The 12.30 from Croydon E-Book

Freeman Wills Crofts

• Herausgeber: Reading Essentials
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

1930s, somewhere over the English Channel: a family from Yorkshire is on the 12.30 flight from Croydon to Paris - but by the time the plane lands, Andrew Crowther, a wealthy retired manufacturer, is already dead... Inspector French shows up on the scene.

Leseprobe

The 12.30 from Croydon

by Freeman Wills Crofts

First published in 1934

This edition published by Reading Essentials

Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

The 12.30 from Croydon

by

Contents

Chapter

Page

I

Andrew Takes the Air

5

II

Charles Considers Finance

20

III

Charles Suggests Accommodations

33

IV

Charles Advocates Matrimony

46

V

Charles Grows Desperate

59

VI

Charles Meets Temptation

72

VII

Charles Sees His Way

85

VIII

Charles Begins His Preparations

95

IX

Charles Completes His Preparations

107

X

Charles Burns His Boats

122

XI

Charles Achieves His Object

133

XII

Charles Becomes a Spectator

149

XIII

Charles Has a Caller

171

XIV

Charles Meets a Criminal

191

XV

Charles Shows the Strong Hand

206

XVI

Charles Assists Justice

219

XVII

Charles Attains Security

231

XVIII

Charles Experiences Panic

246

XIX

Charles Attends Court

258

XX

Charles Endures Despair

276

XXI

Charles Regains Hope

289

XXII

Charles Learns His Fate

306

XXIII

French Begins His Story

318

XXIV

French Completes His Story

333

Chapter IAndrew Takes the Air

Rose Morley was an excited young lady as with her father and grandfather and grandfather’s servant she reached the air station at Victoria. For the first time in her life she was going to fly!

Excitements indeed had followed one another without intermission since last night, when the dreadful news had come that her mother had been knocked down and seriously injured by a taxi in Paris. Rose was staying with a school friend at Thirsk, in Yorkshire. She had gone to bed and almost to sleep, and then Mrs Blessington had come in softly and told her to get up and dress, as her father had come to pay her a late visit. Wonderingly, Rose had obeyed. She had gone down to the drawing-room to find her father there alone. He had smiled at her bravely, but she had seen in a moment that he was really terribly upset. He had explained at once what had happened. That was one thing she did like about daddy: he always treated her as a grown-up and told her the truth about things. Poor mummy had had this accident in Paris and he and grandfather were going over to see her. And wouldn’t she, Rose, like to go with them and see poor mummy, too?

Rose said she would. At first she had been dreadfully distressed at the thought that her mother might be in pain, but then so many thrilling things had happened one after another that these regrets had become dulled. First there had been the run home in the car through the darkness, sitting beside daddy, who drove. Then the getting up again at half-past two in the morning—she had never before been up at such an hour; the coffee and sandwiches in the dining-room, and the long drive in the car to York. She was sleepy in the station, which was horrid, so big and empty and cold. But the train had soon come in and she had had such a delightful little room with a real bed to sleep in. Then daddy had wakened her to say that it was time to get up, and she had found that they were in London. As soon as she had dressed they had gone to an hotel for breakfast. There grandfather had rested till after a while they had had this thrilling drive across Town, and now here was the air station: and she was going to fly!

Now that the crowning excitement of the journey had been reached, all thoughts as to what might lie at its farther end vanished from her mind and she became intent solely on the present. Small wonder! Her outlook was not that of her father and grandfather. She was only ten.

Her father, Peter Morley, was a man of about forty, of medium height, thin, stooped, and a trifle dyspeptic. His face was set in a melancholy cast, as if he had little faith in the good intentions of the goddess of chance. His passion was farming, and when he had married Elsie Crowther they had bought the little estate which for many years he had coveted. Otterton Farm was near Cold Pickerby, where his father-in-law, Andrew Crowther, lived. It had a small but charming old homestead building, an excellent yard and out offices, and just over a hundred acres of good land. Peter’s management was sound and he made a success of the venture: until the slump had come. Now he found himself in the same difficulties as his co-agriculturists. He had a son and daughter: Hugh, a boy of thirteen, who was also away on a visit, and this girl, Rose.

Andrew Crowther, the father of Peter’s wife, Elsie, was a retired manufacturer and a wealthy man. The first impression that he produced on the observer was that of age. He was an old man; old for his years, which were only sixty-five. His hair was snow-white and his face seamed and haggard. For some time he had given up shaving, and now he wore a thin straggling beard and moustache. Always to Peter he suggested Henry Irving as Shylock, with his hooked nose, stooped shoulders and grasping, claw-like fingers. He could somehow be imagined crouching over a fire and holding out his thin hands to the blaze. Up to some five years earlier he had been a personable and well-set-up man, but he had then had a serious illness which had sapped his vitality and all but taken his life. He had pulled through, but he emerged from his sick-room the wreck of his former self. Peter had doubted the wisdom of his undertaking this journey, but Elsie was Andrew Crowther’s only daughter, the only living being indeed of whom he seemed really fond, and he had insisted on coming. His heart was known to be weak, and Peter had rung up his doctor and had him specially examined as to his fitness for the expedition. Of this Dr Gregory had expressed no doubt. All the same Peter watched him anxiously, though to his satisfaction the old man did not so far show signs of fatigue.

