The 5.18 Mystery

Contents

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

A MINUTE oF TIME .

A Grrv’s FINGER .

Chapter I Dramatis Personae

AILWAY stations are how you see them. Particularly, perhaps, if the station is Liverpool-street station. To the hurried, harried workers who are poured into it each morning from the north-east of London, and are poured out again without welcome or ceremony into prosaic, soulless offices, Liverpool-street is one of the necessary nightmares of existence, and the original designers did their best to breathe into the terminus an inherent ugliness. One day Epstein may discover in it a perfect subject for his irony. It haunts the final, fast-slipping hours of Sunday night, bursts into hideous fact on Monday morning, and belches its sullen streams of smoke and humanity all the week.

But just as an ugly man may grow noble to those who surprise him in an act of grace, or an ugly woman may be beautiful in the eyes of faith, so even Liverpool-street station can rise on occasions above its gloom, and appear an enchanted spot. It was an enchanted spot to a young man in a light grey suit who 9 alighted from a taxi one August afternoon and walked on air to the booking-office. To him there was no ugliness. (He lived in the north-west of London, travelling to his work by bus.) The porters were not gaolers, but liberators. The smoke was not an oily and tarry vapour mixed with soot, but a film of mystery beyond which lay worlds of wonder and of easy conquest. The engine shrieks were melody. The grubby grey platforms were golden roads of adventure. Even Edgar Wallace on the bookstall, a numb and spiritless sight to those who came every day from the north-east, was a thing of joy to this contented young man who had come, on one day only, from the north-west. Experience, like currency, must be exchanged if we are to fight against our apathy.

There were many obvious reasons why Freddy Reeve was in such a gay humour, and why he did not swear when a little cockney bloke opened a long account with him by accidentally stepping on his toe. (This was the first of many offences that were ultimately to appear in that cockney’s charge sheet.) One reason was that Freddy was drinking the initial draughts of holiday freedom. Another, that he was wearing, for the first time in his life, a suit that had dawned in Savile-row. Another, that the afternoon was exceptionally sunny. Another, that he was responding to a great decision, formulated that morning during the process of shaving.

“Why shouldn’t I go out for a dash of adventure?”

DRAMATIS PERSONAE 11 he had demanded of his lathered face in the mirror. “You know—vreal adventure! The mountain would not go to Mohammed, so what did Mohammed do? He marched up to the bashful mountain, and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to meet!’ To-day I will adopt the Mohammedan principle. I will seek beautiful maidens, and offer them cigarettes. Gold-tipped ones. Russian Teofani. And if I come upon any fire-spouting dragons, I will biff them on the nose. Yes, I, Freddy Reeve, perfect gentleman, and hitherto of no account!”

And so he had set forth, Savile-turned and gold-tipped, to beckon adventure, all unconscious that adventure was beckoning him, also, and was opening an enormous mouth to swallow him up.

His very first act, on alighting from his taxi at Liverpool-street station, was a gesture of his mood. He did not join the lengthy, undistinguished queue that was pressing its way like a congested human snake towards the third-class booking office; he strolled towards the first-class booking office, which had no queue at all, and where ticket-purchasers remained separate individuals. He bought a first-class return to Cromer, paying the considerable sum of 57/10d for it. He pretended successfully that he was quite used to paying such sums for railway tickets, and he asked in a lordly tone what time the train left. Five-eighteen, wasn’t it? Yes, five-eighteen, corroborated the booking clerk, treating him pleasantly as an equal. First-class passengers are never superior to booking clerks; they are merely not inferior. And while all this was going on, a large and expansive gentleman with white spats and gold-rimmed glasses drew up, waited patiently, and ultimately bought a ticket for Sheringham. He watched Freddy’s departing figure with vague interest. The interest of each in the other would have been enormously increased had they known how closely their fates were to be interwoven during the next few hours.

Freddy strolled contentedly away and passed through the barrier of Platform Nine, and it was here that the little cockney bloke trod on his toe.

“Don’t mention,” smiled Freddy.

“Wasn’t goin’ ter,” retorted the cockney, huffily. *“Why doncher look where yer goin’?”

