The Pit Prop Syndicate by Freeman Wills Crofts (best big ereader .txt) 📖

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p.m. ran, with a stop at Goole, to Doncaster, where the through carriage was shunted on to one of the great expresses from the north. More from force of habit than otherwise, Willis put his head out of the window at Goole to watch if anyone should leave Archer's carriage. But no one did.

At Doncaster Willis received something of a shock. As his train drew into the station another was just coming out, and he idly ran his eye along the line of coaches. A figure in the corner of a third-class compartment attracted his attention. It seemed vaguely familiar, but it was already out of sight before the inspector realized that it was a likeness to Benson that had struck him. He had not seen the man's face and at once dismissed the matter from his mind with the careless thought that everyone has his double. A moment later they pulled up at the platform.

Here again he put out his head, and it was not long before he saw Archer alight and, evidently leaving his suitcase and rug to keep his seat, move slowly down the platform. There was nothing remarkable in this, as no less than seventeen minutes elapsed between the arrival of the train from Hull and the departure of that from London, and through passengers frequently left their carriage while it was being shunted. At the same time Willis unostentatiously followed, and presently saw Archer vanish into the first-class refreshment room. He took up a position where he had a good view of the door, and waited for the other's reappearance.

But the distiller was in no hurry. Ten minutes elapsed, and still he made no sign. The express from the north thundered in, the engine hooked off, and shunting began. The train was due out at 6.22, and now the hands of the great clock pointed to 6.19. Willis began to be perturbed. Had he missed his quarry?

At 6.20 he could stand it no longer, and at risk of meeting Archer, should the latter at that moment decide to leave the refreshment room, he pushed open the door and glanced in. And then he breathed freely again. Archer was sitting at a table sipping what looked like a whisky and soda. As Willis looked he saw him glance up at the clock—now pointing to 6.21—and calmly settle himself more comfortably in his chair!

Why, the man would miss the train! Willis, with a sudden feeling of disappointment, had an impulse to run over and remind him of the hour at which it left. But he controlled himself in time, slipped back to his post of observation, and took up his watch. In a few seconds the train whistled, and pulled majestically out of the station.

For fifteen minutes Willis waited, and then he saw the distiller leave the refreshment room and walk slowly down the platform. As Willis followed, it was clear to him that the other had deliberately allowed his train to start without him, though what his motive had been the inspector could not imagine. He now approached the booking-office and apparently bought a ticket, afterwards turning back down the platform.

Willis slipped into a doorway until he had passed, then hurrying to the booking-window, explained who he was and asked to what station the last comer had booked. He was told “Selby,” and he retreated, exasperated and puzzled beyond words. What could Archer be up to?

He bought a time-table and began to study the possibilities. First he made himself clear as to the lie of the land. The main line of the great East Coast route from London to Scotland ran almost due north and south through Doncaster. Eighteen miles to the north was Selby, the next important station. At Selby a line running east and west crossed the other, leading in one direction to Leeds and the west, in the other to Hull.

About half-way between Selby and Hull, at a place called Staddlethorpe, a line branched off and ran south-westerly through Goole to Doncaster. Selby, Staddlethorpe, and Doncaster therefore formed a railway triangle, one of the sides of which, produced, led to Hull. From this it followed, as indeed the inspector had known, that passengers to and from Hull had two points of connection with the main line, either direct to Selby, or through Goole to Doncaster.

He began to study the trains. The first northwards was the 4 p.m. dining-car express from King's Cross to Newcastle. It left Doncaster at 7.56 and reached Selby at 8.21. Would Archer travel by it? And if he did, what would be his next move?

For nearly an hour Willis sat huddled up in the corner of a seat, his eye on Archer in the distance, and his mind wrestling with the problem. For nearly an hour he racked his brains without result, then suddenly a devastating idea flashed before his consciousness, leaving him rigid with dismay. For a moment his mind refused to accept so disastrous a possibility, but as he continued to think over it he found that one puzzling and unrelated fact after another took on a different complexion from that it had formerly borne; that, moreover, it dropped into place and became part of a connected whole.

He saw now why Archer could not discuss Madeleine's letter over the telephone, but was able to arrange in that way for the interview with Beamish. He understood why Archer, standing at his study window, had mentioned the call at eleven next morning. He realized that Benson's amendment was probably arranged by Archer on the previous evening. He saw why the Girondin had left the Lesque without her full cargo, and why she was loading barrels at Ferriby. He knew who it was he had seen passing in the other train as his own reached Doncaster, and he grasped the reason for Archer's visit to Selby. In a word, he saw he had been hoaxed—fooled—carefully, systematically, and at every point. While he had been congratulating himself on the completeness with which the conspirators had been walking into his net, he had in reality been caught in theirs. He had been like a child in their hands. They had evidently been watching and countering his every step.