The fourth member of the quartet was John Weatherup, Andrew Crowther’s general attendant and butler. He was a thin man of middle height, with a dark saturnine face and a manner expressive of gloom. He had come to Andrew during the latter’s convalescence with excellent qualifications as a male nurse, and when Andrew was as well as he was ever likely to become and no longer required a nurse, Weatherup had taken no notice of the fact, but had stayed on as ‘man’. As an attendant, he was not the person Peter would have chosen, but he appeared to be a success at his job, and could effectively humour his employer.

Peter Morley was eagerly anticipating their arrival at the air station. He had arranged that a telegram with the latest bulletin of his wife’s condition should be sent him there, and his anxiety grew almost painful as they drove across Town. Indeed he could scarcely contain himself till the taxi came to rest, leaping out and hurrying to the office.

As he disappeared two porters in neat blue uniforms came forward.

‘Have you got reserved places?’ one asked.

Weatherup explained that these had been obtained on the previous evening. Thereupon the porters seized the luggage, and to Rose’s intense interest, threw it lightly into a hole in the office wall. She could see the suit-cases departing slowly and mysteriously downwards into the bowels of the earth on a series of metal rollers which stretched away like some unusual kind of flat stairway. But before she could point out the phenomenon to her grandfather, Peter reappeared, waving a buff slip.

‘It’s not so bad as we thought,’ he cried as he came forward. ‘Look at this! Better this morning. Injuries believed superficial. Thank God for that! Great news, Mr Crowther! Splendid, isn’t it, Rose?’ He was so excited that he could scarcely pay the taximan. ‘Great news, great news!’ he continued repeating as they crossed the footpath to the office. ‘We’ll see her in four hours! And she might have been killed!’

The others in their diverse ways expressed their relief and they entered the office. It was a large room, modern as to design and comfortable as to furniture: an office-waiting-room. Along one side was a counter behind which smart young men functioned. Elsewhere were settees on which would-be passengers had disposed themselves. Andrew Crowther joined the latter, while Peter and Rose went up to the counter.

‘Your tickets, please?’

‘You have them,’ Peter explained. ‘I rang up for places last night. Mr Peter Morley.’

The tickets were found to be in order, and then passports were demanded and handed over. ‘You’ll get them back at Croydon,’ explained the smart young man. Then he pointed. ‘Will you stand on the scales—with your handbags, please.’

They were duly weighed in. Rose wanted to know their weights, but as set forth in the Company’s advertisement, a veil is drawn over this intimate matter and the figures repose in the brain of the clerk alone. They were, however, handed a map and booklet of information about the flight. Presently there came the cry: ‘All for Paris, please!’ and with varying degrees of eagerness or indifference everyone began to drift towards the door. Outside the Croydon bus was waiting, they all got in, and it moved slowly off.

The morning had been fine when they left York, but the sky had soon become overcast and now a dismal rain was falling. Though Rose remained immensely excited, her enthusiasm became somewhat damped by the miles of wet streets through which they passed and the drab and dingy buildings which edged them. An uninspiring drive, though as they got nearer Croydon things improved. Here it was not raining, though it was cloudy and threatening to commence at any moment.

At last the aerodrome! Behind the buildings fronting the road Rose could see sheds, a tall square tower, a green field and a glimpse of planes. They swung in through a narrow gate and pulled up at the porch of a large building. Everyone got out. The passengers sorted themselves into groups and passed in through the porch to a large hall. There the passports were returned and they were shepherded by officials to a second door leading out on to the drome.

Now the great moment had come! Here in front of them was the aeroplane. Rose had eyes for nothing else as in a thin stream the passengers emerged on to the concrete on which the great machine was standing, some thirty or forty yards from the building. How huge it looked! Unwieldy too, thought Rose, gazing at the criss-cross struts connecting its wings and its long, slightly curved body. Not in the least like a bird, but still like something she had seen. What was it? She remembered: it was a dragonfly. It was just a huge dragonfly with a specially long head, which projected far forward before the wings like an enormous snout. And those four lumps were its motors, two on each wing, set into the front edge of the wing and each with its great propeller twirling in front of it. And there was its name, painted on its head: H, E, N, G, I, S, T; HENGIST. Hengist and Horsa; she had heard of them, though she wasn’t quite certain who they were.

But there was really no time to look at the strange machine. Halfway between the wings and the tail a door was open in its side, with a flight of steps leading up to it, and before Rose knew where she was, she was climbing up after her father. A step through the doorway and she was in the cabin.

It was just like the bus in which she had so often gone to school, with four seats across it and a narrow corridor down the centre. Her seat was next to the side immediately in front of the door, with her father next to her. Beside her was a window, but she couldn’t see out because the door opened back across it. She therefore looked round the cabin instead.

Her grandfather was just taking his place right in front of her with Weatherup in the seat next to him. There were eighteen seats in the compartment, and in a few seconds every one of them was filled. And Rose knew that a lot more people had got in through another door to the forward cabin in front of the wings. It was to it, she supposed, that that door in the front partition led.