A nasty, cantankerous chap! But Freddy wasn’t going to argue. He shook the cockney off—dismissed him, so he imagined, from his life—and continued his stroll along the glamorous station platform. A porter appeared, a rather sad-eyed, disillusioned fellow who no longer dreamed of retiring on his tips, and offered to find him a seat. But Freddy declined his aid. He was going to find his own seat, and he had made up his mind that it should be an auspicious one. Not a seat beside an elderly business man, for instance, or opposite an old dame with a parrot.

Fortunately he had plenty of time for his selection. The big hand of the large station clock pointed to three minutes past the hour, and the first-class compartments were not yet filling up. So, having completed a prelim-

DRAMATIS PERSONAE 1K)

inary barren tour of the train, he decided to visit a bookstall in order to give the empty compartments a chance to fructify. Freddy, as you shall know in good time, was a reputable fellow, with moral standards somewhat unusual for the age he lived in; but at the moment he was searching for adventure in a frankly blatant fashion, and, although he might not have admitted it in blunt terms, adventure in his present mood stood for an attractive girl who would not discourage modest conversational advances. That the modest conversational advances would lead to any thrillingly human episode was not seriously anticipated. The girl who would attract Freddy was hardly that sort of a girl, and Freddy was hardly that sort of a man. Still, out of pleasant little beginnings, greater things did sometimes arise, and...

“Hallo! There’s that darned little cockney again,” thought Freddy, as he approached the bookstall. “Nobody seems to love him!”

The comment was induced by the attitude of an agitated old lady whom he appeared to have jostled.

“Ts it necessary for you to stick your elbow into me?” demanded the agitated old lady.

“Wot’s that?” replied the cockney bloke.

“Vout elbow!” rasped the lady.

“Wot abart it?’’ retorted the cockney. “It’s mine, ain’t it?”

This argument being irrefutable, the old lady bought a paper quickly and hurried away. The cockney bloke looked after her, and rudely spat.

“Some people think they owns the bloomin’ hearth,” he observed, as he tossed a coin to the newsvendor. “Chuck us the Pink Un!”

As he received the periodical and turned to leave the stall, his eyes fell upon Freddy, and the sight did not render him any the more amiable. Scowling, he mumbled something uncomplimentary, and shuffled off, in the wake of the old lady.

“He thinks ke owns the earth!” remarked the newsvendor.

“Quite a common delusion, when you’ve had a glass too much,” replied Freddy.

And then he acted as though he owned the earth by purchasing half-a-dozen expensive magazines.

Armed with refined reading, he glanced again at the station clock—the big hand had advanced another three minutes—and as he did so an incident occurred that sent him into a ridiculous flutter. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the most beautiful girl in the whole of creation.

Of course, you will not believe this. It is not necessary that you should. The point is that Freddy believed it, and that from this moment his whole outlook on life changed. The value of existence became established in a blinding, illuminating flash. Hitherto, there had always been some doubt about it. The reason

DRAMATIS PERSONAE 15 of existence was explained, together with the object of continuing it. This girl was what he, Freddy Reeve, had been born for. She was also, quite obviously, what Freddy Reeve would be ready to die for ... now someone ran into him, causing him to swing round, and the next moment the most beautiful girl in the whole of creation had vanished.

For an instant, even on this splendid, sunny afternoon, Freddy almost saw red. Why was everybody jostling him? What was the idea? He stared at this latest offender, ready to let loose his most picturesque language. But the man was so gentle and so apologetic that the language died on Freddy’s lips.

“T’m terribly sorry, sir,” said the man. He had just regained a small brown bag he had dropped in the encounter. A very different fellow, this, from the blundering cockney. Bright-eyed, alert, and rather scrupulously neat in a dark brown suit. “I hope I haven’t hurt you?”

“Not at all,” muttered Freddy, refraining with difficulty from the sarcastic comment that he was getting used to it.

“T was running for my train,” proceeded the man in the dark brown suit. “It goes at eighteen past—”

“Well, you’ve ten minutes still to catch it in,” interposed Freddy.

