“They were playing high, certainly.”
“A fiver to come in, last night I believe. I looked into the smoke-room before I went to bed. Liversidge had won a packet. Courtney looked very sick. Early in the voyage I tried to tip him the wink, but he’d got in with that bear-leader and his cub.”
“Weston and young Palmer, you mean?”
“Yes. They’re on the train. The cub’s likely to stick to our heels all through the tour, I’m afraid.”
“Stage-struck?”
“What they used to call ‘shook on the pros.’ He hangs round Carolyn, I suppose you’ve noticed. She tells me his father — he’s a Sir Something Palmer and noisesomely rich — has packed him off to New Zealand with Weston in the hope of teaching him sense. Weston’s his cousin. The boy was sacked from his public school, I believe. Shipboard gossip.”
“It is strange,” said the tall man, “how a certain type of Englishman still regards the dominions either as a waste-paper basket or a purge.”
“You are not a colonial, surely?”
“Oh, no. I speak without prejudice. Hullo, I believe we’re stopping.”
A far-away whistle was followed by the sound of banging doors and a voice that chanted something indistinguishable. These sounds grew louder. Presently the far door of their own carriage opened and the guard came down the corridor.
“Five minutes at Ohakune for refreshments,” he chanted, and went out at the near door. Broadhead moved aside for him.
“Refreshments!” said Hambledon. “Good Lord!”
“Oh, I don’t know. A cup of coffee perhaps. Anyway a gulp of fresh air.”
“Perhaps you’re right. What did he say was the name of the station?”
“I don’t know. It sounded like a rune or incantation.”
“O — ah — coo — nee,” said Susan Max, unexpectedly.
“Hullo, Susie, you’ve come up to breathe, have you?” asked Hambledon.
“I haven’t been to sleep, dear,” said Susan. “Not really asleep, you know.”
“I’d forgotten you were an Australian.”
“I am not an Australian. I was born in New Zealand. Australia is a four days’ journey from—”
“I know, I know,” said Hambledon with a wink at the tall man.
“Well, it is provoking, dear,” said Miss Max huffily. “We don’t like to be called Australian. Not that I’ve anything against the Aussies. It’s the ignorance.”
A chain of yellow lights travelled past their windows. The train stopped and uttered a long steamy sigh. All along the carriage came the sound of human beings yawning and shuffling.
“I wish my father had never met my mother,” grumbled the comedian.
“Come on,” said Hambledon to the tall man.
They went out through the door. Courtney Broadhead was standing on the narrow iron platform of their carriage. His overcoat collar was turned up and his hat jammed over his eyes. He looked lost and miserable. The other two men stepped down on to the station platform. The cold night air smelt clean after the fug of the train. There was a tang in it, salutary and exciting.
“It smells like the inside of a flower shop,” said Hambledon. “Moss, and cold wet earth, and something else. Are we very high up in the world, I wonder?”
“I think we must be. To me it smells like mountain air.”
“What about this coffee?”
They got two steaming china baths from the refreshment counter and took them out on to the platform.
“Hailey! Hailey!”
The window of one of the sleepers had been opened and through it appeared a head.
“Carolyn!” Hambledon walked swiftly to the window. “Haven’t you settled down yet? It’s after half-past two, do you know that?”
The murky lights from the station shone on that face, finding out the hollows round the eyes and under the cheek bones. The tall man had never been able to make up his mind about Carolyn Dacres’s face. Was it beautiful? Was it faded? Was she as intelligent as her face seemed to promise? As he watched her he realised that she was agitated about something. She spoke quickly, and in an undertone. Hambledon stared at her in surprise and then said something. They both looked for a moment at the tall man. She seemed to hesitate.
“Stand clear, please.”
A bell jangled. He mounted the platform of his carriage where Courtney Broadhead still stood hunched up in his overcoat. The train gave one of those preparatory backward clanks. Hambledon, still carrying his cup, hurriedly mounted the far platform of the sleeper. They were drawn out of the station into the night. Courtney Broadhead, after a sidelong glance at the tall man, said something inaudible and returned to the carriage. The tall man remained outside. The stern of the sleeping-carriage in front swayed and wagged, and the little iron bridge that connected the two platforms jerked backwards and forwards. Presently Hambledon came out of the sleeper and, holding to the iron rails, made towards him over the bridge. As soon as they were together he began to shout:
“… very upset… most extraordinary… wish you’d…” The wind snatched his voice away.
“I can’t hear you.”
“It’s Meyer — I can’t make it out. Come over here.”
He led the way across the little bridge and drew his companion into the entrance lobby of the next carriage.
“It’s Meyer,” said Hambledon. “He says someone tried to murder him.”
Chapter II
MR. MEYER IN JEOPARDY
The tall man merely stared at Hambledon who came to the conclusion that his astonishing announcement had not been heard.
“Someone has tried to murder Alfred Meyer,” he bawled.
“All right,” said the tall man. He looked disgusted and faintly alarmed.
“Carolyn wants you to come along to their sleeper.”
“You haven’t told her—?”
“No, no. But I wish you’d let me—”
The inside door of the little lobby burst open, smacking Hambledon in the rear. The pale face of Mr. Alfred Meyer appeared round the side.
“Hailey — do come along. What are you — oh!” He glanced at the tall man.
“We are both coming,” said Hambledon.
They all lurched along the narrow corridor off which the two sleepers opened. They passed the first door and Meyer led them in at the second. The “de-luxe” sleeper was a small cabin with two narrow bunks and a wash-basin. Carolyn Dacres, wearing some sort of gorgeous dressing-robe, sat on the bottom bunk. Her arms were clasped round her knees. Her long reddish-brown hair hung in a thick twist over her shoulder.
“Hullo!” she said, looking at the tall man. “Hailey says he thinks you’d better hear all about it.”
“I’m sure you’d rather talk over whatever has happened among yourselves. I assure you I’ve no desire to butt in.”
“Look here,” said Hambledon, “do let me explain — about you, I mean.”
“Very well,” said the tall man, looking politely resigned.
“We all knew him as ‘Mr. R. Allen’ on board,” began Hambledon. “That’s what he was in the passenger list. It was only to-night, in the train, that I realised he was Roderick Alleyn — E.Y.N. — Chief Detective-Inspector, C.I.D., and full musical honours with a salute of two sawn-off shotguns.”
“My God!” said Mr. Meyer plaintively. It was his stock expression.
“Why—” said Carolyn Dacres, “why then you’re — yes, of course. ‘The Handsome Inspector.’ Don’t you remember, Pooh? The Gardener case? Our photographs were side by side in the Tatler that week, Mr. Alleyn.”
“The only occasion,” said Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn, “on which I have felt there was any compensation for newspaper publicity.”
“Any compensation?” broke in Mr. Meyer. “My God! Well now, as you are an expert, will you listen to this? Sit down for God’s sake. Move up, Carol.”
Alleyn sat on a trunk, Hambledon on the floor, and Meyer plumped down beside his wife. His large face was very white and his fat hands shook slightly.