Everyone was settling down, putting handbags on the racks above the windows and getting out papers and magazines. No one seemed to think it at all strange that they were going to fly. How could they, she wondered? However, she supposed they had all done it before.

The door was now shut behind her and she suddenly found that the obstruction was gone from the window and that she could see out. The principal object in the landscape was the lower wing. It seemed simply huge from so close. From it the great criss-crosses went up to the upper wing, which she could see only by bending down and gazing up. Others of these criss-crosses went down to the landing-wheel which had a pneumatic tyre a good deal bigger than her whole body.

At each side of the wheel were large wooden wedges, and now a man came forward and pulled these away. Then an officer in a smart blue uniform made a signal to someone on board. At once the motors began to hum more loudly, and the propeller, which had been flickering, now became a round blur. Suddenly she saw that the ground was moving. They were off!

There was a stain of mud on the great landing-wheel, and fascinated, Rose watched it going round and round. The plane turned to the right, and the air buildings and the small crowd of onlookers swung round backwards and slipped out of sight. Soon they were off the concrete and on to the grass of the field. The machine ran very easily: Rose could feel the motion like that of a car, but there were no bumps. Out in the middle of the drome they slowed down and the plane was turned, to meet the wind, her father explained. Then suddenly the motors roared out loudly. There was a feeling as if an enormous hand had grasped the machine and was pulling it forward. The speed increased so quickly that Rose felt pressed immovably back into her seat. More fascinated than ever she watched the mud stain on the great wheel, going round faster and faster and always faster.

They were now racing across the field with the speed of an express train, the wheel turning so quickly that Rose could scarcely see the mud stain. She watched it breathlessly, her hands clasped with excitement. Then suddenly the wonder happened.

Without feeling anything unusual she saw there was a little space, a few inches, below the great wheel! The space increased. It became a foot, a yard, several yards. They were flying!

‘Oh!’ gasped Rose, delighted and yet just the least little bit afraid.

‘Now we’re off,’ said Peter somewhat unnecessarily, but she scarcely heard him. She was too busy looking down on Croydon. As far as she could see, they were not rising: the ground instead was sinking quickly down from them in some quite inexplicable way. Two or three hundred yards below them Croydon seemed a far prettier place than it had looked on the way from Town. There were hills and hollows and the roads wound about in curves, and there was any amount of green between the houses. From the bus she had only seen streets and shops.

Suddenly her heart shot into her mouth and she gripped the back of the seat in front of her in momentary terror. ‘Hengist’ gave a horrid drop, as the stern of a great ship will slip off a receding wave. It was like a lift of which the rope had broken. Immediately he brought up, as if landing at the bottom of the shaft. Then for a while he was unsteady, swooping up and down quicker than the quickest lift Rose had ever been in. He didn’t pitch or roll, but rose and fell on an even keel. Rose hated it. However, it didn’t last long, and soon he settled down steadily again.

Now a fluffy strip of vapour floated past the window, and almost at once they were in fog. Rose could still see the great wing and its wheel, but the ground was gone. Except for the wing and wheel there was nothing anywhere but pearly grey mist.

‘Fog, daddy,’ she said, disappointed that she could no longer see below.

‘It’s cloud, darling,’ Peter Morley answered. ‘We’ve gone right up into the clouds! What do you think of that?’ He leaned forward. ‘How are you getting on, Mr Crowther? The motion’s not unpleasant?’

‘I’m enjoying it,’ the old man returned. ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever travelled by air and I’m enjoying it. We might as well be in the car.’

‘Yes, it’s pretty steady now and not too noisy. A wonderful improvement on the early machines, when you had to get cotton-wool in your ears, and even then were half deafened.’

‘They said it would be no noisier than a train, and neither is it.’

Rose guessed from her grandfather’s manner that in his quiet way he was just as much excited by the experience as she was. It was not really noisy, she thought; still, there was that tremendous drone of the motors going on so steadily all the time. But after a while she supposed one would get so used to that as scarcely to hear it.

‘See those little dials?’ her father pointed.

There were three, side by side, like three clocks, set into the wall in front, beside the door leading to the other cabin. One indeed was a clock; the others she couldn’t read.

‘Those tell us our height and our speed,’ Peter went on. ‘You see, we are three thousand two hundred feet high and going at one hundred and twenty miles an hour: twice as quick as an express train. You see that, Mr Crowther?’ and he went on to repeat his information.

Rose thought it all very thrilling, but she wished they were out of the cloud. She had wanted to see the sea, and it didn’t look as if she were going to. However, long before she began to feel bored, a new diversion occurred. The attendant came round to know if they were taking lunch.

They all took it. Tiny flaps on the backs of the chairs in front were let down to make tables, and little rings, which came out like the chalk dishes of a billiard table, held their glasses. They had a four-course lunch followed by coffee, all very nice and comfortably served. Rose enjoyed every minute of it, particularly as she could still see nothing from the window but the wing with its attendant hanging wheel and the pearly grey fog.

Lunch was still in progress when she noticed a difference in the appearance of the fog. She couldn’t understand it, but her father explained. They had come out of the cloud and were flying through clear air. Still they could see neither earth nor sun. Layers of cloud stretched both above and below them. Gradually they rose above the lower layer and as they did so its appearance became more and more impressive. It looked solid, like a rolling, hillocky plain, but the hillocks had soft edges like frayed cotton-wool. It stretched away as far as they could see into the distance, its valleys showing dark between its lighter crests. Above them, however, the cloud looked flat and unbroken, like the sky of a wet day on the earth.