“Ten minutes!” The speaker stared up at the station clock, then took out his watch and quickly replaced it.

“Tm eight minutes fast! I’m afraid, sir, I ran into you all for nothing!”

He smiled and departed. Freddy frowned after him. He would have frowned more had he known that the man’s watch was not fast, but was exactly right.

Dashed nuisance! The girl had disappeared utterly. But while he was sympathising with himself a vein of sanity returned, and he realised that if the girl was not travelling on his train he could hardly stay behind to track her to her lair, whereas if she was travelling on his train—Freddy’s heart gave a little jump at the possibility—he merely had to keep his eyes open and he’d be about to see her again. He walked slowly to the barrier, and watched. He watched in vain. The big hand of the large station clock crawled across the minutes, and a quickening of life on the platform beyond the barrier indicated that the time of departure was nearly due. With a sigh, Freddy passed through the barrier for the second time, and strolled along the waiting train. At the far end, the engine was fretting steam and smoke. He walked two-thirds of the way to the engine. Then, all at once, he paused.

A small knot of people had begun to say good-bye to the occupant of a compartment. It was a first-class compartment. And the occupant had momentarily poked her head out of the open door to make some remark. Freddy recognised the hat immediately.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE 17

“Be good, Lydia!” called one of the group on the platform.

“Don’t forget to send a wire,” called another.

“By Jove, I envy you, Miss Leveridge,” exclaimed a third. “Give my love to the golf links!”

And then Freddy joined the group, murmured, “Excuse me,” caused the group to stand aside, and entered the compartment.

He was conscious of eyes upon him. Not only the eyes of the girl in the compartment, but of her friends outside. But after all, he told himself, he had a perfect right to enter any compartment he liked, and, by a stroke of good fortune, this was the first that had contained only one occupant. All the same, he felt horribly guilty for a few seconds, and made no attempt to meet any of the eyes that were, or seemed to be, covertly watching him.

And then a queer thing happened. A disconcerting thing. The girl suddenly left her seat, and went into the corridor. The corridor was on the side of the train farthest from the platform.

For a moment Freddy interpreted this as a direct snub. She had left the compartment because she did not want his society, and she would not come back again! The sight of her crocodile dressing-case, however, reassured him, as also did the fact that her friends outside made no movement to leave their spot; and, a few seconds afterwards, the girl returned and resumed her seat.

“You are a worry,” cried one of her friends outside. “Didn’t I swear to you they’d put your golf-bag in the corridor?”

A few hours later this remark recurred to Freddy Reeve, and he decided that it was one of the smartest impromptu observations it had ever been his lot to hear.

Chapter II A Minute Of Time

HE big hand of the station clock, crawling callously across the face, pointed to seventeen minutes past the hour. It had crawled round and round for countless hours, and countless weeks, and countless months, and although in its early days it may have experienced some temporal emotion, it had become numbed by now to the business of horology, and cared nothing for the fate of those who depended on it. It moved neither more swiftly for them, to speed a departure, nor more slowly for them, to ensure a departure. It behaved, in fact, in distinct contrast to those who shot anxious glances up at it, frowned at it, smiled at it, or swore at it. Let fools hurry! Time, of which the clock was a minion, knew better than that. It knew that the distance each would travel was already marked, and that such distance would be covered, but never exceeded, through an agency more potent than scurrying feet, or even puffing engines.

The book was written. Even the station clock could not alter one word of it. It merely turned the pages.

But who among those who had boarded the train, 19 and who still had a minute to bask in the dubious joy of Liverpool-street station before the platform began to glide slowly backwards and away from them, would have agreed with the station clock? Do you agree with it? Do I? Certainly a large and expansive gentleman with white spats and gold-rimmed glasses, whose acquaintance we have already briefly made, did not agree with it. Life, to this gentleman, was immensely interesting, immensely varied in its potentialities, and immensely easy (on occasions) to steer. The idea that a prehistoric monkey, missing a branch as it swung from tree to tree and descending on the surprised head of an ichthyosaurus, could have set in motion a train of events that had eventually caused a large and expansive gentleman, without the vestige of a tail, to be sitting in a first-class compartment of a Norfolk express, was a notion against which his entire egotistical soul would have rebelled. “What! Do you mean to tell me,” he would have retorted to the station clock, “that if the monkey had not missed the branch, or if the head of the ichthyosaurus had not been there to catch him, I should be travelling up to Norfolk on a motor-bike?” To which the clock would have responded, “My dear ignoramus, if that monkey hadn’t slipped—and it only slipped because two jelly-fish happened to bump into each other forty million years earlier—you wouldn’t have been travelling anywhere at all. You wouldn’t exist.”

