The Corpse in the Garden of Perfect Brightness Read online

  ‘You make him sound like a saint.’

  ‘If you knew the dangers he braves—’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like … fog for example. Some days it can be so thick you can’t see your feet. You have no idea where you are, you drive blind, you peer out of the cab, straining to see the signals, if you miss one it could lead to disaster, but you do miss them. You drive at dead slow, sometimes the only way of knowing where you are is by sense of smell, you smell the gasworks, for example, and because you know the road so well you can work out your progress. Even if you spot a signal, you can’t see what it shows, the signals are lost in the fog. Sometimes I have climbed the gantry and edged my way along like a sailor up in the rigging, and then felt the position of the signal by hand.’

  ‘Jack, that sounds terrifying,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Yes! Down beneath me was the train, but I couldn’t see it. Believe me, if passengers understood what goes on in fog they would never board a train.’

  Mr Carmichael snorted dismissively.

  Mrs Carmichael turned to Mr Quinn. ‘It must be wonderful to be a clown.’

  ‘Why must it?’ he said.

  ‘Well … I mean, isn’t it? Everyone loves a clown.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Being a clown is a curse. I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy.’

  Mrs Carmichael struggled not to let go of an axiom that had served her all her life. ‘But clowns make everyone happy.’

  ‘They don’t make themselves happy. Clowns are the unhappiest creatures on God’s earth, surely you knew that?’

  ‘How could I possibly know that?’

  ‘It’s the one thing everyone knows about clowns. What sort of person has to paint a happy face on each morning? Did you never stop to think about that?’

  ‘So why choose to become one?’ she asked, puzzled.

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Now I’m really confused.’

  ‘When you were in school, was there a little fat kid whom nobody loved?’

  ‘I’m not sure if I remember …’

  ‘Of course there was, there’s one in every class. I was that kid. Nobody liked me, nobody talked to me. Of all the trials that afflict you in later life, none are as miserable as being the kid at school nobody likes. Then one day, I fell over, and the kids laughed. So I did it again, and again they laughed. Being laughed at is painful, but it is better than being ostracised, so I learned to act the fool. When I did, the kids wanted to have me around. Not because they liked me, they never liked me, but they liked having a fool around. I became the fool. The trouble is, once you put on the red nose you are never allowed to take it off.’

  Mrs Carmichael was lost for words.

  ‘Jack’s going to teach me to drive a train,’ said Jenny brightly.

  ‘What on earth for?’ said Mr Carmichael, rather loudly.

  ‘He says it can be rather … rather wonderful …’

  ‘Never!’ said Mr Carmichael.

  ‘Yes, yes, he said it was like the pleasure a man takes secretly with his wife.’

  ‘Golly!’ said Mrs Carmichael, ‘I didn’t know it was that bad.’

  Jenny laughed and said, ‘From what I’ve heard you might go so far as to say it was quite lalapaloosa.’

  I stiffened. Jenny had confided to me that during the war a young American soldier had been billeted in the house she shared with her aunt. They had become quite thick, and in the course of their friendship he had taught her all manner of words I had never heard before. When she first told me this, I admit I had been quite out of sorts about it. Since then I had tried not to mind, but it was surprisingly difficult. Jenny shot me a glance and I forced a smile.

  ‘What does that mean?’ said Mrs Carmichael.

  ‘It’s Eskimo,’ said Jenny. ‘It means dreamy.’

  We remained at the table long after the others had left. As we stood up to leave Jenny noticed Miss Frobisher – who it had to be admitted had taken one or two more glasses of wine than was good for her – had left the engagement ring lying on the table. Jenny picked it up and said she would return it.

  Later, on deck as we took the air, Jenny said, ‘So am I not allowed to say lalapaloosa?’

  ‘I didn’t say you may not.’

  ‘I know you didn’t say it, perhaps I’m just imagining it. It feels awkward, but really it shouldn’t be. Cooper is dead, along with lots of other young men. I can’t unknow him or the funny words he taught me. They are all that’s left of him, really.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just lalapaloosa, and Spoony, and calling a glass of water in a restaurant “dog soup”.’ She pressed her head against mine. ‘I’ve got you now.’

