The Case of the 'Hail Mary' Celeste Read online

  Beside those spires so spick and span

  Against an unencumbered sky

  The old Great Western Railway ran

  When someone different was I

  —John Betjeman

  Contents

  Author's Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  The Boy’s Own Railway Gosling Annual

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  The Boy’s Own Railway Gosling Annual

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  The Boy’s Own Railway Gosling Annual

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  The Boy’s Own Railway Gosling Annual

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  The Boy’s Own Railway Gosling Annual

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  The Boy’s Own Railway Gosling Annual

  Chapter 14

  The Boy’s Own Railway Gosling Annual

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  The Boy’s Own Railway Gosling Annual

  Chapter 17

  The Boy’s Own Railway Gosling Annual

  Chapter 18

  The Boy’s Own Railway Gosling Annual

  Chapter 19

  The Boy’s Own Railway Gosling Annual

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Appendix I

  Appendix II

  Acknowledgements

  A Note on the Author

  By The Same Author

  Also available from Malcolm Pryce

  Author’s Note

  From the case files of Jack Wenlock,

  Great Western Railway Detective, 1930–1948

  When King George V announced in 1917 that he was changing the name of the British royal family from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor, a collective groan went up from the palace staff. They knew what it meant: they would have to spend the week working through the night changing the name tags on the King’s pyjamas and PE kit. To the man on the Clapham omnibus the announcement was perplexing. The British people had spent the past three years valiantly fighting the Hun but had always been far too well-mannered to remind their King that he was German himself. Why change things now? The following story, taken from the case files of Jack Wenlock, suggests a solution to the puzzle.

  There were twelve Gosling class special railway detectives created at the Weeping Cross Railway Servants’ Orphanage between 1902 and 1914. By the time the railways were nationalised in 1948 only one was left: Jack Wenlock. This is his story.

  Lightcliffe

  Shot at dawn, 1917

  Tumby Woodside

  Stole money from dog, thrashed to death, 1921

  Temple Combe

  Died in the electric chair at Sing Sing, 1925

  Conway Marsh

  Crushed by elephant in Indochina, 1926

  Kipling Coates

  Lost in opium den, Shanghai, 1927

  Mickle Trafford

  Dragged from ship by a giant squid, 1928

  Luton Hoo

  Stabbed in the eye with a swordstick, 1929

  Cadbury Holt

  Missing, presumed eaten by a lion, 1930

  Hucknall Byron

  Sent to Gulag on Kolyma River, 1935

  Cheadle Heath

  Adulterer, blotted copybook, expelled, 1936

  Amber Gate

  Lost on the Hindenburg, 1937

  Jack Wenlock

  Fate unknown

  Chapter 1

  It was Tuesday the second of December 1947 when Jenny the Spiddler walked into my office: almost a month before they nationalised my mother. Some people will regard that as a fanciful turn of phrase, forgivable perhaps in someone who had worked his entire life on the railways. But I don’t mean it that way. The Great Western Railway really was my mother. I was born in a specially constructed maternity engine shed at the Weeping Cross Railway Servants’ Orphanage in 1914, the birth arranged in such a fashion that the first thing I saw upon opening my eyes in this world was a 4-6-0 Saint class locomotive. This was done in accordance with the ethological theories of Oskar Heinroth, who had shown that a greylag goose takes as its mother the first thing it sees on emerging from the egg, and it had been supposed that a human baby would be the same. My mother was engine number 2904 Lady Godiva. She had a domeless parallel boiler, raised Belpaire firebox and boiler pressure of 200 psi, although by the time I was born her boiler had been replaced with a superheated half-cone device. As for the flesh-and-blood mother who had her confinement in this engine shed, from whose loins I emerged but whose face I was specifically prevented from glimpsing, I know nothing. Every moment of my life thereafter was spent in the service of the Great Western Railway, or God’s Wonderful Railway as we all knew her. I was a Gosling class detective, that fabled cadre of detectives who trod the corridors of the GWR trains in the years 1925 to 1947. There were twelve of us in all and I am the last. No official record of us now exists, with the exception of this testament. I have decided to make my case files over to the national archive, as a gift to the people of this land, with the instructions that all files remain sealed until after my death. I am in good health and expect to live a long while yet, and hope that when the hour of my death comes Princess Elizabeth will be on the throne and the dark secrets contained within these pages will have lost their power to precipitate a Jacobin revolution in England.

  She came at fifteen minutes past five. The door was half panelled with the top made of opaque glass and I could make out the shape of a girl through the glass. She knocked on the wooden bit. I said come in but she didn’t so I walked over to open the door. She wore a plain cream mackintosh, tightly belted, ankle socks and a pancake hat. Her hair was worn in the style made popular by Veronica Lake. I stepped aside and she walked in and sat down without being invited.

  ‘May I take your coat?’

  ‘Then I’d have to give you my hat, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Not if you didn’t want to.’

  ‘I’m not sure if I would be able to get it on again, it’s not a very good one.’

  The pancake hat was attached to the side of her head as if someone had thrown a pie at her and it had stuck.

