Sliding the door shut behind her, she flashed a casual smile at Barralty. ‘Oh, I see you’re awake,’ she observed pleasantly. ‘So glad you’re feeling better, Mr ... I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.’
There was a large cup of tea in her hand which she struggled to keep from splashing as the train jolted suddenly.
Barralty’s face took on a ruthless cast. ‘Please be seated, Mrs Hannay,’ he ordered in a stern voice.
Ignoring him completely, Mary addressed me in her sweetest tones. ‘Dick, darling, I’m sure you’re parched, so I brought you some tea. It’s good and hot, just the way you like it.’
Barralty’s hard stare warned me not to move as he began to slide the gun out of his pocket. ‘Please sit down!’ he snapped.
Mary glanced down at the tea. ‘Oh, I’m awfully sorry, darling,’ she said with a pout. ‘I completely forgot to add milk.’
With a swift twist of her wrist she flung the scalding contents of the cup directly into Barralty’s face.
He leapt up with a howl of pain, sweeping his left sleeve across his stinging eyes. As he tore the pistol free of his pocket, I lunged forward and grabbed him by the arms, pinning them to his side. We lurched about the compartment in a clumsy waltz, bashing against the seats in the confined space.
I lowered my head and butted him in the face. His finger tightened reflexively on the trigger, firing a shot through the floor. With a curse he shook off my blow and twisted violently this way and that, trying to break loose and bring his revolver to bear. I knew if my grip slackened for an instant he would be able to put a bullet in me.
I felt Mary squeeze past my back. A sudden breeze blew through the compartment as she flung the outer door wide open.
‘Thanks for that, darling,’ I panted. ‘I’m sure Mr Barralty will appreciate some fresh air.’
With that I threw all my weight into a desperate shove that sent him stumbling backwards and out into empty space. As I heaved the door shut, I saw him tumble down an embankment. Mary peered through the glass just as he disappeared from view.
‘Do you suppose he’s all right?’ she wondered. ‘I wasn’t looking to break his neck.’
‘I shouldn’t worry about him,’ I said. ‘He specialises in speedy recoveries.’ I drew a deep breath and eyed my wife with admiration. ‘I must say, it was very resourceful of you to fetch a weapon from the catering car.’
‘There was obviously something queer about him,’ she explained, ‘and I thought if I left the two of you alone for a few minutes he might tip his hand.’
‘He certainly did that.’
She set aside the empty cup and sat down. I joined her and gave her the gist of what had passed between us.
‘Do you think if it came to it, he would really have shot you?’ Mary pondered with a frown.
‘I’d like to think not. But if we meet again, I won’t give him the benefit of the doubt.’
We both looked up as the corridor door opened. There stood the conductor, a portly man with luxuriant whiskers, throwing curious glances about the compartment.
‘Ye’ll excuse me for disturbing you, I’m sure,’ he said, ‘but a passenger in the next compartment reported hearing a gunshot.’
‘A shot?’ said Mary. She could not have looked more innocent if she had been a newborn babe. ‘How extraordinary.’
‘Oh, I know what happened,’ I said. ‘The outer door there came open. Must be a faulty catch. I had to slam it shut pretty sharply - you know, for safety’s sake.’
‘Yes, it made quite a crack,’ said Mary.
‘Ah, that will be it, I’m sure,’ said the conductor. He pulled out a pocket watch and checked it as we slowed down. ‘Killywhan, spot on time,’ he declared proudly as we pulled into the station.
Slipping past him, I glanced out at the platform. Barralty had said there would be friends waiting for him here.
‘Is something amiss, sir?’ the conductor enquired.
Even as he spoke I saw an agitated fellow in a trenchcoat prowling up and down the platform. Everyone else there looked like an ordinary traveller awaiting the train. I was trying to think of a story to tell the conductor when Mary piped up.
‘Yes, there is actually. It’s my ex-husband. I’m afraid he may be out there looking for us.’
‘What, here at Killywhan?’ the conductor exclaimed, as if such scandalous doings were unheard of in this particular village.
I pressed my back to the carriage wall, out of sight of the window. ‘That’s him out there in the trenchcoat.’
Mary put a hand to her mouth to stifle a horrified gasp. ‘Would you believe he actually had a detective follow us onto the train?’ she said in anguished tones. ‘Luckily we managed to shake him off.’
‘The possessive type, is he?’ said the conductor with a sorrowful shake of his head. ‘These modern divorces gie rise to muckle complications.’
‘He’s an absolute beast,’ said Mary with feeling. ‘He’s from Wolverhampton.’
‘Aye, well, that would explain it,’ said the conductor sagely.
‘If he gets on the train we’ll never get loose of him,’ I said. ‘I say, could you do us an enormous favour?’
The conductor glanced at Mary whose plaintive expression would have melted the heart of a hangman.
‘I suppose I could,’ he agreed as the train came to a halt, ‘for the sake of heading off trouble.’
‘Please tell him that his friend Mr Barralty was forced to get off at the previous stop and that he must join him there as quickly as possible.’