  ‘You must say lalapaloosa whenever the urge takes you,’ I said tenderly.

  ‘Thank you Jack. It would be difficult not to. Since we met, everything has been pretty lalapaloosa.’

  She decided on an early night and I strolled to the bar for a nightcap. After a while, Charlie Quinn sidled up to me and said, ‘I know your secret.’

  My heart quickened.

  ‘I saw your face in the paper in Southampton. You done a chap in.’

  I forced a laugh.

  ‘Welshman. A miner’s son. Newspaper said you were wanted by the police under suspicion of pushing him into the path of the train. I knew I’d seen you somewhere before, but couldn’t place it. When your wife said you used to work on the railway, that’s when I had it.’

  ‘I’m afraid you are gravely mistaken, Mr Quinn.’ I struggled hard to counterfeit an insouciance wildly at odds with the tumult in my breast. ‘It’s true I used to work on the railways, but so do lots of other people. And I’ve never once, at least as far as I can recall, pushed a chap under a train. I have cleaned plenty of such chaps off trains and know what a frightful mess it makes.’

  ‘You’re a cool customer, that’s for sure. But you are beginning to sweat at the gills in a way that confirms my suspicion. Personally, I have no wish to be of assistance to the police, but it so happens that I am in a spot of trouble and urgently need two hundred guineas. I really didn’t know where I was going to get it from, but now I do. If you see what I mean. If I mention this to the captain, they will inform the authorities in Singapore, or maybe at Port Said. I’ll see if I can find a copy of the newspaper, I expect someone on board will have one.’

  He left without a backward glance and I considered this dark revelation. If the chap with the dead-fish eyes and the burned face was, as I supposed, an agent for Room 42, it would seem that not only did he push poor Ifan into the path of the train thinking it was me, but had then, upon discovering his error, arranged for an arrest warrant to be issued specifying me as the murderer. If Room 42 and its agents had the power to do that, then it was certain they would also have the power to fix the outcome of any trial.

  As for the matter of 200 guineas, it was true that with the funds Lady Seymour had provided, I could perhaps pay Mr Quinn. But it was certain I could not satisfy him. As a former detective, I knew a thing or two about blackmail. It is a crime hallmarked by one implacable fact, namely this: it is impossible to buy what you are paying for. Even after the payment, the item which you sought to buy remains in the possession of the blackmailer. You stand exactly where you stood before you paid, only poorer. And having indicated once your willingness to pay, you are certain to be presented with a second demand, but this time at a higher price.

  The pickle we were in had taken a distinctive turn for the worse. Things were now anything but lalapaloosa.

  Chapter 5

  Two days out from Southampton we entered the Bay of Biscay, where a storm was boiling. The winds screamed at us from the south-west, and buffeted the ship like a headmaster boxing a boy around the ears. The ship rolled like a drunk leaving a saloon bar and became a ghost town as passengers deserted the decks and corridors and kept to their cabins. The sharp smell of sick filled the air and the moaning of the wind was punctuate
d from time to time by the far-off sounds of crockery breaking. And always there was the squeaking, squeaking, squeaking of the ship’s innards being twisted. From time to time we would crash head-on into a particularly big wave and the ship would shudder, and from deep in her belly there would come a boom as if a giant had struck a gong.

  None of our dining companions turned up for breakfast during the next three days. Jenny and I had the ship to ourselves. I did not tell Jenny about Mr Quinn’s remarks. He was one of those whom seasickness had banished to his cabin. I was aware that the matter needed to be resolved, but had no idea how to do it.

  No one had ever blackmailed me before. Perhaps it would not have mattered so much if it were just my fate at stake, but I was greatly worried for Jenny. She, sensing nothing of this, gaily continued to interrogate me on the art of firing a train, oblivious to how far from my thoughts such a concern was.

