Frankie's Letter - By Dolores Gordon-Smith Page 0,70

the chief constable was going to go pop. A German running round killing people was bad enough but to have an Englishman doing it was far, far worse.

By the time they’d finished he was so eager to help that he was disappointed when he found all Anthony wanted was to be kept informed of anything his men should uncover and to lend his weight to Anthony’s enquiries at the railway station.

The porter, a Mr Hawley, was sitting on his wooden truck, reading a newspaper. The news had travelled fast. Hawley knew all about the discovery of Veronica O’Bryan’s body in Ticker’s Wood and, with the official presence of Major Rendall looming behind him, Anthony had no trouble in getting the porter to speak about what he felt would be the main topic of conversation for years to come.

‘I reckon we’ll be in the paper ourselves when this gets out,’ said Hawley, rising stiffly to his feet. ‘You’re looking for someone off the Lonnon train, you say?’ He scratched his chin. ‘It’s been a couple of days now. The Lonnon train . . . There weren’t that many on it, as I recall. Peggy Postling and the Sykeses. Young Wilfred Gordon, he’s back on leave, and . . .’ Mr Hawley looked up brightly. ‘There was another man, sir. He slipped my mind for the moment.’

‘Can you describe him?’ asked Major Rendall briskly.

Mr Hawley looked puzzled. ‘I don’t know as I can,’ he said slowly. ‘I didn’t take much notice.’

‘What about his clothes?’ Anthony asked, trying to pin the porter down to something concrete.

Hawley shrugged. ‘Nothing out of the way. He had a dark coat, I think, and a bowler hat. There was nothing special about him.’

‘He wasn’t fair-haired, was he?’

Again Hawley shrugged. ‘I didn’t notice as he was. He was just an ordinary sort of bloke.’

Something in Hawley’s answer jarred on Anthony. What on earth was it? He looked at Hawley thoughtfully. Like most railway staff he seemed honest and helpful but . . . Bingo! He’d said ‘bloke’.

There are few men, as Anthony well knew, as socially aware as railway porters. Their livelihood, like taxi-drivers and hotel commissionaires, depends on them being able to sum up a person’s class at a glance, to know that the old lady in the ancient coat is a real lady and good for sixpence, that Flash Harry in his cheap finery will sling a shilling to impress his girlfriend and that a careworn mother or cautious clerk will never part with more than tuppence, however much help they receive. It seemed highly unlikely that Mr Hawley would ever describe a man such as Warren’s killer as a bloke.

‘He wasn’t a gentleman, was he? A toff?’ he asked.

Hawley gave a slow smile. ‘A toff, sir? Not on your life.’ The smile faded. ‘There was nothing to him, sir,’ he added with a touch of irritation. ‘Nothing you could get hold of, I mean.’

The word ‘nondescript’ formed in Anthony’s mind. He gave a jump. Hawley wasn’t describing Cedric Chapman’s killer but Cedric Chapman himself.

Anthony picked up Mr Hawley’s discarded newspaper and there, on the front page, was what he was looking for: ‘Kingsway Tram Victim Identified’ together with a photograph of Chapman. Sir Charles had authorized its release to the press.

Anthony slewed the paper round so Hawley could see it and immediately knew he was right. His face was a picture.

‘Well, I’ll be blowed,’ he kept muttering. ‘Who’d have thought it? Him! On my platform!’

Major Rendall was less impressed. Chapman was dead and therefore the fun of the chase had departed. He stroked his moustache gloomily. ‘So that’s the chappie, is it? Well, he got what was coming to him all right. What was he doing down here, eh?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Anthony honestly enough, for he didn’t. He could guess, but that wasn’t knowledge.

The major roused himself from his disappointment. ‘It’s a case of tying up loose ends now, eh, Colonel? I suppose we’d better call at Starhanger. Mr and Mrs Sherston need to be officially informed.’

‘Yes, we’d better call,’ agreed Anthony. And after that, he thought, he’d better retrieve his bag and leave. He had come to Starhanger to find Veronica O’Bryan and that was exactly what he’d done.

‘So how did Sherston take the news?’ asked Sir Charles later that day. They were sitting in Sir Charles’s room, the room that always reminded Anthony of a gentleman’s club.

‘He was thunderstruck,’ said Anthony, lighting a cigarette. ‘His reaction seemed absolutely genuine, Talbot.’ He smiled