  ‘It looks rather fetching to me.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t. I knitted it myself. That wasn’t the problem, it was the wool. We – that’s me and Aunt Agatha – unravelled it from a bed sock. That’s OK too but you can still see the curl in the wool. It’s very hard to get that out. The “Make Do and Mend” booklets never tell you how to do that.’

  ‘I thought it was part of the style.’

  ‘Shows you how much you know. Have you got any snipes?’

  I took out a pack of Player’s and reached it across. She took one out with slightly trembling fingers. I struck a Swan Vesta and held the flare up to the end of her cigarette. She drew in the smoke and avoided my gaze and then darted a quick look at me and away. She was trying hard to be nonchalant but you could see she wasn’t used to having men light her cigarettes for her. She let out a slight choke. I lit one too and regarded her through the curling tendrils of smoke.

  ‘I’ve never done this before,’ she said, then added, ‘I need to see a Railway Gosling.’

  I smiled.

  ‘This is where you say they don’t exist.’

  ‘I don’t know if they exist – I’ve never seen one.’

  ‘The people at the Anaglypta Mill told me you would deny it. They said Goslings are very shy. They said don’t leave the office until he admits it.’

  ‘How do you know you’ve come to the right office?’

  She twisted in her chair and nodded to
wards a glass case in the corner containing a stuffed goose. ‘I saw the goose through the glass in the door.’

  ‘It could be from Lost Property.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure it could – left behind by the King of Timbuktu.’

  She continued scanning the room. There wasn’t much to look at. On my desk there was a telephone receiver, subscriber number Weeping Cross 723; a lamp, an ashtray, a pen and some blotting paper. A copy of Chesterton’s History. There were two framed pictures on the walls, and above the cold fireplace hung a map of the Great Western Railway. On top of the filing cabinet there was a photo of my mother, 4-6-0 Saint class locomotive, number 2904 Lady Godiva. There was also a hatstand, and behind the hatstand a small bookcase containing the Boy’s Own Railway Gosling annuals, volumes 1 to 10, with the exception, of course, of the 1931 edition.

  ‘Who’s that?’ She pointed at my mezzotint next to the door.

  ‘A sixteenth-century Frenchman called Salomon de Caus. They imprisoned him in an insane asylum.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He said that one day men would use steam to turn wheels.’

  ‘I don’t believe that will ever happen.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘You’re funny. Do you carry a gun?’

  ‘No.’

  Disappointment flickered in her eyes. ‘Well, can you fight?’

  I stared at her for a brief moment and then looked towards the window. The panes were filmed over with soot and cracked. One was broken. The frames began to rattle and the air quivered. From afar came the sound of singing metal: rails quivering. This was followed by a soft wail, the sort a man might emit from a distant dungeon when on the rack. The walls began to hum; the glass in the windows rattled more fiercely. The approach always seemed slow at first, then the train arrived like a wrecking ball slamming into the side of a building. There were more wails, louder, with furious snorts and coughs. Gobbets of smoke puffed through the broken light, filling the room with the stench of sulphur. Then she was gone.

  ‘The 5.17 to Hereford,’ I said.

  ‘See, I knew you were a Gosling. I bet you can tell from the sound exactly what sort of train it was, can’t you?’

  ‘Yes, it’s a 4-6-0 Castle class, the one with a sloping throatplate in the firebox. You can tell because even after the modifications to the blastpipe and chimney, the steam superheating still falls short. Hence the characteristic double cough in the chuffs.’

  She brought the knuckle of her index finger up to her mouth, and twisted her head slightly to one side as if needing to examine me from a different angle.

  ‘Castle class?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Sure, but which one?’ She smiled impishly.

  ‘It was number 4070 Godstow Castle.’

  ‘Golly! You can tell all that just from the chuffing?’

  I paused and let the slowly widening grin on my face answer her question. She burst into a smile. ‘You’re kidding, aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She laughed. It sounded like silver bells and was the loveliest laugh there had ever been in my office. I enjoyed the moment, although I didn’t laugh. The truth was, I hadn’t been kidding. It really was Godstow Castle. The double cough in the chuffs was a dead giveaway.

  ‘Why did you ask if I could fight?’

  ‘This case might be dangerous. I need a Gosling who can fight. I read all the Railway Gosling annuals when I was a little girl.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Well, except the 1931. I know all about you. Every Gosling has fired a King class 4-6-0 from Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads. The movement of the right arm with the shovel is the same as the punch to the ribs that breaks the heart of the prizefighter and makes him kiss the canvas like a sweetheart. Is that true?’

  ‘Yes, that’s true.’

  ‘The books also say you are practised in the secret art of Chinese temple boxing, like Fu Manchu. Is that true?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s a secret. How old are you?’

  ‘As old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth. Guess what I do.’

  ‘I don’t think I could.’

  ‘I work in the Anaglypta Mill, I put the bubbles in.’

  ‘So you’re a spiddler.’

  ‘You don’t have to say it like that.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to offend. How do they get the bubbles in?’

