sometimes avoid being sent round the houses into the York goods station.
It was one of the new eight coupled engines that had brought it in, and the driver was leaning down looking along the platform. He moved slowly, with a tea bottle in his hands; that was his privilege after all he'd done since Hull. But the porters attending the train moved fast, rolling back the tall doors on the guard's van, taking down the fish boxes consigned for York. There was much shouting, and spilling of ice on to the platform, and mixing up of fish boxes, portmanteaus, and passengers.
The train gave off coldness; the engine heat. I stood next to the engine, and the driver gazed down at me with a look of curiosity - it was quite clear who he was, but who was I? He took off his cap, as if to scratch his head over the matter and it was just as though the hair went with it: he was quite bald, but that did not signify. I watched and waited, thinking about my last days in Halifax, as he ran round his train, then pulled it away south again, tender end first. A hundred yards beyond the station one high signal among dozens moved for his train, while a single porter remained on Platform Four, kicking ice down on to the tracks.
I would have given fortunes to be that driver.
Chapter Seven
It was bitter cold, and still raining as I walked over to the bike stand with my head down, revolving a new thought about the Camerons. I'd had a run-in with them, and been seen about it. The barmaid at the Institute was a watchful sort, and knew my name. It might come up in the investigation. A thought checked me: I might be suspected of having done it. That would be about right, for in becoming a policeman I wasn't really doing a job so much as working out a punishment.
I walked on, thinking that if the Camerons were all they'd seemed, there'd likely be a long queue of suspects ahead of me. One had worked in the goods yard, and there'd been crimes in the goods yard. He was the second Company man to meet a violent end. The first had been Mariner, the night porter at the hotel, whose throat had been slit - by him or others. The Station Hotel was our territory, but the cinder path by the goods yard . . . Well, it seemed to me that ought to be ours as well, for not much happened on that path that didn't have something to do with the movement of goods on the railway.
I had been ordered to keep away from the station in daylight hours, and I wondered whether that included the Lost Luggage Office. At any rate, I meant to collect my missing bag once again, if it hadn't been nicked. I also wanted for some reason to set eyes on the mysterious Lund again. I looked up towards the bike stand, and my portmanteau was there, not three feet from the back wheel of the Humber. A quarter of a minute slowly dragged itself out as I stood there in the rain staring at it. It couldn't have been there at 5.55 when I'd arrived. I'd have run straight into it. Then again I'd been in a tearing hurry, so might have missed it. I looked inside: the magazines were all there, the top one a little damp. I picked up the bag, and heard a smooth Yorkshire voice saying, 'The first article is described as a brown canvas bag, about three foot in length, corded, with "Nursing Sister Harper" printed on it in white letters. It contains a bed, one black mackintosh sheet, a pair of rubber boots, one rubber pillow, one ordinary pillow, one wash basin and one collapsible basin.'
It was the assistant Stationmaster, protected from the wind and the rain by his long black coat, and his silk topper. He was holding some papers, and reading from them for the benefit of Parkinson, the morngy lost-luggage superintendent, who wore his overcoat and bowler, and carried an umbrella, which he was fighting to keep still in the wind. He was looking sidelong as the assistant Stationmaster addressed him.
'I will have the porter make a special search, sir,' he said.
'See that you do,' said the assistant
It was one of the new eight coupled engines that had brought it in, and the driver was leaning down looking along the platform. He moved slowly, with a tea bottle in his hands; that was his privilege after all he'd done since Hull. But the porters attending the train moved fast, rolling back the tall doors on the guard's van, taking down the fish boxes consigned for York. There was much shouting, and spilling of ice on to the platform, and mixing up of fish boxes, portmanteaus, and passengers.
The train gave off coldness; the engine heat. I stood next to the engine, and the driver gazed down at me with a look of curiosity - it was quite clear who he was, but who was I? He took off his cap, as if to scratch his head over the matter and it was just as though the hair went with it: he was quite bald, but that did not signify. I watched and waited, thinking about my last days in Halifax, as he ran round his train, then pulled it away south again, tender end first. A hundred yards beyond the station one high signal among dozens moved for his train, while a single porter remained on Platform Four, kicking ice down on to the tracks.
I would have given fortunes to be that driver.
Chapter Seven
It was bitter cold, and still raining as I walked over to the bike stand with my head down, revolving a new thought about the Camerons. I'd had a run-in with them, and been seen about it. The barmaid at the Institute was a watchful sort, and knew my name. It might come up in the investigation. A thought checked me: I might be suspected of having done it. That would be about right, for in becoming a policeman I wasn't really doing a job so much as working out a punishment.
I walked on, thinking that if the Camerons were all they'd seemed, there'd likely be a long queue of suspects ahead of me. One had worked in the goods yard, and there'd been crimes in the goods yard. He was the second Company man to meet a violent end. The first had been Mariner, the night porter at the hotel, whose throat had been slit - by him or others. The Station Hotel was our territory, but the cinder path by the goods yard . . . Well, it seemed to me that ought to be ours as well, for not much happened on that path that didn't have something to do with the movement of goods on the railway.
I had been ordered to keep away from the station in daylight hours, and I wondered whether that included the Lost Luggage Office. At any rate, I meant to collect my missing bag once again, if it hadn't been nicked. I also wanted for some reason to set eyes on the mysterious Lund again. I looked up towards the bike stand, and my portmanteau was there, not three feet from the back wheel of the Humber. A quarter of a minute slowly dragged itself out as I stood there in the rain staring at it. It couldn't have been there at 5.55 when I'd arrived. I'd have run straight into it. Then again I'd been in a tearing hurry, so might have missed it. I looked inside: the magazines were all there, the top one a little damp. I picked up the bag, and heard a smooth Yorkshire voice saying, 'The first article is described as a brown canvas bag, about three foot in length, corded, with "Nursing Sister Harper" printed on it in white letters. It contains a bed, one black mackintosh sheet, a pair of rubber boots, one rubber pillow, one ordinary pillow, one wash basin and one collapsible basin.'
It was the assistant Stationmaster, protected from the wind and the rain by his long black coat, and his silk topper. He was holding some papers, and reading from them for the benefit of Parkinson, the morngy lost-luggage superintendent, who wore his overcoat and bowler, and carried an umbrella, which he was fighting to keep still in the wind. He was looking sidelong as the assistant Stationmaster addressed him.
'I will have the porter make a special search, sir,' he said.
'See that you do,' said the assistant
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