Murder At Deviation Junction Read Online Free PDF Page B

before. The line now went the seaward side of
the bank rather than the landward side. A short stretch of the old line
remained as part of stationmaster Crystal's empire: Deviation Junction.
        The
cabin was soundly built, and there were three roof beams at a good height for
hanging. Toppled over on the floor of the shelter was an old wooden chair. Had
the man stepped on to it while fixing the rope, and then kicked it away? There
was a mix-up of rusted tools, railway line catches and clips and baulks of
timber on the floor. The body had lain amid this stuff, having fallen away from
the noose when the rot set in. It was a queer kind of comfort to know that a
man could not remain hanged for ever.
        On my
return to the station, a loco had run up light engine from Saltburn to take
away the snow gang. Every man had stood on the footplate, most with beer
bottles in hand.
        It
was now three-thirty a.m. I closed the doors that gave on to the platform, and
poked the fire in the little room that made shift as the Stone Farm booking
hall. Through the ticket window, I could see Crystal counting coppers in the
ticket office, attending to the business he'd been kept from by the arrival of
our train. The body was in there with him, stretched on a table top, and
muffled in the blanket. Those bones were Crystal's property, and he growled
like a dog if anyone came near. This didn't bother me overmuch: I'd sent two
telegrams from the signal box - one to the Middlesbrough office of the railway
police, one to the local force, whose nearest office was at Loftus, five miles
down the line. And I'd kept my hands on the length of rope and the camera.
Nothing would happen until morning, and I had no desire to be at close quarters
with Paul Peters in the meantime.
        That
was the fellow's name. I'd had it from Steve Bowman, who'd also decided to stay
at Stone Farm. After seeing the body, and chucking up on the platform, he'd
seemed in a great state of nervous tension, wandering about in a daze. He'd
said it was the shock of realising that he'd known the dead man; and it was
certainly a strange turn-up - far too strange to be explained by coincidence,
in my view.
        Bowman
had got sensible at about midnight, though - which was about when he'd been
able to lay his hands on some strong waters. He'd then found his tongue, and
told his story to Crystal and myself.
        Peters
was a photographer. He'd been sent north with Bowman this time last year to
tour interesting spots on the North Eastern Railway and get articles from it.
They'd put up at the Zetland Hotel in Saltburn for a week in order to look at
the easterly parts of the Company's territory. It had been snowing heavily then
as now. Peters had kept going off on his own, taking the train at all hours
over the Middlesbrough—Whitby stretch. Night photography, weird railway scenes
in the half-light or strange weather—it was the coming thing, and he was a
demon at it. Peters was a young lad, barely seventeen, and Bowman had known he
ought to accompany him. It had troubled his conscience at the time, and was
doing so with compound interest just now.
        'There'll
be an investigation of some sort, I take it?' Bowman said, from the
booking-hall bench. He would keep asking that.
        'It'll
go to the coroner,' I said, for the umpteenth time. 'But what I want to know
is: why wasn't more of a fuss made when he went missing?'
        Bowman
kept silence, taking another go on a beer bottle. He'd been doing excellent
justice to a crate of John Smith's - a consignment without a label - that
Crystal had given over in exchange for the pair of us staying out of his way. I
could see Crystal now through the ticket window. Having got the gist of
Bowman's story - which seemed to have fairly bored him - he'd retreated to his
desk and begun counting coppers.
        'It
wouldn't do for the magazine to give the impression it didn't know where its
own men were,' Bowman said at