  ‘You know I can’t tell you that. I’d lose my job. I’ve come about my aunt Agatha, in case you are wondering.’

  ‘I was beginning to.’

  ‘Couldn’t we . . . why don’t we go to the Lyons tea shop? I could tell you there.’

  ‘You can tell me about it here.’

  She looked disappointed and frowned. ‘You’re no fun. Aunt Agatha saw a murder. It was in the adjacent carriage of a passing train. She was on the 4.50 to Brackhampton and fell asleep for a while. When she awoke there was another train passing them on the next line. For a while their speeds matched and they ran in parallel. Just then the blind in the adjacent compartment snapped up, and there it was: a man with his hands to the throat of a woman. He was throttling her. Then she went limp in his arms and the train speeded up and was gone.’

  She gave me a look of triumph, then slipped off her chair and walked over to the wall and the picture of Oskar Heinroth. It showed a portly man in an astrakhan coat and wearing a homburg running through a wide path in a birch forest. He was being chased by a low-flying goose, and you could tell from his gait that he was not used to running and probably had not done it for many years. He seemed to be laughing.

  ‘Who’s this? Your granddad?’

  ‘It’s just a picture.’

  She walked over to the bookshelf and knelt down to read the spines. ‘You don’t have the 1931 either.’

  ‘No one does.’

  She stood up and walked back to her chair. ‘You don’t seem very curious about my aunt Agatha. Don’t you want to know what happened next?’

  ‘I already know what happened next. She reported the murder to the police and they didn’t believe her. They said there was no murder, no one had been reported missing, and there was no corpse. In the absence of these things it would be very difficult to conduct a murder inquiry. They told her to go home, have a cup of tea and forget all about it. They probably also pointed out that the incident took place just after she had been asleep and so the likely explanation was she was still dreaming.’

  She slipped back on to the chair and took another cigarette. Her hands trembled even more as she brought the cigarette up. ‘That’s exactly what happened. How did you know?’

  ‘It happens every month. We call them throttlers. Little old ladies who make up stories like that. I had ten case files cross my desk last year alone.’

  ‘Well, that shows you are not as smart as you think you are, doesn’t it? Because if that is true you must be the Gosling.’

  I shrugged. ‘If you say so. What did the murdered woman look like?’

  ‘She was a nanny. With a perambulator and a little boy with her.’

  ‘Your aunt saw all that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did the boy do while his nanny was being strangled?’

  ‘Is that important?’

  ‘It could be the key that unlocks the whole case.’

  ‘I’m not sure, I don’t think she mentioned what he did. Anyway, that’s not the best bit – you’ll never guess what happened next.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘Are you taking me to the Lyons tea shop?’

  ‘I don’t usually finish until 5.30.’

  She looked at the clock above the door. It was 5.25. She stood up and dragged her chair over, climbed up and pulled open the hinged glass front of the clock and moved the big hand forward. Then she came back and sat on my desk. ‘The best thing is this. When she came home from the police station that evening an ambulance turned up and took her away.’

  ‘Which hospital did they take
her to?’

  ‘The ambulance was unmarked. This was a week ago. Then yesterday I received a letter from Saint Christina’s Home for Lunatics, Mental Defectives and the Feeble-Minded. They had taken her there.’

  ‘Did they tell you why?’

  ‘No. I went to see her yesterday. They told me she was too unwell for a visit, but I could go tomorrow.’ She reached into her bag and took out a tin of corned beef. ‘I’ll take her this. By my reckoning this is definitely covered by the terms of carriage and conveyance, which means you are duty bound to help her. Can we go to the Lyons tea shop?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Chapter 2

  There was a sharp frost beginning to form as we left the office. It sparkled like powdered glass in the fog, shimmering around the streetlamps and muffling sound. As we walked across the station forecourt to the tram stop we passed a seal grey Morris 1000 parked in the place reserved for taxis. A young man sat inside wearing a trilby and a trench coat and resting a newspaper on the steering wheel. As we passed he tossed the newspaper aside and reached for the ignition key. Something about the manner in which he put away the newspaper made me think he had only been pretending to read. The tram clanged to a halt and Jenny jumped on the stairs at the back and climbed, running her hand along the curving white handrail. It wasn’t really necessary to sit on the top deck, we were only going three stops, but I didn’t mind. We jumped off outside the Astoria.

  The Lyons tea shop was empty. Three waitresses stood and watched us walk in with an air that suggested they would have preferred the place to remain empty. We took a seat next to the window. I ordered an egg each, three slices of bread and butter and a pot of tea. Jenny asked for two glasses of dog soup, which turned out to be tap water. The waitress wrote down the order with a slight nod and then walked away. Jenny looked at me with suppressed excitement. She leaned forward and whispered. ‘It’s no good pretending any more, I saw it.’

  ‘Saw what?’

  ‘Your gun. On the tram, I saw it outlined in your pocket.’ She nodded towards my jacket. I slipped my hand inside and pulled out a metal container that looked like a fat cigarette holder. It might conceivably look like the outline of a gun to someone who had never seen one. I handed it to her. ‘Open it.’