He saw now that his tapping of the secret telephone must have been discovered, and that his enemies had used their discovery to mislead him. They must have recognized that Madeleine's letter was inspired by himself, and read his motives in making her send it. They had then used the telephone to make him believe they were falling into his trap, while their real plans were settled in Archer's study.

What those plans were he believed he now understood. There would be no meetings in London on the following day. The meetings were designed to bring him, Willis, to the Metropolis and keep him there. By tomorrow the gang, convinced that discovery was imminent, would be aboard the Girondin and on the high seas. They were, as he expressed it to himself, “doing a bunk.”

Therefore of necessity the Girondin would load barrelled oil to drive her to some country where Scotland Yard detectives did not flourish, and where extradition laws were of no account. Therefore she must return light, or, he suspected, empty, as there would be no time to unload. Moreover, a reason for this “lightness” must be given him, lest he should notice the ship sitting high out of the water, and suspect. And he now knew that it was really Benson that he had seen returning to Ferriby via Goole, and that Archer was doing the same via Selby.

He looked up the trains from Selby to Ferriby. There was only one. It left Selby at 9.19, fifty-eight minutes after the Doncaster train arrived there, and reached Ferriby at 10.7. It was now getting on towards eight. He had nearly two and a half hours to make his plans.

Though Willis was a little slow in thought he was prompt in action. Feeling sure that Archer would indeed travel by the 7.56 to Selby, he relaxed his watch and went to the telephone call office. There he rang up the police station at Selby, asking for a plain-clothes man and two constables to meet him at the train to make an arrest. Also he asked for a fast car to be engaged to take him immediately to Ferriby. He then called up the police in Hull, and had a long talk with the superintendent. Finally it was arranged that a sergeant and twelve men were to meet him on the shore at the back of the signal cabin near the Ferriby depot, with a boat and a grappling ladder for getting aboard the Girondin. This done, Willis hurried back to the platform, reaching it just as the 7.56 came in. He watched Archer get on board, and then himself entered another compartment.

At Selby the quarry alighted, and passed along the platform towards the booking-office. Willis's police training instantly revealed to him the plain-clothes man, and him he instructed to follow Archer and learn to what station he booked. In a few moments the man returned to say it was Ferriby. Then calling up the two constables, the four officers followed the distiller into the first-class waiting room, where he had taken cover. Willis walked up to him.

“Archibald Charles Archer,” he said impressively, “I am Inspector Willis of Scotland Yard. I have a warrant for your arrest on a charge of murdering Francis Coburn in a cab in London on September 12 last. I have to warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence.”

For a moment the distiller seemed so overwhelmed with surprise as to be incapable of movement, and before he could pull himself together there was a click, and handcuffs gleamed on his wrists. Then his eyes blazed, and with the inarticulate roar of a wild beast he flung himself wildly on Willis, and, manacled as he was, attempted to seize his throat. But the struggle was brief. In a moment the three other men had torn him off, and he stood glaring at his adversary, and uttering savage curses.

“You look after him, sergeant,” Willis directed a little breathlessly, as he tried to straighten the remnants of his tie. “I must go on to Ferriby.”

A powerful car was waiting outside the station, and Willis, jumping in, offered the driver an extra pound if he was at Ferriby within fifty minutes. He reckoned the distance was about twenty-five miles, and he thought he should maintain at average of thirty miles an hour.

The night was intensely dark as the big vehicle swung out of Selby, eastward bound. A slight wind blew in from the east, bearing a damp, searching cold, more trying than frost. Willis, who had left his coat in the London train, shivered as he drew the one rug the vehicle contained up round his shoulders.

The road to Howden was broad and smooth, and the car made fine going. But at Howden the main road turned north, and speed on the comparatively inferior cross roads to Ferriby had to be reduced. But Willis was not dissatisfied with their progress when at 9.38, fifty-four minutes after leaving Selby, they pulled up in the Ferriby lane, not far from the distillery and opposite the railway signal cabin.

Having arranged with the driver to run up to the main road, wait there until he heard four blasts on the Girondin's horn, and then make for the syndicate's depot, the inspector dismounted, and forcing his way through the railway fence, crossed the rails and descended the low embankment on the river side. A moment later, just as he reached the shore, the form of a man loomed up dimly through the darkness.

“Who is there?” asked Willis softly.

“Constable Jones, sir,” the figure answered. “Is that Inspector