmitted until 12.30, whereas he had arrived by the 12.27 train. I had no idea what had gone wrong with Will Hamer, his rulley or his beasts, but there were any number of possibilities. The Chief had not come to the village on my account; he had arrived quite independently.

I began trying to explain this to the wife, but she was hardly listening, and did not take the point.

‘… It was only a coincidence that we coincided at the station,’ I said, and she asked, cheerfully enough:

‘How drunk are you, Jim?’

In our room, we kissed in a friendly way, for she knew she’d been the star of the evening, even if wrongly dressed and not invited to the meal. Then I turned out the lantern, and the slice of moon moved right up to the open window. I watched it from the pillow thinking: I am investigating my own Chief. Nothing could be worse for my prospects or more generally shocking, but I went directly to sleep nonetheless.