The Necropolis Railway

Chapter Twenty-Six

Wednesday 30 December 1903 -Monday 4 January 1904

I was in a green ward so full of plants it was like a garden. There were three pillars in amongst the plants which in fact were chimneys with firesides front and back. Ladies in white walked between the plants carrying medicines, and the ladies were so beautiful they made the medicines look precious. Other people moved around on wheels, and everybody kept quiet most of the time, but it somehow came to me that I was in St Thomas's Hospital, which was where the London and South Western always took their accident cases if they could. I was in Purvis Ward, called after the sister, Elizabeth Purvis, but which of the beauties she was I could not say, although again it came to me that she had arranged for this ward to have the biggest of the hospital Christmas trees, and that there had been presents from it.

Over my head was an electric light that moved – all for me. All the time beneath my bandages there seemed to be distant violins, which in the middle of the afternoon and the middle of the morning would fade to almost nothing, but at meal times were joined by louder instruments, drums, and the sight of everybody moving much more. But I did not eat for two days.

The side of my head was all sewn, and painted with carbolic. A man came several times to see it. He was called Dr Stone, and I did not like his name in case he hit me over the head with it. Once he came and lifted the gauze and said, 'We had a marathon of sewing with you, Mr Stringer.' There had been so much, they had given me ether – of which I remembered a thing that was rubber with metal behind: a dream machine (for it had given me plenty) that had fitted over my face so well it might have been made for me.

Later Dr Stone told me he had had to do more than just sew me. He had had to dig a hole in my head to pull the bones away from the brain, and I had had more ether for that.

I sat up one morning and there were the Houses of Parliament, with the boats racing back and forth in front of them, all in complete silence. After a while I got the idea that there was a visiting hour, but I went to sleep in the middle of all nonetheless.

The Houses of Parliament had disappeared when I woke up, and there was a supper of boiled ham next to me, along with a glass of beer. There were white screens around my bed, and the electric light was on. I had the feeling of late evening, and of Sister Purvis being close by. Standing at the end of my bed was the Governor, my landlady, and the policeman I had talked to at Nine Elms – the one who looked like a sea captain. Across all the years since then, I have always thought of him as the Captain, and it is possible that he actually was one – a captain of police, I mean, because they do have them.

At the moment I opened my eyes, he was looking at my boiled ham and beer so hungrily that he smiled when our eyes met. I started to tell all – for now I seemed to have everything straight – but I had only got over that it was Stanley who had crowned me and put me in a coffin, when they told me to stop, probably because things weren't coming out very clearly.

'Put it down as points,' said the Captain, and his voice was much lighter and less of a growl than I would have guessed. 'Give each point a number.'

They all went away, and a little while later the Captain came back with a pencil and a piece of paper which he put by my bed. It was funny to watch him creep towards me and creep away again, thinking that I was asleep. It was very good paper that he gave me. Across the top it said in fancy letters, 'From St Thomas's Hospital', and I thought about using it to write to Dad. It will just about make his day if I do that, I thought, but then I decided that he would probably not like to learn that I was in hospital, however beautiful the paper.

The next evening the same thing came about, except that I was eating my supper – steak and kidney pudding, this time – when the Captain and the Governor came along. I had my list of points but I think I went from one to three, so they stopped me again.

The third day brought hot pot, and it was all gone and the glass of beer was empty when the Governor and the Captain appeared again, and this time they had a third person with them – a man whose job was to write.

I would have liked to have had my diary by me, but it had gone. Stanley had taken it, along with my replacement pocket book and the brake handle, before putting me in the box. What he would have made of the writings in it I could not guess, for they were mainly scribbles, and mainly, until Stanley got himself in my sights, wrong. I was sure I had everything straight now, in any case.

'Number one,' I said, and I was in high force even before they were settled in their seats, for here was a chance to show my mettle, which I had not been able to get through railway work. 'Number one is Mr Stanley. He looks like a man in want of money, and that is exactly what he is. He speaks on interment for pay, and no other reason, but he was not paid enough. They agreed to keep his address weekly, even though the audiences were so poor, but he wanted more money. I heard him say at the address he gave on the day of Mr Smith's funeral that he had not been in the cemetery for almost four months, and he changed the subject double-quick afterwards. This would have put him there in August, and, I believe, on the afternoon of Wednesday 12 August Mr Stanley did travel to Brookwood – probably not on the funeral train which was running that day, but on a service of the common run from Waterloo.' 'Stopping train to Bournemouth?' said the Captain, and he looked across at the Governor, who just nodded, and who I could tell was anxious on account of the greyness mixed in with the red of his face.