Only, of course, the station clock wouldn’t really

A MINUTE OF TIME 21 have been sufficiently interested to enter into so infantile an argument at all.

So the large and expansive gentleman stared out of his window with amiable belief in himself; and several times he smiled quietly as he stared. For instance, that little cockney bloke—he was quite amusing. Apparently, urged by some cantankerous instinct, or that extra glass he should have refrained from, he was pestering the life out of an agitated old woman. The old woman, it seemed, did not want the cockney bloke in her compartment. He had upset her. And the cockney bloke, on his side, wasn’t going to be dictated to by anybody.

“T got a right to get in where I like,” he barked.

“But this compartment’s full!” retorted the agitated lady.

“Go on! It ain’t,” answered the cockney bloke. “T see a seat, and I’m goin’ ter ’ave it.”

And he shoved his way in.

It was at this point that the large and expansive gentleman gave one of his quiet smiles. A clergyman, sitting opposite, smiled back, encouraging and contributing to the world’s happiness.

Then another little group interested the large and expansive gentleman. Unfortunately he could only see this little group out of the corner of his eye when he turned his head, because he was facing the engine and the little group was standing outside a compartment just a little to the rear. But he knew—for he had noted jus THE 5.18 MYSTERY the group earlier, before taking his seat—that it comprised an exceedingly distinguished-looking gentleman (a gentleman, alas, even more distinguished-looking than himself, despite the white spats), two other men, and a woman. These latter, also, bore an air of social importance.

There had been one other member of the group, a remarkably attractive girl; but she had now entered her compartment, and preliminary good-byes were being exchanged... .

And now a sudden disturbance arose. At the moment, this disturbance merely amused the large and expansive gentleman. It seemed, in truth, to afford him some actual inner satisfaction. But at a later stage of the journey, when his mind reverted to it, the inner satisfaction was not so evident; and the station clock, had it cared to tackle him at this later stage, would have observed, ‘““You see, my dear ignoramus, out of tiny causes come great and startling effects, to confound all our devisings!” ...

The cause of the disturbance was the agitated old woman who, giving way to an attack of nerves, suddenly seized her bags—there appeared to be two or three dozen of them—and jumped out upon the platform. She was literally garbed in small luggage, and even a French porter might have stood and admired. An English porter, however, whose technique was merely a barrow, became almost as agitated as the old lady herself, and sprang towards her.

A MINUTE OF TIME 23

“Tt’s jest goin’, mum!” he cried.

“Find me another seat!” gasped the old woman.

There was a seat two compartments nearer the engine. She scrambled towards it, the porter threw open the door, and she was shoved in.

But that was only the first half of the incident. The second half was to come. It came a moment or two later out of the compartment which the old lady had just vacated. It was the cockney bloke.

“Wot! Ain’t I good enuff fer ’er?” he complained, to the world. “Jest becos’ I ain’t bin ter Heton and ’Arrow and Hoxford and Cambridge, ain’t I good enuff ter sit by anybody?” He stared round, aggressively, for acceptance of the challenge. None came. He decided, therefore, to have a tilt at Life itself.

‘‘Ain’t I?” he shouted. “We'll see!”

And, with only a few seconds to spare, he dived after the old lady and plunged into her sanctuary.

“There seems to be some trouble,” remarked the clergyman to the large and expansive gentleman. He frowned a little, taking it personally, as though Religion were failing.

“Ves—a bit of socialism, I imagine,” answered the large gentleman. “Upon my soul, I don’t know what the country’s coming to!”