  ‘What do I do first?’ she asked. The lounge had the slightly eerie quality of emptiness that one finds when one gets up in the night and walks about.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘How do I start?’

  ‘You start like every other fireman, you cook breakfast. You must learn to cook breakfast.’

  ‘That’s not firing!’

  ‘Yes it is!’

  ‘I already know how to cook breakfast.’

  ‘But not on a footplate.’

  ‘It can’t be very different.’

  ‘No, if you cook your breakfast at home on a shovel, it is not greatly different.’

  Jenny laughed. ‘Jack Wenlock, don’t think I don’t know what your game is!’

  ‘I haven’t got a game,’ I said in a voice that betrayed the presence of the cloud hanging over me.

  ‘Jack?’ said Jenny. ‘Are you all right? You seem a bit … subdued.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘You are not worried about me, are you?’

  ‘No, of course not. To tell the truth, I’m … I’m a bit concerned about the coal.’

  She looked puzzled. ‘What coal?’

  ‘The coal they are firing the ship with. If you look at the smoke coming out of the funnel it has a greenish tinge. I’ve seen it before, we used to call it “coal mange”.’

  Jenny peered at my face for a second to see whether I was serious. Having satisfied herself that I was, she stood up and walked out through the door that led to the deck. She came back a few minutes later. ‘You are right,’ she said with mock seriousness. ‘Definitely green. You must tell the Captain.’

  I laughed. ‘I hardly think he will pay any attention to me!’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ she said. A ship’s officer dressed in white, with gold trim, walked past and Jenny hailed him. ‘There’s a problem with the smoke,’ she said.

  ‘What smoke?’ he asked, puzzled.

  ‘Coming out of the funnel,’ said Jenny. ‘It’s green. Although the problem is really with the coal. It’s got mange.’ I could tell she was enjoying herself enormously, but really there was nothing funny about coal mange.

  ‘By Jove!’ said the officer. ‘Green, you say?’ He seemed delighted by the revelation.

  ‘Greenish,’ I added, anxious not to overstate the matter.

  ‘Haven’t you seen?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘I must confess I haven’t looked. Is green smoke so terribly bad?’

  I joined in. ‘I strongly suspect it is caused by a fungal bloom that is commonly called “coal mange”. It means your coal will burn poorly, greatly reducing the efficiency of your engines, and the fumes produced are liable to make your stokers rather poorly.’

  ‘Jack … er Mr Wenlock, my husband, used to drive a steam engine,’ said Jenny with the air of one putting down a trump card.

  ‘My word,’ said the officer. ‘Did he really? How splendid.’ He seemed quite boyish for an officer, although I suspected this was a deceptive air conveyed by what appeared to be an affecting candour and the slightly inept cut to his blond hair.

  ‘He used to fire them too, so he knows about coal.’

  ‘Well, in that case,’ said the officer, ‘I will have to make the Chief Engineer aware of the predicament. He’s quite a touchy fellow and I don’t imagine he will take too kindly to being told there is a problem with his smoke, but it can’t be helped. We can’t have green smoke.’ He thanked us and left.

  ‘Now,’ said Jenny. ‘Tell me what is really wrong.’

  I looked at her, and she peered at me with a look that combined both curiosity and concern.

  ‘You are not persuaded by the smoke? It really is green.’

  ‘I know, but that is not what is troubling you.’

  A string quintet began playing ‘Dance, Ballerina, Dance’ at the far end of the empty lounge. Jenny took my hand and gently eased me to my feet. ‘We’ll dance first, and then you can tell me.’ And this we duly did. Two lone figures in an empty lounge, dancing like drunkards on a deck that seemed to continually fall away from their feet.

  ‘As I say,’ said Jenny as we waltzed, ‘you really need not worry about me, Jack. I can honestly say, I have never been so happy in my life. It feels like … like we are eloping or doing something equally naughty. I’ve never really had much opportunity to be disobedient before. I quite like it. It feels like … it feels like we are Bonnie and Clyde.’

  ‘Does it really?’