"The week before,' I continued, 'he had asked the board of the Necropolis Company by letter for an increase in pay, but he was refused.'

'How did you know this?' said the Captain, who'd been smiling and smoking a cigar all along and seemed, unlike the Governor, to be a man without a care.

'Because I went into the room at the Necropolis where the minutes are kept.'

'Regular spit-fire of self-dependence,' mumbled the Governor, then, more loudly to the Captain: 'No wonder Mr Smith brought him on!'

'It wasn't lawful to read the Necropolis minutes, though!' said the Captain, but his smile only widened as he did so, and the eye into which the smoke was streaming slowly closed -which I took to mean that I should go on.

'Sir John Rickerby, the chairman, had gone down on the funeral train, and Stanley, I suppose, knew that. Sir John made a habit of walking in the cemetery during his trips down there.'

'Ornithologist?' said the Captain, and he was delighted with that word, which I did not know the meaning of. He was not like a policeman at all. "The trouble being that he was a creeping Jesus.'

The writer looked up at this, but immediately went back to his scribbling.

'He walked with a stick, I mean,' I continued. 'So Mr Stanley could smash his head… I mean the head of Rickerby… and it would look…' I did not like this talk of head-smashing that was coming from me, and the Captain could see it. He stood up and went away, returning with another glass of beer for me, which I drank while the writer, very mysteriously, continued to write. Maybe he had been so far behind that he needed all of my drinking time to catch up.

'Stanley smashed the head of Rickerby against a tombstone' I continued, 'knowing it would look as though he'd fallen.' The writer wrote; the Governor looked at the Captain. 'On the stone'1 said, 'were written the words "Thy Will Be Done.'"

The writer looked up again at this and I put him down as a church-goer. 'This we do know', said the Captain.

'Number two' I continued, 'Henry Taylor. Henry Taylor was at the cemetery on that same day.'

I looked at the Governor, who nodded and said, 'Rode out on the Red Bastard with Arthur Hunt and Vincent.'

'It is possible that he took a walk in the cemetery, because Hunt had given him a scolding. He liked the cemetery – Mike told me that – and Arthur Hunt was always chucking people off his engines.'

'You've told me all about this fellow Hunt' said the Captain to the Governor. 'Socialist' said the Governor, nodding.

'Here is the important connection: I believe Stanley saw Henry Taylor watching him doing the murder of Rickerby, or that's what Stanley thought; Taylor may very well have seen nothing.'

'Carry on' said the Captain, and the smile was gone now. The Governor's I had not seen for some time.

'Taylor was killed a week later, and I reckon Stanley must have followed him about a fair bit before the right moment came along. He left his lodge, which is my lodge now Looking at the Governor here, I couldn't tell whether this was a new one on him. 'He left the lodge but never got to the shed. I think Stanley followed him, and got him somewhere along the river. There are some lonely spots behind the gasworks.'

The beer had made me sleepy, and my head was hurting. My sutures might have been of the finest silk but they did give me gyp. "The next one was Mike' I said.

'Is this number three?' asked the writer, although he did not look up this time.

I nodded at him, thinking Mike ought to have a number to himself. 'Stanley had seen Henry Taylor and Mike together around Waterloo or Nine Elms. Well, they were always together, best of friends. One foggy day he followed Mike to Nine Elms. By rotten luck, Barney Rose was under orders to let Mike take the Jubilee off-shed that morning, and he was alone on it for a while.' 'What's a Jubilee?' said the Captain.

'An 0-4-2 tender engine,' said the Governor in a thoughtful voice. 'Very fine motors.' For some reason the writer looked up at him on hearing this.

'Number four,' I said, which made the writer get back to writing, 'Mr Rowland Smith. A number of reasons here for Stanley to get him. He was not the new chairman of the Necropolis or even a director, from what I could see, but he was holding the purse strings at the time, and when Stanley again asked for more pay – and his second and third requests went into the meetings at the start of November and the start of December – it was Smith he blamed for saying no. Smith also wanted to sell Necropolis land; that was known, but he set about it at an amazingly fast rate, and maybe it began to look to Stanley as though in time he'd get rid of the whole show, leaving no call for an address at all. Finally, Stanley might have got wind that Mr Smith was set on finding out what had happened to Henry Taylor and Mike, and he was set on it. That was one of the reasons he'd brought me on – to be his eyes and ears on the half-link.'