Presently it grew lighter ahead and they saw that they were approaching the edge of the upper cloud. From a definite line on the lower cloud the sun was shining. They flew out into the sun. Above, the sky was now blue; below, the hillocks of the vast plain were more intensely white and the valleys between them correspondingly darker.

‘Where are we now?’ Peter Morley asked the attendant, who came to change the plates.

‘Over the Channel, sir.’

Rose was a little disappointed. She had missed that aerial view of England to which she had been looking forward ever since she had heard they were to fly. However, she had seen the clouds from above, and that was something.

Presently she noticed that a large area of the cloud below had darkened in colour. For a moment she gazed at it with a rather listless attention. Then, realizing what it was, she was suddenly thrilled.

‘Daddy, look, look!’ she cried excitedly. ‘Look at the land!’

She was right. There, three thousand two hundred feet below them, was the surface of France. Peter leant forward to see, old Mr Crowther was evidently fascinated, and even the sombre Weatherup showed a grudging interest.

It was indeed a fascinating map upon which they gazed. The land was divided up into little irregular squares like tiny crooked postage stamps in various shades of greens and browns and reds. Feathery green areas obviously represented woods. In all directions ran traces, a perfect network of lines, representing roads and lanes and water-courses. A few were straight or evenly curved, evidently main roads or railways. A darkish worm headed by a tiny white streamer made certain of the nature of one dark line. The houses showed as tiny rectangles and the villages reminded them of the relievo models so often made to illustrate dead cities. Tiny yellow circles, looking about as big as the heads of matches, at first puzzled Rose. Then she saw that they must be haystacks. Some fields had a still more mysterious appearance. They were covered with a pattern of little dots, arranged in lines as if for ornament, like tiny beads sewn on an old-fashioned mitten.

‘What are they, daddy?’ she asked, pointing them out.

Peter Morley was not sure, but suggested cartloads of fertilizer, laid down in the fields but not yet spread.

The most striking thing in the landscape was, however, the shadows. Every object had its shadow stretching away north. The shadow alone showed that objects had height. Every building, every hedge, every embankment had its shadow. Thin clumps of trees, feathery and indeterminate, stood out clearly because of their shadows.

Looking backwards from the other side of the car they were able to get a glimpse of the sea, showing up as a flat plain of dark, slaty blue.

‘That,’ said Peter Morley, who had been studying his map, ‘is the estuary of the Somme. And that,’ he returned to Rose’s window and pointed, ‘that straight dark line is the Nord Railway from Calais and Boulogne to Paris. The town over there is Abbeville.’

Rose gazed down. It was all very thrilling and wonderful. So that queer-looking country was France! To think that all those funny little spaces between the houses were really streets, and that people were in them, too small to be seen! It was like looking on an ant heap from the top of a high building.

‘What’s that white ring, daddy?’ she asked presently, as a circle containing letters showed in the middle of a field far below.

‘Poix,’ Peter answered, again studying his map. ‘It’s an aerodrome, and you could see its name in the circle if we were lower. That’s how the pilots know where to come down.’

Rose was still meditating over this when she noticed that little wisps of cloud were forming far below. Small and widely separated at first, they quickly grew larger and closer together, allowing mere glimpses of the land. Soon even these gaps disappeared and once again they were looking down on a world of rolling cloud. What a pity, she thought, when the view of the country had been so wonderful.

She was interested to notice that her grandfather had gone to sleep. He was leaning back in the corner of his seat with his head against the wall of the car. Asleep! she thought amazedly. Fancy anyone going to sleep in the middle of all this excitement! But old people were like that. They got tired easily. Her father noticed it at the same time.

‘Having a nap, is he?’ he said to Weatherup.

‘Yes, sir. He generally goes off for a few minutes after lunch, so I suppose it’s force of habit.’

‘It won’t do him any harm.’

‘No, sir. This is a good deal for a man of his years and health.’

Just then the attendant came round.

‘We’re landing at Beauvais,’ he told everyone. He did not explain why, but the whisper went round that there was fog in Paris.

Almost immediately Rose felt the plane falling, gently, like an easy lift. The motors still kept on droning as before, but the cloud layer was coming up rapidly. There was nothing unpleasant in the motion, it was so easy and gradual. Presently the motors slackened speed till Rose could see the quivering of the propeller blades. Then they dropped into the cloud and were once more surrounded by opaque whiteness, through which only the wing and wheel were visible.

They fell on and on through the cloud, the motors going on and off more than once. Suddenly they saw the ground. They were close to it now, not more, Peter estimated, than three or four hundred feet up. Once again the motors roared out and they continued flying across the fields at this height.

Expecting as they were to come down to earth at any moment, the flight now seemed endless. But at last Rose could see their objective, a large field with another white ring, this time very big indeed, and containing the word BEAUVAIS in huge letters. Still they kept up, passing nearly over the aerodrome. Now the plane seemed to want to land and made some disconcerting swoops and dives. Then it banked. The wing took up an angle of forty-five degrees with the ground, and they swung slowly round in a great circle. Suddenly they dropped, easily. The ground rushed up to meet them. They were within fifty feet of it, forty, thirty, ten.