  ‘Yes! Yes, it does, it feels so … Jack I’ve never felt like this before.’

  There came another gong boom from deep in the innards of the ship.

  ‘Does the danger that we may be facing not trouble you?’

  ‘Jack, the very reason we are in trouble is because of me. I’m the one who brought you the case.’

  We continued to glide and occasionally stumble around an empty dance floor. The musicians were clearly used to the situation and played with aplomb, as if we were sailing over a mill pond.

  ‘That moment in your office when the train passed beneath the window and without seeing it you diagnosed a fault because of the chuffs—’

  ‘I didn’t really diagnose anything, just observed that it was a 4–6-0 Castle class—’

  Jenny interrupted me. ‘I know! The one with a sloping throatplate in the firebox and the steam superheating that falls short, giving a characteristic double cough in the chuffs.’

  I pulled back slightly to peer into Jenny’s face. Was she teasing me for my obsession? It didn’t seem so. She returned my gaze and said, ‘That’s when I fell in love with you.’

  I blinked in surprised delight. ‘Well, then I’m even luckier than I had supposed. Any number of men could have told you about the double cough in the chuffs.’

  ‘That’s partly what I love about you, Jack. There isn’t another man alive who would say such a thing to a lady and you don’t even know it.’ We danced on in silence for a while. Then Jenny said, ‘You mustn’t worry about me, Jack. I’m sure we will be all right, I feel it. And … just think! Your mother! Wouldn’t you be willing to fight a hundred tigers for a chance to discover her whereabouts?’

  ‘I would, I would. But I couldn’t expect you to.’

  ‘But don’t you see, Jack? Don’t you see! Nothing could be dearer to me than this because I know nothing could be more dear to you.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘No buts, Jack! Since that moment we stood on the footplate and became man and wife, my fate and yours have been joined, indivisible. We will be happy together, or unhappy together.’ And so we danced, and when the musicians took a break, we walked out onto the deck, and stood buffeted by the wind, pressed against each other and against the deck rail. Then I told her about Mr Quinn.

  She listened to my words with a serious expression, nodded and said, ‘There is only one thing to be done, we must push Mr Quinn over the side tonight.’

  I was startled. ‘Do you really … I’m not sure I could …’

  Jenny giggled. ‘I wasn’t serious!’

  ‘You weren’t? Oh … I see. I rather thought you might
be, because I had already considered this remedy.’

  ‘I have a better way,’ she said. ‘We’ll frame him.’

  ‘Frame him?’

  ‘Implicate him in a crime. I saw it done in a film, When Blackmail Turns Blue, or something like that. I still have Miss Frobisher’s ring, we’ll frame him for stealing it. You must invite him for a drink to discuss the money, and when he is not looking put the Mickey Finn that Mr Jarley gave us into his drink. Then I’ll take his key and conceal the ring in his cabin. Then later I will say to Miss Frobisher that if she needs to send people on errands to her room she would be better advised than to choose Mr Quinn, who did not strike me as honest. And she will ask what I’m talking about and I’ll say I saw him coming out of her cabin just now. Naturally she will go and check her room and her belongings and discover the ring is missing. She will tell the ship’s officers, and they will search his cabin and find the ring. Easy.’

  ‘You certainly make it sound easy,’ I laughed.

  ‘If you can think of a better plan, let me know,’ she said with a gleam in her eye that suggested she found the whole thing rather jolly. ‘It worked in the film.’

  On the fifth day, we awoke to find the day calm and the sea gentler than a pond. Passengers began to emerge, like hibernating animals in spring. Jenny had gone to the library to write some letters. Apparently if you gave them to the Purser you didn’t have to put any stamps on and they would be posted in the next port of call.

  I decided to explore the ship once more, and found a small gift shop next to the Purser’s office. There was a display in the window about the future of transport; it included a toy – a small model, about 6 inches long, of an entirely new type of train. One powered by atomic energy. The engine was completely white, and streamlined like the Mallard. I went inside to take a closer look and read the accompanying leaflet.