There was a tiny pause. The clergyman sought the correct rejoinder, and found it.

“We think too much in terms of politics,” he said gently. “If we devoted a little more attention to the spiritual side of things, there would be only one Party.”

The large gentleman tried not to feel sick.

And then a whistle sounded, the guard waved his green flag, and the 5.18 began to move. While an agitated old lady and a cockney bloke glared at each other. While a large, expansive gentleman and a clergyman smiled at each other. While a pretty girl and a young man glanced covertly at each other.

And while a bright-eyed, alert, and rather scrupulously neat little man in a dark brown suit, with a little brown bag beside him, sat thoughtfully regarding his finger-nails.

Chapter III A Girl’s Finger

UDGED by externals, there is possibly no less romantic stretch in the two hemispheres than that between Liverpool-street station and Stratford. The train traveller is squeezed out of London through a scarred and blackened tube, and if he has no knowledge of the fair lands beyond, all he can do is to hug on to hope. Tunnels, homicidal in atmosphere, derelict platforms, walls with black shadows and black apertures in them, lead dismally through no-man’s land to miles of dejected enterprise. Surely nothing is finished here, nothing completed to stay and hold one! The train is wise to hurry through! The man who started that large brick building may have set out with high ideals—but he gave up. Uncompleted, it stands as the tomb-stone of some despairing historian. Beyond is another building that has been completed. The world would be a little gayer had it not been. Some hopeful fellow was going to make a garden out of that patch of blackened green. Tin cans and cats have captured it. Do people really and truly live in that little hovel by the back windows of which we are passing? The windows are filthy. There is no sign of effort anywhere, nor of the 25 reason for effort. But a pram is in the apology of a garden, symbolizing, even here, the miracle of continuity; and the engine belches derisive smoke at the pram as it passes.

But we make our own worlds, and our moods are actually the trains that convey us from one world to another. To Freddy Reeve, as he sat in his corner, separated by only a foot or two from the most beautiful girl in the universe, this land of tunnels and of torture was enchanted. He was not passing over tracks made by grim men’s sweat, but over a road forged by fairies. What if it was a bit ugly outside the window? That only made this little sanctuary within all the more precious and delightful!

The minutes slipped by. Time went forward, while space went back. Then a sudden, ridiculous panic seized the young man.

“Youre wasting it!” ran through his mind, riotously. “Are you going to sit here, doing nothing, all the journey? Do something! Do something!”

They had passed through Bethnal Green and Bow, however, before he collected himself sufficiently to open the attack. His weapon was almost pathetically simple.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” he enquired.

Fortunately for his request, it was not a smoking carriage.

“Not at all,” answered the girl, promptly. Almost as though she had been expecting the request.

Freddy blinked. It was amazing. It was staggering.

A GIRL’S FINGER 27

Not only was he in a compartment with the most beautiful girl in the world, but also with the most beautiful voice in the world. A low, rich voice. Later on, when he had cooled down a little and was in a mood for analysis, he decided that it was a whisky voice without the whisky. A voice that could make the three words, “Not at all,’ sound more wonderful than a Chopin sonata or a Tschaikowski symphony... .

Of course, Freddy was being an ass. He knew it. But he wasn’t sorry for it. Better an ass with sensation than the Sphinx with none.

He brought out his cigarette-case. A silver one, and not too bad. He had given it a bit of a polish that morning, in order that it should justify the dozen gold-tipped children of Teofani that now resided in it. The gold tips looked a trifle ostentatious, he was afraid. They might need a bit of explaining—when one got to know one better. Meanwhile—well, hang it, they were travelling first-class!

He hesitated for an instant before his next step. Then, deciding that it was quite a natural next step, he looked at the girl enquiringly and held out the case.

“Will you have one?” he asked.