The ground had been slipping past pretty quickly, but only now could Rose see their real speed. It seemed tremendous. The ground absolutely dashed past. It was faster than any train she had ever been in.

As they slipped over the edge of the aerodrome they seemed not more than four or five feet up, and almost at once the great wheel touched and began to revolve as it had at Croydon, so quickly that Rose could scarcely see its patch of mud. They were down; down without the slightest shock or sensation of landing! Indeed it was less steady as they taxied across the grass, gradually reducing speed. Then quite slowly they moved up to the aerodrome buildings and—the flight was over!

‘Well, Rose, how did you like that?’ her father queried as he got up and began fumbling for his handbag and coat.

‘Oh, daddy, it was lovely!’ she cried. ‘Lovely! I want to go back this way.’

‘I hope we shall,’ he answered. ‘Will you take your coat?’

She stood up and took the coat, looking at the passengers all doing the same thing. Her grandfather was still asleep and Weatherup bent over him. Then he straightened up and spoke hurriedly to her father.

‘What?’ Peter answered very sharply, glancing at the old man. Immediately he turned to Rose and said quickly: ‘Now, Rose, out with you! Look sharp now; you mustn’t keep everyone waiting.’

Rose was amazed. This wasn’t the way her father usually spoke, and besides she wasn’t keeping anyone waiting. But his face bore an unusual expression, and when she saw it she thought it better not to argue, but to get out at once. He helped her down.

‘Wait there for me,’ he went on. ‘I shan’t be long’, and he climbed quickly back into the plane.

But he was: a long time. All the other passengers had come out and walked off before he reappeared. Then his face was very grave.

‘I’m sorry to say your grandfather has been taken ill,’ he said. ‘We shall have to carry him out of the plane. Will you come over to the office and wait for us there.’

It was not till later that Rose learned that Andrew Crowther had been dead when the plane came to the ground.

Chapter IICharles Considers Finance

Some four weeks before Andrew Crowther’s tragic air journey his nephew Charles Swinburn sat in his leather-covered chair in the head office of the Crowther Electromotor Works at Cold Pickerby gazing unseeingly at a Thorpe Engineering Company’s calendar which adorned the opposite wall of the somewhat dingy room. Above the neatly lettered card headed ‘August’ was a spirited reproduction in bright flat colours and jet shadows of a titanic crane hoisting a Brobdingnagian locomotive over the cliff-like side of a mammoth ship. Yet this spectacular feat did not rivet Charles Swinburn’s attention as it deserved and had been designed to do. In the first place he had seen it every day for nearly eight months, and in the second he had something more pressing to think about.

Something serious surely, to judge by the harassed expression on the man’s face. He was in his early prime: as a matter of fact he had just celebrated his five-and-thirtieth birthday. The skin of his pale oval face was still unmarked by lines of care and his dark hair remained free from grey. Beneath his high, if somewhat narrow, forehead his eyes, sparkling with intelligence, looked out upon the world. Good features these, as was his nose. But there was a falling off in the lower part of his face. His mouth was not firm enough and his jaw was too narrow. The face indeed showed a strange mixture of intellectual power and moral weakness.

Charles Swinburn had cause to look anxious. He had cause to look more than anxious. For he was pondering a very dreadful problem. He was trying desperately to find a way in which, with safety to himself, he could bring about the death of his uncle, Andrew Crowther.

To murder his uncle! That had lately become his obsession. Slowly the desperate circumstances in which he found himself had forced him to the terrible conclusion that if his uncle’s life were not forfeit, he would lose his own.

A fortnight earlier no thought of crime had entered his mind. A fortnight earlier this terrible solution of his difficulties had not even occurred to him. Then, as now, he had sat in his office with an equally harassed expression on his face, but his anxiety had been then the anxiety of an honourable and law-abiding man.

There was good cause for his distress then, as now. Charles Swinburn was suffering from an extremely common complaint, so common indeed as to justify the adjective epidemic. He was in fact hard up. For some months things had been growing steadily worse, and now he was actually in sight of ruin.

He was the sole owner of the works, in the private office of which he was now seated. He manufactured small electromotors for driving low-powered machines from klaxons and gramophones to the more modest forms of machine tools. When he had received the business as a legacy from his father it had been small but flourishing. It was still small, but now its prosperity had departed. With the slump had come a gradual reduction of orders, Charles’s profits had diminished till at last came the unhappy time when he found himself actually at a loss on the week’s work. At first he had made good the deficit from his private account, but as things continued to grow steadily worse he saw that he could not continue to carry the business. His private fortune was practically gone and he was in debt to the bank, and if things did not mend he would be faced with the necessity of closing down.

With an abrupt movement he rose to his feet, and taking a bunch of keys from his pocket, unlocked a safe which stood in the corner of the office. The room was of fair size with two tall windows, facing which was Charles’s table desk, with the usual shaded light, telephone and wicker correspondence baskets. Beside the fireplace stood a deep leather-covered arm-chair, provision both for Charles’s less energetic moments and for his more important clients. More humble callers were accommodated on the small chair before the desk. The furniture was good, but the paint was shabby and the walls required repapering.