'He wrote to you, didn't he?' said the Governor. 'He meant to ask what light you could cast on all this?'

I nodded, and then apologised to the Captain, for I had quite forgotten to show the letter to the police.

'We found a copy at the flat,' said the Captain. 'Some of his papers were in a safe that survived the blaze.' He glanced at the Governor, and continued: 'I've heard a good deal from Mr Nightingale of the way Mr Smith pitched you in at the deep end… Now, is it your belief that Stanley started the blaze at Mr Smith's flat?'

'With paraffin,' I said. "There's no shortage of it at any railway place.' 'A new sort of exploit for him, then, wasn't it?' 'Oh, I expect he bashed him on the head first.'

'I wonder', said the Captain, 'what gave Mr Smith the idea, up there in Yorkshire, that you would make such a great hand at detecting?'

I thought of Grosmont, Crystal's flowers, the hot waiting room, Rowland Smith's boots…

'I guessed that he was bound for London,' I said. I could not help but add, however, "There again, he was on the up.'

'Maybe he'd forgotten about up and down,' said the Governor. 'Mr Smith has… He had, I mean, many good points, but he did not have the railways in his blood.'

'Above all,' I concluded, 'Stanley killed Smith because he knew Smith was trying to find out what had become of Henry Taylor.

You see, it is my belief Rowland Smith liked Henry Taylor.' I looked at the Governor and I looked at the Captain, and as I did so they both finished off their glasses of beer and I couldn't immediately bring to mind the word that Vincent had used of Smith. Then it came to me: Tommy Dodd. I did not speak it out loud, but said in a half yawn, although quite firmly, to the writer, 'Number six.'

Number six was me, and it turned out the longest, even though I was beginning to tire. I told them all about how each man in the half-link had had his knife into me. They thought I was Rowland Smith's man, just like Taylor, and that I would split on them. I was a bit careful about saying what I might split on them for: I mentioned Hunt's socialist ways, but not the mutual improvement class or the trade-union letters I'd seen. I said that Barney Rose 'perhaps seemed a little casual about his business', rather than go any further towards speaking of drink. Drunkenness, I was sure, had set in after the Salisbury smash that Vincent had mentioned, and his boozing had led to his mistakes, one of which had been seen and reported to the Governor by Taylor. As to Vincent, well, he covered up for both of them.

They also all lived in fear of being taken in for the murder of Henry Taylor, because they knew they all had reason to have done it. Taylor was not one of their London lot. He was Smith's man, and Arthur Hunt especially hated Smith. Taylor had reported Barney Rose, and he was likely to beat Vincent to the footplate. It didn't look good for them either when Taylor's great pal Mike – another out-of-town lad brought in by Smith – was jacked in.

The writer's hand was racing as I explained that I should have known the half-link were innocent because they could have had no real reason to crown Sir John Rickerby. Stanley, on the other hand, had cause to hate or fear everyone who'd been killed.

With the great confidence I now felt, I asked whose coffin I had been in, and the Captain said, 'Mrs Davidson-Hill's. There was a great deal of distress at the funeral when you were found.' I said I had no memory of any of that, but I was sorry, and the Captain said, 'You are hardly to be blamed.'

Two other questions occurred to me. 'How was I found?' I asked, for I was curious to hear what explanation Mack had come up with other than the truth, which is that he'd been trying to get his hands on the dear old lady's jewels.

"They heard you knocking,' said the Captain, and I smiled to myself at that.

Then I asked what had happened to Mrs Davidson-Hill herself, but I never did get to hear, for at that moment one of the sisters came to look at my gauze, and the Captain said, 'I would rather not say just at the moment.'

'Will you put salt on Stanley?' I asked, when the sister was gone. The Captain said nothing, but just smoked slowly, in a way that made me ask again: 'Will you put salt on this man?'

"The difficulty', said the Captain, 'is evidence, and the other difficulty is finding him.' 'Doesn't the Necropolis hold an address for him?'

'We looked into that when you first mentioned him,' the Captain said. "They have him down as being at a certain lodge, which he has lately quit.' He began digging something out of his coat pocket. 'I want you to go carefully until we can get to him. I've ordered the constables in your territory to keep a close watch on your lodge, and it's three blasts on this if you see him.' He had stopped rummaging at last and produced a silver whistle.

Well, I nearly burst out laughing. 'I would rather give him three blasts with a shotgun'1 said.

