Death on the Last Train

By George Bellairs

First published in 1948, Death on the Last Train is a Chief Inspector Littlejohn mystery full of false leads, dead ends and old-fashioned charm.

Detective Inspector Littlejohn of Scotland Yard is travelling to an assignment, exhausted after an arduous journey of delayed connections, when he catches the last train. A murder occurs in his carriage, putting on hold any other plans he may have had. The local police, out of their depth, commandeer the detective to help them solve the case.

Delving into unrequited love, betrayal, and poison pen letters, Littlejohn must pick apart a tangle of grudges. Many men and women seem primed with motives, but which of them has it in them to kill?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Aug 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781448214457

George Bellairs

George Bellairs was the pseudonym of Harold Blundell (1902–1985), an English crime author best known for the creation of Detective-Inspector Thomas Littlejohn. Born in Heywood, near Lancashire, Blundell introduced his famous detective in his first novel, Littlejohn on Leave (1941). A low-key Scotland Yard investigator whose adventures were told in the Golden Age style of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, Littlejohn went on to appear in more than fifty novels, including The Crime at Halfpenny Bridge (1946), Outrage on Gallows Hill (1949), and The Case of the Headless Jesuit (1950). In the 1950s Bellairs relocated to the Isle of Man, a remote island in the Irish Sea, and began writing full time. He continued writing Thomas Littlejohn novels for the rest of his life, taking occasional breaks to write standalone novels, concluding the series with An Old Man Dies (1980).

Book preview

Chapter I

The Last Train

Littlejohn left Euston at nine o’clock in the morning. Bright October sunshine outside and leaking in through gaps in the dark roof.

Change at Willesfield, they told him. The through coach was taken off last week.

He was on his way to Ellinborne in connection with the imminent trial of a forger who had once crossed his path. Mrs. Littlejohn had given him a packet of sandwiches to see him through. Optimistically, he ate the lot at noon and then they ran into fog at Crewe. At nine o’clock the same evening, Littlejohn stood in the waiting room at Willesfield. It was raining like mad. He felt fagged out, for he had hardly slept the night before, owing to an alarm in the small hours.

Next train goes at ten forty-one. It’s in the bay there. You can sit in it if you want.

The bilious-looking porter poked the fire, but rain falling down the chimney had damped it down, and it vomited a final cloud of smoke and soot into the room and then gave up the ghost.

No refreshment room here?

Closed down when war broke out. Nearest place is Willesfield town, mile an’ a nalf along the road …

The porter looked out at the deluge falling beyond the open doorway and gave a malevolent chuckle. Littlejohn made for the waiting train.

Ellinborne lies at the end of a small branch line from Willesfield, through Mereton and Salton. The train consisted of three rickety wooden coaches in disgraceful condition. The three first-class compartments were dirtier than the thirds. The lighting was of the kind introduced at the outbreak of war when a glass globe covering a small bulb in the middle of the roof was blacked all over and then the light allowed cautiously to percolate through a glorified pinhole. The whole sorry contraption was drawn by an aged tank locomotive with steam leaking from every joint.

J. H. loves C. B. Sez you!

Someone had written the declaration on the partition in letters six inches high, and the response was scrawled in a different hand. Littlejohn kept reading it over and over again automatically.

In case of air raids close the windows and pull down the blinds … Don’t leave the compartment. . . Imminent danger: lie on the floor. …

Dreamily Littlejohn pictured a compartment full of them. One on top of another like a rugger scrum and the bottom man grovelling among the trampled fag ends, spit and tobacco ash …

He must have fallen asleep for the next he remembered was a violent tugging and jolting. The train was off. He looked at his watch. 10.41. Right on time. He was hanging hungrily out of the window as the train tottered into Mereton.

There were three porters on the platform waiting to pack up and go home. The lamps on the down line side had already been extinguished and one of the men was expectantly holding a long pole with a hook on the end of it, to repeat the performance on the up line platform as soon as the train was off.

"Mereton, bawled one of the three, and the other two repeated it in different pitches, like a trio of singing waiters starting a song. Salton and Ellinborne Train. … Zon Elbun Dray …"

As if in response, some cattle spending the night in a siding began to moo.

There was no refreshment room at Mereton either, but an old woman sold meat pies, buns and bottles of ginger beer in one corner of the general room. Conscientiously she kept open her shop until the last train had left, and was now packing her market basket with unsold confectionery and stowing the minerals away in a cupboard. One of her legs was shorter than the other, and she wore a surgical boot with a sole six inches thick. Tap-thud-tap-thud … She brought the Inspector two meat pies and a bottle of pop. Littlejohn hung out of the window eating his supper. The pies contained some kind of sausage meat and were very tasty. He brightened up and watched the scene on the station as he ate them.

The station-master had already changed his official jacket for one of shabby grey, and a raincoat, and replaced his peaked cap by a bowler. He had a fat body, a small head, no neck, and trousers extremely narrow in the leg. Like a tadpole. … He regarded with sleepy eyes the crowd on the platform.