Charles took from the safe a locked book bound in black leather, placed it before him on the desk and opened it with a small key. It was his private ledger, of the existence of which neither his confidential clerk nor his manager had any idea. In it were recorded the damning facts which were now giving him so furiously to think. His staff knew that things were in a bad way, but no one but himself had any inkling how serious the position really was.

For some time Charles continued working with the figures in his book, then he was interrupted by a knock at the door. Before calling ‘Come in!’ he slipped the book into a drawer and became immersed in the papers which had been beneath it. A thin elderly man in threadbare black, with a pessimistic expression on his sallow face, entered and stood in a hesitating way before the desk.

‘Well, Gairns?’ said Charles, contriving to banish his depressed expression and to speak cheerily.

James Gairns was the chief of Charles’s clerical staff, nominally confidential clerk, accountant, and general office manager, really Charles’s office boy and general attendant. Charles made a show of consulting him on everything, but he actually did all the important business himself. Gairns was utterly honest and trustworthy and carried out his routine duties efficiently enough, but he had no initiative and could not be trusted with power. With resignation, but an obvious expectation of the worst, he followed Charles’s lead in anything outside the ordinary course. Professionally speaking, he was as old as the works themselves, having been a foundation member of the staff. For ten years he had remained a clerk, then in a moment of mental aberration Charles’s father had promoted him chief, and he had occupied the position ever since, a matter of three-and-twenty years.

‘Well, Gairns?’ said Charles again.

Gairns slowly rubbed the palm of his right hand with the tips of the fingers of his left, a trick which from much repetition had got on Charles’s nerves.

‘I wondered, sir, if you had heard from Brent Magnus Limited lately?’

‘I lunched with Mr Brent yesterday.’

Gairns continued to rub his hands. ‘Oh then, there’ll be nothing in it,’ he went on despondently.

‘Perhaps,’ Charles suggested, ‘you’d tell me what you’re talking about?’ When in Gairns’ company Charles always felt at his mental and moral best.

‘It’s only that I saw Tim Banks.’ This was the Brent Magnus Ltd head clerk. ‘I had occasion to slip round to the bank; about that cheque of Fleet’s: you know, sir?’

‘I know. Yes?’

‘On the way back I met Tim Banks. He was just going into the bank. He stopped and we chatted for a moment.’

‘Well? For goodness’ sake, get on, man!’

Gairns began to rub his hands again. ‘He asked if we’d heard from Mr Brent yet. I said, not so far as I knew. He said, well, we would be hearing soon. I asked what was up and he wouldn’t say; not at first he wouldn’t. But I pressed him and then he gave me the hint. “Mind you,” he said, “I’m only giving you a hint and you don’t know nothing till you hear from Mr Brent.” ’

‘What was the hint?’ Charles demanded patiently.

‘We’ve lost the contract.’ Gairns shook his head sadly.

‘What!’ Charles exclaimed. ‘You don’t say so! Was Banks sure?’

‘He seemed so.’

Charles made a sudden gesture. ‘Damn it all, Gairns, that’s pretty bad news!’

Gairns shook his head hopelessly.

‘What was our tender?’ Charles went on. ‘Seventeen hundred and ten pounds! Good heavens, Gairns, we can’t afford to lose a seventeen hundred pound contract these times. It was going to be a help to us, that contract.’

Charles sprang to his feet and began to pace the room. This was certainly very unexpected and disagreeable news. The firm of Brent Magnus Ltd was an important toy-making concern, employing a large staff. The machines for making the toys were all small, and were operated by an elaborate system of shafting, the driving of which consumed nearly as much power as the machines themselves. The directors had just decided to throw out this shafting and to replace it by a separate electromotor for each machine. They had advertised for tenders for the work, and as the largest motors made by Charles were just big enough, he had tendered. He had cut his price to the last sixpence and had been hopeful of success.

It was a blow, and Charles could not entirely hide the fact. He presently ceased his pacing of the room and threw himself once more into his chair. ‘Sit down a moment, Gairns.’ He pointed to the small chair. ‘We must talk this over.’

Gairns seated himself gingerly on the edge of the chair and sat waiting for what was to come. Here was a difficulty, and it was Charles’s part to meet it and his, Gairns’s, to assist by doing what he was told. The idea of offering a suggestion did not occur to him. It was fortunate for him that he was not called on to do so, for as a matter of fact he had none to offer. Indeed he did not even see that there was anything to discuss. The order was lost. Very regrettable, but there was nothing to be done about it.

Charles, however, had other ideas.

‘I’m afraid, Gairns,’ he began, ‘that this affair will bring up a question which I have been thinking over for some time, and which I’d much rather not mention. Which of those two clerks, Hornby or Sutter, is the better man?’

Gairns slowly rubbed his hand. ‘Hornby or Sutter?’ he repeated. ‘Well, they’re both good young fellows enough, as young fellows go in these days, that is.’

‘I asked you which was the better.’

‘Hornby’s better at the books. His posting’s neat and he doesn’t make mistakes, or not many of them anyhow. But Sutter’s the best man when it comes to handling anything out of the common. If you have a message up town you send Sutter.’