Now she hesitated, and for the first time their eyes met quite directly. Freddy felt as though he were suddenly being bathed in sunlight. No, better than sunlight. Something that penetrated beyond the skin, and caught the soul as well. “Lord, is this happening?” wondered Freddy. He was not taking it to him personally, or building on it. He was just amazed, genuinely amazed, that such a thing could be. The sun does not rise out of the sea for the special glorification of the beholder, but the beholder is glorified. ... He felt abashed, as well as amazed. He felt that he must continue to hold her eyes, quietly and coolly, or give himself away. He hoped there was no perspiration on his forehead. To have to wipe your forehead after being looked at for three seconds by a pretty girl would be a terrible admission of innocence. .. .

Yes, and why was she looking at him like this? Surely there was something personal in her expression? Something queerly enquiring? But perhaps the time merely seemed long to him, and actually .. .

“Thank you,” said the girl. “But not just yet—perhaps a little later.”

As she settled back in her corner, he pondered over the remark. She had not accepted the cigarette, but she had not snubbed him. On the contrary, she had definitely left open the door which he had pushed ajar, and had invited him to renew his own invitation presently. This not only lent promise to the future, but sanctioned the present. Until the future dawned, a permitted, unspoken intimacy could exist between them.

But it was not this alone that intrigued Freddy Reeve as, having used his new lighter (which, amazing thing, worked), he leaned back in his own corner and puffed the best cigarette of his career. Her response, and the manner of it, seemed in some queer, unexplain-

A GIRL’S FINGER 29 able way to fit into that strange scrutiny of hers, that strange enquiry. If it did, had it any important significance beyond his present comprehension? Further, was his present comprehension obtuse?

If it appears that Freddy was revolving these questions somewhat elaborately, it must be remembered that he was at the moment entirely obsessed by his subject, and that nothing else had any consequence in the world. Not even the half-dozen expensive magazines that lay on the seat beside him. But another reason, as well, urged his meticulous enquiry, a reason of which, at this early point, he was scarcely aware.

Subconsciously, it was dawning upon him that the journey of the 5.18 on this particular summer evening was more than personally significant. Had you questioned him about this as the train ran with a rattle through Stratford, he would probably have stared at you blankly. The journey, at Stratford, was only ten minutes old. But tiny little things had happened. Tiny little things that would never be remembered again if they proved to be meaningless, or if their meaning were never revealed, yet which, until they were set aside by time or dealt with by circumstance, raised minute queries at the back of the mind, setting up a small area of irritation like a tickle, or a grain of grit in the eve,

The agitated old woman and the cockney, for example. Quite trivial and unimportant by themselves. Yes, quite an insignificant piece of grit. But, just before the train had started, Freddy had been vaguely conscious of a continuation of the episode the inception of which he had witnessed at the bookstall, and had heard the old woman’s voice raised on the platform, and, afterwards, the cockney bloke’s. And then there was that fellow in the dark brown suit who had blundered into him at a most inconvenient moment, on the pretext that he was hurrying to catch a train that did not leave for ten minutes! Another tiny piece of grit. The encounter might almost have been designed to make Freddy lose sight of the girl! But he had found her again. Here she was, opposite him—though she had jumped up and left the compartment just before the journey began, giving him a nasty jar. . . . Another little piece of grit. . ..

He found himself dwelling on that hurried departure of the girl. He could not say why he dwelt upon it. The thing had been explained. She had gone to see about a piece of luggage. A golf-bag or something. Then why did he harp on the incident? Golf! He played golf, too. He eyed her hands through his cigarette smoke. Without knowing it, he had been eyeing those hands, lying in her lap, for quite awhile. Without knowing it, he was largely being prompted to his present enquiry by those hands. They fascinated him. The fingers were slender, and artistic, and capable. He was sure they could grip you firmly, or be very tender. Yes, he was sure of that. But they worried him, too. They worried him! Why did they worry him?

A GIRL’S FINGER 31

Now, all at once he became definitely conscious of the worry. Was the girl growing conscious of it, too? She stirred ever so slightly, and her eyes, which had been staring out of the window, shifted a little in his direction. Perhaps she had seen him in the glass of the window, through some trick of reflection. In any case, Freddy still stared. And then his heart began to thump. He knew now why those hands had worried him. He had just noticed something about them. The discovery confused him, beat him. Although, of course .. .