There had been a Sunday School outing during the afternoon and the waiting room and platform were littered with the pips and skins of the latest allocation of oranges, as well as food bags and toffee wrappings. Rained off from their country walk the excursionists had settled down on the station until the next train home.

Some members of the Antediluvian Order of Good Samaritans had been paying a fraternal visit to their brethren of the Mereton lodge and wet through, but full of good cheer and poor beer, they were trying to brighten the dismal station with a sentimental song in varying harmonies.

There’s an old mill by the stream, Nelly Dean,

Where we used to sit and deream, Ne … ehly Dean, (Yes, Nelly Dean …)

The vicar of Mereton, the Rev. Marmaduke Ropewalker, B.A., author of that monumental work The Life and Death of Tiglath Pileser, was seeing off his clerical neighbour, the Rev. Bernard Beaglehole, L.Th., of St. Stephen’s, Salton. The latter, a little nondescript fellow with a round red face, a button nose and sandy hair and eyebrows, had been addressing the Mothers’ Union at his colleague’s church and they had afterwards secretly consumed several bottled beers together in Mr. Rope-walker’s study and talked a lot of scandal which their cloth forbade them to turn over to anyone but a fellow vessel of grace. They giggled and twittered and Mr. Beaglehole, inspired by unaccustomed quantities of alcohol, felt rising within him a fount of inspiration for many sermons. He grew eager to get in the train and scribble down a few ideas on an old envelope before they left his mind.

Come again, B.B. Ropewalker was saying. He was fat and shabby, and thinking of the cold pie and another bottle of beer waiting for his supper.

S’been a wonderful evening, M.R., answered his friend, and the noise of the train drowned what followed, which seemed to cause more sniggering and handshaking.

Heat was allowed in the carriages, but the connections leaked copiously and steam poured from beneath and every now and again enveloped the train in a damp white mist, cutting off Littlejohn’s view of the pantomime on the platform. Nobody seemed in a hurry. Littlejohn wondered when he’d get to Ellinborne.

The driver and fireman were Ellinborne men and this was the last trip of their shift. They were eager to be getting off to park their train at the terminus and seek supper and bed. They leaned from the driving cab, one black face above the other, lips red, whites of eyes rolling, like a couple of coons. The engine blew off steam and drowned every other noise.

The train seemed to be waiting for regular customers, for the stationmaster kept an eye on the steps from the bridge across the line down to the platform. At length appeared a man and woman. He was stocky with a short grey beard, anxious bloodshot eyes and shabby clothes which Littlejohn, watching him as he ate his second pie, guessed had sometime been good. His companion was a large blonde, bold, middle-aged, with sumptuous curves and dressed in a fur coat which had seen better days. It was Mr. Timothy Bellis, of Salton, and his lady friend, Miss Bessie Emmott. He clung to her arm and she inclined towards him protectively. At the sight of them the sandy parson turned his head and began to gabble to his friend. Mr. Bellis had, in a manner of speaking, fallen among thieves, so Beaglehole passed by on the other side.

The couple made for Littlejohn’s compartment, but seeing him, changed their minds and chose the empty one next door. Mr. Beaglehole took the remaining non-smoker. The latter bore no indication to that effect, but a small red patch on the window, overlooked by whoever had taken the trouble to scrape off the label, was sufficient for him.

Oi! called the station-master to a group of late-shift munition workers also steering for Littlejohn’s carriage. You haven’t got first-class tickets, ’ave you?

Fust clawse, jeered one of their number. More like cattle trucks. Littlejohn mentally agreed with him. Some vandal had even slashed the upholstery in long, jagged rents and there was a cushion missing. The workmen sought compartments covered by their fares and slammed the doors angrily.

Timothy Bellis seized the handle of the carriage door, winced, and dropped it like a hot coal.

There, there, Littlejohn heard the woman say compassionately. You was forgettin’ it again.

With a quick twist of the wrist she opened the door. She was like a mother protecting her one child. She lowered the window, too, and her companion, entering the compartment, closed the door and leaned to her as she stood on the platform.

The man looked uneasily at Littlejohn and then around him.

Good night, said the woman. Remember what you promised. …

Bellis bent and kissed her.

Good night. I’ll remember.

Tarrant’ll be at the other end to meet you. You’ll be all right.

I’ll be all right, Bess love. Take care of yourself. You’re all I’ve got. …

Littlejohn turned away. What little sordid farce or tragedy lay behind it all?

The singing Samaritans were well under weigh again.

"And the old folks there, they would sit around and listen,

In the eeeevening, by the mooooonlight …"

The guard was scuttering about like a sheepdog rounding up his flock. The station signal showed green and he was anxious to be getting home. He looked at his watch and blew his whistle in a series of short angry blasts.

All aboard! Come on, come on!! Nay, dammit …

The stationmaster raised his hand above his head and, in case the guard should not see it, the porters all did the same, and a number of hangers-on repeated the gesture, too. Whereat the guard, reassured, turned the slide of his lantern to green and waved it about.