Charles saw that he must get down to it. ‘The reason I ask you is that I’m afraid you’ll have to let one of them go.’

Gairns was appalled. He blinked at his employer. ‘Let one of them go, sir? That wouldn’t be easy with all the work that has to be done.’ He could scarcely believe Charles was in earnest. There had always been the typist, the office boy, and two clerks, and to make so fundamental a change would alter the whole of the established routine.

‘I know it won’t be easy,’ Charles went on. ‘I hate to think of getting rid of either of them, for I know they’re both good men. But I’m afraid we can’t help ourselves. We simply can’t afford to go on as we are doing. We’ve got to save somewhere. You know as well as I do that every firm’s doing it.’

The old man was actually trembling. Charles, who overlooked his annoying little ways in remembering his devoted service, was sorry for him.

‘We can’t help it, James,’ he said kindly. ‘You go off now and think how you’re going to manage with one clerk. There’s less correspondence now than there was and Miss Lillingstone can help with the books. And that boy Maxton can do more than he’s doing. Think which of those two you’d like to keep and let the other go. I don’t want him taken too short. You may give him a month’s notice.’

Charles was a considerate employer and hated turning into the street a man who had served him well. But for some time the dwindling work had been forcing him to the conclusion that the office was overstaffed. The loss of the Brent Magnus job had simply brought the matter to a head.

For Charles had no doubt of the truth of Gairns’s story. He had been afraid of that very thing happening, and he knew that the confidential clerk, Timothy Banks, was a highly reliable man.

When Gairns left the office, the expression of worry and care settled down once again on Charles’s features. This hiding of his troubles from his staff and turning a smiling face to the world was a wearing business. And yet he must go through with it. He had a special reason why no whisper that all was not well in the Crowther Works must get abroad, an overwhelming, all-compelling reason. For Charles Swinburn was in love, desperately, consumingly in love. And he knew that Una Mellor would never marry a poor man.

Six months previously Colonel Mellor had moved to Cold Pickerby, and a week later Charles and Una had met on the golf links. She played a good game and so did he, and the meeting was followed by others. For Charles it was love at first sight. Till then he had been comparatively free from attachments, and now when he caught the fever the attack was correspondingly severe. Una instantly saw what had happened—and laughed at him. But this, instead of cooling him, still further inflamed his passion, till the winning of the tantalizing young woman became the one thing he lived for. After weeks of discouragement he began to think he was making progress, and latterly he had been sure of it. But he knew that the mere suggestion of financial difficulty, not to mention bankruptcy, would remove her as far from his reach as if she lived in the moon.

For some time Charles remained sitting motionless at his desk with bowed head and despondent features. Then with a half-shrug he rose, locked away his book, took his hat and went out.

Though a big Scotsman named Macpherson served him in the nominal capacity of works manager and engineer, Charles was his own manager. The works were his hobby and his baby as well as the source of his income, and he enjoyed pottering about in them and watching what was going on. When work in the office was slack he was to be found ‘down the yard’. When his thoughts in the office became too bitter he would take refuge in the same sanctuary. So it was on the present occasion.

He passed through the store, nodding to the storesman and running his eye along the shelves with their load of wire, castings, bolts, terminals, and spares of all kinds, and in another section the finished motors, stacked according to size and winding. Charles was very proud of his store, with the continuous card indicator system he had introduced by which at a glance the exact amount of everything stocked could be read off. Also it pleased him to see the neat way in which everything was stacked, and he complimented the storesman on his well-swept floor and tidy shelves.

From the store he glanced into the tiny foundry, exchanged a word or two with the solitary pattern maker, and then wandered across the yard to the winding shop. Here the armatures and the field magnets were wound. Charles rather aimlessly stopped before a small machine and stood watching it work.

It was winding a coil with copper wire of the thickness of an extremely fine hair. The fairy-like thread, after coming off its reel, was carried through a bath of insulating varnish, dried in a current of hot air, and wound on the coil, all just as if the machine was a human being. The way the coil was turned to take the successive layers fascinated Charles, and he invariably stopped to watch the operation.

‘One of the distance relays for yon Dalton pit job,’ a voice said presently in deep Scottish tones. ‘A bonny wee machine, that.’

‘I could stand and watch it all day, Sandy,’ Charles admitted.

‘So I’ve obsairved,’ the Scotsman returned dryly.

‘I want to see that relay scheme fitted up and tested before we make too many of them,’ Charles went on, and they began to discuss technicalities.

Alexander Macpherson, after visiting most of the maritime world in the engine-room of a tramp steamer, had suddenly fallen in love with and married a Glasgow girl. Evincing a desire to settle down, he had turned in his extremity to advertisement. The Crowther Electromotor Works, being at that precise time without an engineer, had had recourse to the same medium, with the result that Macpherson became works manager and engineer, to the lasting advantage of both himself and Charles Swinburn.

‘Strictly between ourselves, Sandy,’ Charles said at last, ‘I’ve had a bit of bad news. I hear we’ve lost that Brent Magnus job.’

The engineer stared. ‘Lost it?’ he repeated in surprise. He shook his great head. ‘That’s no’ so good, Mr Charles; no’ so good. We canna afford to lose a job o’ that sort these times. You’re sure of it, I suppose?’