At this the Governor smiled for the first time, and said, 'It's more fun to watch 'em dangle.' Later, my landlady was brought to my bed by Sister Purvis. They were as beautiful as each other: one second you would think one had the edge, another the other. I couldn't help thinking that it was like watching two Atlantics racing. After a long period of smiling on all sides, Sister Purvis left and my landlady remained. She sat on my bed saying nothing and it was a very happy time as far as I was concerned, except that shameful thoughts of Signal Street would keep coming back.

'I haven't yet managed to get any cocoa in' she said after a while. 'Don't concern yourself on that score' I said.

'I could make up the cocoa – when I get it – the night before and leave it in the range for you to pick up in the morning. It would still be hot – well, it would be quite hot.' She looked at the electric light over my head for a while before adding: 'I daresay it would not be absolutely cold, at any rate.' 'No need for that,' I said.

'I would do that' she said, 'and I would be happy to do it, only I've been a little rushed.' I nodded. 'Would you like to hear the whole tale?' I said. 'It comes in six parts.' 'Of course' she said. 'Number one -'

'But not now, perhaps,' she said. 'You need to rest.' She made sure nobody was looking and gave me a kiss. Then she stood up. 'The room is now advertised in several papers,' she said.

After a long pause, as I recalled how I had attempted to escape from the casket, I said, 'I'm sorry for not having put up your notice at Nine Elms.'

The fact was, I hadn't wanted another in the lodge with the two of us. She said that it was all right.

After a further pause, I said, 'I'll be out tomorrow, and I wondered whether you would like to come on another excursion.' 'With Mary Allington?' she said. 'Of course,' I said, and she turned away and suddenly laughed – a very short laugh but very beautiful. She left shortly after. The greatest astonishment came at six on my last day, just after I'd started on a plate of mutton and my bottle of beer. It was Arthur Hunt, still black from a day at Nine Elms, carrying a package roughly done up with string. Somehow things were the wrong way about between us, for he was very ill at ease in the hospital, as a man so full of strength and vigour could hardly fail to be. I asked him to sit down but he would not for fear of dirtying a chair, and nor would he take a bottle of beer, which I could have got for him easily. There was then a great collision of apologies, in which Arthur said he'd seen I was a decent sort, not sent in to sneak, on the ride out to Brookwood.

I said, 'I'd never have guessed that was what you were thinking.'

'In truth,' he said, 'I only thought it later, but the thoughts came from what I saw that day.' 'Why were you all going to twist me in the Old Shed, then?' 'Twist you? We were coming to improve you.' 'But you all looked fit to be tied.'

Arthur shrugged, saying, 'We might have taken a couple of pints. And Vincent clatters the engines as he goes – it's just a habit of his.' He looked at me solemnly for quite a while. Then he said, 'An engine man doesn't need as much imagination as you've got.'

'I'll try to put that straight,' I said, thinking: but how can a thing like that be changed?

'Buck up,' said Arthur. 'I've brought you a copy of the Bible.'

This was a turn up; I hadn't had Arthur down for anything in that line. But when I pulled away the wrapping from the package I saw a book called Engine Driving Life by M. Reynolds. 'You might look at the first page,' said Arthur. There he had written, in a fine hand, but with some smudging: The steam is up; the engine bright as gold; The fire king echoes back the guard's shrill cry, The roaring vapour shrieks out fierce and bold, A moment – and like lightning on we fly.' 'I've had the whole story from the coppers,' he said – and I was glad he spoke at that point, for I could not have. 'I never took to that fellow Stanley and if I see him about I'll knock him into the middle of next week.' 'You know of him then?' 'I've seen him at the Necropolis station; I know him to be another parasite in a collar and tie.' I nodded.

'It couldn't have happened if he'd been in a trade union,' said Arthur. 'But what union could Stanley ever be in?' 'In time there'll be one for every class of worker,' said Arthur.

By now I was ready to have a go at thanking him properly for the book, but again he cut me off in my stumbling attempts: 'You've got it in you to put up some good running,' he said. 'But I can't chuck coal to the front,' I said. 'No,' he said. 'And my fire-raising is not of the best.' 'It is not.' 'I can't read signals when they come in a jumble.' 'I noticed that.' 'And I'm no great hand at injecting.' 'No.' 'It is enough for now that I have a great affection for it all, and a determination to get on?' 'No,' said Arthur.

'So,' I said, 'How can you be sure I'll ever be up to the mark?'

He was buttoning his coat to go. 'Because I'm going to make bloody sure, that's how.'