‘The previous stop, as quickly as possible,’ the conductor repeated, nodding. He gave a chuckle. ‘It’s quite the lark, isn’t it? Wait till I tell the wife about this.’
Mary handed him Barralty’s fedora. ‘Oh, and could he return the gentleman’s hat to him. He left it behind in his hurry.’
While passengers disembarked and fresh travellers boarded, the man in the trenchcoat moved rapidly along the platform, scrutinising the windows in search of Barralty. The conductor climbed down and hailed him before he reached our carriage.
I could not overhear what was said for the hissing of the engine and the blare of the Tannoy, but the message had the desired effect. The man bolted for the exit, presumably to join another member of the gang who was waiting outside with the car. The conductor gave us a thumbs-up sign and climbed back aboard.
As the train pulled out I sat down beside Mary again. ‘You never told me you had another husband,’ I joked.
‘A little mystery is good for any marriage,’ she answered demurely.
At Dumfries we caught the first southbound train and I whiled away the journey trying to make sense of the pilot’s garbled message. I wrote his last words down in the hope that their meaning would be clearer when I could read them over.
London trails, latest Dickens, missing page,
and, most puzzling of all,
Find the thirty-one kings.
After a couple of changes of train we arrived at St Pancras in the late afternoon. We took a cab to the house in Great Charles Street that Mary had inherited from her Wymondham aunts. Here we took time for a quick bath and a change of clothes. Mary then telephoned our people at Fosse Manor to let them know we were back from Scotland while I headed off into town.
I had a hearty dislike for London in wartime. There were too many uniforms in the street, barrage balloons jostled in the sky, and the rooftops were crowned with anti-aircraft guns. Out on the front line you were face to face with the enemy and had your chance to confront him directly. Here the danger was unseen and all was tension and nervous expectation.
As I walked towards my destination, a lorry rumbled past filled with young soldiers singing a ribald song I recognised from my own army days. I wondered where they were headed and hoped that the goal I had in mind for myself was the correct one and not a wild goose chase.
On the journey south, as I pondered the cryptic words of the dying pilot, I became increasingly certain that his reference to ‘trails’ was in fact the name of a bookshop: Traill’s in Mayfair. I was well acquainted with the owner of the place, though his identity was unknown to almost everyone else. An eccentric bibliophile was the general opinion, and not entirely untrue, but still wide of the mark in many respects. He was, in fact, one of the most remarkable men I have ever encountered.
I stopped outside the shop and looked up at the sign which was painted in faded red and green: Traill’s Book Shop, Dealers in both New and Antique Volumes. Casting an eye over the window, I spotted a pair of new mysteries by Agatha Christie as well as Household’s recent shocker, which I confess I rather enjoyed. What I did not see, of course, was a brand new novel by Dickens. Not even a new edition of one of his classics.
A bell jingled above me as I entered, but the few customers inside were too absorbed in examining the bookshelves to pay any attention to me. I hesitantly approached the counter where the assistant, a tall individual with slicked-back hair, regarded me superciliously through his pince-nez.
‘Can I help you, sir?’
He looked so utterly respectable that I felt quite foolish saying to him, ‘Yes, I’m looking for the latest novel by Dickens.’
He raised a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Do you mean Charles Dickens, the long-deceased novelist?’
‘Yes,’ I persisted. ‘I believe he has a brand new book out.’
‘Indeed, sir. Let me see if I can help you.’
For a moment I thought by helping me he meant call for an ambulance to carry me off to a lunatic asylum. However, instead of reaching for the phone, he turned to the bookshelf behind him. He considered carefully for a few moments before taking down a slim, leather-bound volume which he handed to me.
‘Perhaps this is what you’re looking for,’ he said in a tone that was a mixture of condescension and pity.
There was no writing on the cover so I opened the book and, in some confusion, flipped through the pages. They were all blank.
I looked up at the assistant and saw that he was regarding me expectantly. I felt as though I had stepped into a scene from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and that the individual standing before me was some demented cousin of the Mad Hatter.
I had no idea how to react, then I recalled the pilot’s words.
‘There’s a page missing,’ I said tentatively.
He gave a curious frown and reached for the book which I gladly surrendered to him.
‘If you have a complaint to make,’ he informed me stiffly, ‘you will have to speak to the proprietor. I believe you know the way.’
He inclined his head towards the stairway at the back of the shop, then reached a hand under the counter. I was quite sure he was pressing a button that would alert the man waiting upstairs to my imminent arrival.
Confident now that I was on the right track, I climbed the steps to the upper floor. Here the walls were crammed with volumes on every abstruse subject under the sun and the tables were laid out with vintage maps and engravings. I glanced around to ensure that I was completely alone, then approached one wall which I knew concealed a secret behind its display of false book spines.
Pressing the bogus copy of Walton’s The Compleat Angler, I felt a catch release and with a slight shove I opened the hidden door. As I entered the room beyond, the door swung back into place behind me. There, behind a desk covered in papers and playing cards, sat the large, unmistakable figure of John Scantlebury Blenkiron. In his hand was a pistol which was pointed directly at me.