Murder At Deviation Junction by Andrew Martin Page A

to a little dusty kitchen.
Half a dozen dusty wine glasses in a basket; two cups rested on a short
draining board. I picked one up.
        'Gold
trim,' I said.
        I
knew the design. Best Company china. I'd first come across it at the Station
Hotel, York.
        'Where's
the rest of the service?' I asked Mackenzie, and his cheeks rolled upwards and
outwards as he smiled. 'Tom Coleman's back parlour, shouldn't wonder.'
        'Who's
he?'
        'Whitby
Town stationmaster as was. Took superannuation nine months since. Took himself
off to Cornwall 'n all.'
        'That's
handy,' I said. 'Who else would know about this show?' 'You might try the
traffic department,' said Mackenzie. 'They supplied the Club tickets.'
        'They'd
be seasons, I suppose?'
        'Aye,'
said Mackenzie. 'Whitby-Middlesbrough annual returns. Specials, like.'
        We
were moving along the corridor again.
        Mackenzie
said, 'The Club never had a full complement of members, you know.'
        'The
club cars I've heard of,' I said, 'on the Lancashire and Yorkshire and
the Midland and suchlike - there'd be twenty-five members or so. That amount
was needed before the Company would lay out money for the carriage.'
        'Well,
this club was different,' said Mackenzie.
        You'd
have thought he was the Hon Sec or some such.
         'Richer ,'
he added, after a space. 'Membership never overtopped five.'
        We
were moving along the corridor again, passing two compartments. Inside they
were like a rare sort of First Class accommodation: wood panelling with walnut
trimmings, fancy electroliers bunched up into railway chandeliers. Photographic
views were mounted in glass frames above each of the dozen seats - all the
photographs showed country houses instead of the usual waterfalls or whatnot.
One of the window panes was cracked, and there was a single bootprint on one of
the seats.
        Mackenzie
was shaking his head as we pushed along the corridor. 'It was fitted on to the
morning Whitby-Middlesbrough train,' he said. 'Came back with the evening
Middlesbrough-Whitby.'
        The
corridor now brought us into a saloon: a railway sitting room with two settees
facing each other under another brace of chandeliers. The seats had their backs
to the windows. At either end were more chairs: two rockers facing a third
sofa, and this one with a drop-head, for lying back.
        'You'd
have your glass of wine on your way home from business,' said Mackenzie, 'and
you'd drink it stretched out flat! Bit of all right, wouldn't you say?'
        'But
only one of them could do that,' I said.
        'All
right if you were that one , then -'
        'I
just can't picture the sort of men who might have rode up here waiting on the
platform at Whitby Town every morning,' I said.
        'The
train ran from Whitby,' he said. ' They didn't. Nobody who rode up here
boarded at Whitby as far as I know. They lived at different spots further along
the line.'
        'Where?'
        'Wherever
a good house was to be found. Places around Saltburn.'
        Stone
Farm was near Saltburn. Was this a Club of murderers?
        'They
lived closer to Middlesbrough than to Whitby, then?'
        He
nodded.
        'It's
an hour and a half all the way from Whitby to Middlesbrough. You wouldn't want
to do that every day.'
        'They
all rode every day?'
        He
nodded.
        They
were not gentry, then; not county people but businessmen. They could run to the
smaller sorts of country houses. They'd have carriages and half a dozen
servants apiece, but were still obliged to turn up daily at their place of
business.
        'Who
put the Club together?'
        'Search
me. One of the members?'
        'How
come you know so much about the club yet can't put a name to any of the
members?'
        He
let this go by, saying, 'The one who put the Club together would be the same
bloke who put in for this carriage.'
        'Did
you