Bellis kissed Bessie again. The two parsons exchanged unctuous greetings, calling each other B.B. and M.R. and clasping hands like two swearing a covenant.

There was a commotion on the stairs and loud shouts. The guard put on the brake in his van and the train jerked to a standstill and almost disintegrated with the shock.

Littlejohn saw two men appear helping an inert companion whom they bore like a sack of potatoes down the steps. This was a frequent performance for regular travellers on the 10.55. Harold Claypott being bundled, hopelessly drunk, into the last train. One of the drunkard’s pals gave the guard a shilling. They carried Harold into the luggage van and bedded him down on the mail bags.

Hand him out at Salton, ole man, said one of them, hiccupped, and reeled to join his friend. Together they cakewalked back up the steps.

The guard waved his lamp once more. The wheels of the engine whizzed, whirled, but made no progress. The swearing fireman laboured at the lever controlling the sandbox. Finally, the train slowly moved, gathered speed and vanished gingerly into the night, the rear light feebly glimmering until it was lost in the distance.

The complicated business of getting the last train out of Mereton was over. The stationmaster went home to his meal and bed and the porter crept round the back of his favourite pub to try and dodge in a drink after hours.

Littlejohn dozed again whilst the drama of the last train was played out.

The man in the Mereton station cabin signalled to his mate at the Salton Cutting box that the 10.55 was approaching his block, and back came the answer on the bell accepting the train. The signalman at Salton Cutting pulled-off the home signal which stood outside the Mereton goods-yard to allow the train to enter his section.

Oh, hell! What’s up now? said the fireman on the 10.55. The Cutting signal stood at red. The driver admonished him at the same time skilfully applying his brakes.

No need to be blasphemous about it, said Ted Drake. He was a churchgoing man and very sober and clean in his talk.

Sorry, Ted.

So you oughter be …

I said I was sorry, didn’t I. . .?

All the same, Ted Drake was annoyed by the obstruction, too. He blew three irritated blasts on his whistle. These were shortly followed by the throwing open of a bedroom window of a house in Railway Terrace, Mereton, and the appearance of an angry tousled head.

To hell with you and your whistle! howled the householder, who had just got the baby to sleep after a three hours’ tussle and now had to start all over again.

What’s up? muttered Drake. Can’t be a goods. … Must be a block at Salton station. An’ it’s lamb’sfry for supper, too. The wife works to the timetable and it’ll be spoiled. . .

Mrs. Drake’s brother worked at the abbatoirs and kept them liberally supplied with offal. They fed on the inner organs of beasts every night when Ted got home. If it wasn’t fried brains, it was stuffed heart; and if it wasn’t stuffed heart, it was sweetbreads or black puddings. Ted stamped impatiently on the footplate and his mate began disconsolately to feed the fire again.

The man in the Cutting cabin peered into the night for the 10.55.

What’s up? he asked the signalling apparatus and then made for the telephone in the corner.

’as the 10.55 left yet, Joe? he asked the Mereton Station box.

Aye. Should be past you now. . .

Hasn’t turned up. Not even in sight. Wonder what …?

Thought I heard ’im whistlin’ …

Come to think of it, so did I …

I’ll send a man from the sidin’ to have a look-see.

The guard anticipated the ganger from Mereton, however. He climbed down to the permanent way and walked to the engine.

Funny, he called to the driver. Distant signal was off. Wonder what’s up … ’ere, wot’s this?

He had been shining his lamp at the base of the signal and his startled exclamation brought Drake ponderously down from the footplate.

The wire from the Cutting box had been disconnected from the counterweight at the base of the signal, thus leaving it set at danger. But lest the lack of weight should arouse the signalman’s suspicions when he pulled-off, a bunch of metal fish-plates, used for joining the rails, had been taken from a nearby pile and attached to the wire.

Them blasted kids again, swore the guard. When they’re not tearing th’ upholstery or chuckin’ lamp bulbs through the winders, they’re in mischief on th’ line. They’ll be an accident one of these days. . . Train wreckin’, now. Well, it’s the war. Got out o’ control, that’s wot they ’ave. Better draw up slowly to the Cuttin’ box, Ted.

Littlejohn heard all the commotion in a semi-doze. The halting of the train, the shouting voices, the tramping feet outside. He had gone through so much of it since he left Euston—was it yesterday or last week? He was impervious to the worst they could do. The dim light of the compartment and his own physical weariness filled him with a sad lethargy. The journey would end somewhere, some time.

There was a loud popping noise, like the bursting of a steam pipe—or was it a revolver shot? Littlejohn sat upright. Steam was oozing from beneath the seats. It must have been the apparatus giving up the ghost entirely.

The train began slowly to move again.

Guard and driver had mounted once more and the clanking contraption crawled painfully to the cabin, where, after a shouted consultation, the signalman give them the all-clear to Salton.

Salton station was cold and desolate, and the remaining staff bad tempered.

Where’ve you been? snarled the stationmaster as the train staggered to a standstill.

Ted Drake explained, not too graciously.

Well, I’ll be damned! said the official. "What next?