Beware of the Trains Read Online Free PDF Page B

own throat with the ragged blade of a pocket-knife in a lonely part of the moors. To the authorities he was still no better than an anonymous suicide; so that when Fen, after a brief scrutiny of the shrunken, waxy face, was able to announce that this was in fact the stranger with whom he had recently talked in the hotel bar at Belmouth, and whose touched-up photograph, issued by the police, he had seen in that morning’s papers, Superintendent Best heaved a sigh of relief.
    “That’s something, sir, anyway,” he said. “It gives us a starting-point, at least—and there’s things in that conversation you had with him that’ll narrow it down quite a lot. So if you wouldn’t mind coming back to the station straight away, and making a formal statement…”
    Fen nodded assent. “No other reaction so far? To the photograph, I mean?”
    “Not yet. There’s almost always a bit of a time-lag, you know.”
    “Ah,” said Fen affirmatively; and his eyes strayed to the shrouded occupant of the further table. “Who’s that?” he demanded.
    “Chap called Edgar Foley. Drowning case. They picked him out of the water yesterday, and his widow’s coming along this morning to have a look at him.” Best consulted his watch. “And talking of that, I think it’d be a good thing if we were to clear out before they—”
    But he was too late; and he was destined to reflect, later, that it was just as well he had been too late-for if Fen had never set eyes on the widow of Edgar Foley, the topic of Foley’s death might well have lapsed, and in that case an unusually mean and contemptible crime would probably have gone unpunished. For the moment, however, Best was merely embarrassed, since the room possessed only one door, and with the arrival of the newcomers his retreat was cut off. He moved back against the wall, therefore, waiting; and with Fen at his side was witness to what followed.
    A Sergeant, helmet under oxter, led the way; he stood aside, holding the door, until his two companions had entered. Inevitably. it was the smaller of the two, the man, who claimed attention first, for this was an imbecile in the technical sense, of the word, an ament-flat-topped skull, decaying teeth, abnormal ears, tiny eyes, coarse skin; well below average height, but with long ape-like arms, muscularly well-developed. The age—as so often with these tragic parodies of humanity—it was impossible to guess at; but you could see the terror mastering that feeble, inarticulate brain, and you could hear the whimpering as the deformed head moved from side to side… Suddenly, with a sort of howl, the idiot turned and bolted from the room at a shambling run. And the woman who was with him said hesitantly to the Sergeant: “Shall I…?”
    “He’ll be all right, ma’am, will he?”
    “‘Im’ll wait outside,” she said. ‘Won’t get run over nor nothing.”
    Well, my orders were, he wasn’t to be forced to do it if he didn’t want. So long as he’s safe…”
    “Yes, he’s safe,” she said. ‘He won’t go away from where I am.”
    And without so much as a glance at Fen or Best she moved forward to where the body of her husband lay. She was perhaps thirty-five, Fen saw: an uneducated country-woman with an impassive, slow-moving dignity of her own. Straight black hair was drawn back to a coil at the nape of her neck; her skin was very thick and smooth, ivory-complexioned; she wore no make-up of any kind. Her black coat and skirt were cheap and shabby, and her legs were bare; and because she was not dressed to attract, you overlooked, at first, the matronly shapeliness of her. She was calm, now, to the point almost of dullness; when the Sergeant drew back the sheet from the face of the man she had married her expression never altered.
    “That’s ‘im,” she said emotionlessly. “That’s Foley.”
    It was dispassionate and quite final. Replacing the sheet, the Sergeant ushered her out. And Fen, who had been unconsciously holding