‘Well, Tim Banks told Gairns. He’s usually pretty reliable. I’ve not heard officially.’

‘Oh, aye; Banks is all right. Man, I’m sorry about that. I was counting on yon to keep the big slotter going.’

‘I was counting on it to keep more than the slotter going,’ Charles returned. ‘We’re going to have to reduce, Sandy.’

‘Reduce?’

‘Reduce hands. I’m sorry, but there’s no other way.’

The engineer nodded. ‘I was feared of it. Aye, I’ve seen it coming. And there’s not a man I want rid of. They’re a good crowd.’

‘I know they are, poor devils. I don’t want it any more than you. But we can’t help ourselves.’

They had left the winding shop and were pacing up and down in the yard between the buildings.

‘There’s the alternative of a cut in wages,’ Charles remarked.

‘No good. We hav’na the war-rk. We’ll have to lay some of the fellows off. That Brent Magnus job would ’a’ just saved them.’

‘Well, turn it over in your mind and let me know what you propose. We’ve got to save as much as we can.’

For once Charles found his remaining round of the works buildings irksome. He could not bring himself to watch his men and receive their salutations, knowing that a number of them would be without a job in a few days’ time. He contented himself with a glance through the machine and erecting shops, then returned with a heavy heart to his office. A letter from Brent Magnus Ltd had just come in.

We much regret to inform you that at their meeting yesterday the directors found themselves unable to accept your tender for the proposed alterations to our works, as it was considerably above the lowest.

Charles sighed as he pushed the letter into one of his baskets. That was that.

He felt up against it, and for a few minutes deliberately allowed himself the luxury of day-dreaming. Instantly Una Mellor filled his mind to the exclusion of all else. He dreamed about a Una who was always kind and glad to see him, about a Una who had accepted him, about a Una who had married him! Longingly he pictured Una in his home. What a heaven it would then be! He could see himself returning to it with the feelings of the parched and weary traveller who at last reaches the oasis which had so long eluded him. Una...

Presently he was brought with a jar to earth. There was a knock and Macpherson entered. He closed the door carefully behind him, came over to the desk and sat down without being invited.

‘I’ve been thinking again, Mr Charles,’ he declared. ‘There’s one thing would save us sacking any men, as I believe I’ve mentioned before. If you could raise that wee bittie o’ capital and get those two or three machines, we’d beat the Parkinson crowd. Our costs are about the same as theirs now, and if we had that slotter and the two lathes we could undercut them.’

This was an old question. For several months Macpherson had been advocating replacing three of their present machines with new ones of a more up-to-date pattern. Charles had agreed with him in principle, but had made no move. He didn’t see where the money was to come from.

‘Talk sense, Sandy,’ he said now. ‘Who do you think’s going to put capital into a works like this at the present time? I know all about what the machines would do, but we can’t get them.’

‘They wouldna cost so verra much,’ the engineer persisted. ‘A couple o’ hundred for the slotter and, say, six for the two lathes: less than a thousand altogether, fixing an’ a’.’

‘I doubt if they’d have got us the Brent Magnus job all the same.’

The Scotsman twisted his head sideways to express pitying contempt. ‘Would they no’?’ he retorted witheringly. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘yon’s no’ the only job that’s going. If our costs were a bit lower, we’d have plenty of work.’

‘You may trust me, Sandy. If they can be got, I’ll get them, but I don’t believe there’s the slightest chance.’

Still the engineer waited. ‘Of course,’ he said at last, ‘it’s no’ my business, but ye wouldna think o’ putting that wee droppie in yoursel’? What would a thousand be to a man like you?’

Charles winced. There was a time, not so long ago, when that remark would have been justified. But neither Macpherson nor anyone else, except Charles and his bank manager, knew how many of those thousands had been swallowed up in keeping the business going and how many still remained. He shook his head.

‘I’ve put enough into it,’ he declared. ‘No, Sandy, there’s no way out but what I’ve said. Think over who you can spare and let them go.’ He paused, then went on. ‘Why are you so sure we’d be all right if we had the machines?’

For the first time the Scotsman seemed satisfied. He thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out a bundle of papers.

‘That’s what I came in to show you,’ he said. ‘See here. Here’s the make-up of our tender for that Hull job, total £1,275. But Parkinson’s people got it at £1,250. But if we’d had those machines our figure’d ’a’ been £1,190. See? And here’s another case.’

Charles grew more interested. Their two heads drew together over the table. For half an hour they talked, then Charles, in a different tone, said he’d consider it further.

Just then the one o’clock horn blew. Macpherson nodded and withdrew, and Charles, after locking his safe, put on his hat and followed his workers from the enclosure.

Chapter IIICharles Suggests Accommodations

The Crowther Electromotor Works had been established at the beginning of the century by Charles’s uncle. Andrew Crowther, then a young man of ingenuity, had devised a moving advertisement for the window of the electrical supplies shop in which he was a salesman. His directors were delighted with the idea and had given him leave to have the sign made. Andrew had soon done so, but when he had tried to buy an electromotor of one-twelfth horsepower to operate it, he had had difficulty in obtaining it. At once his keen mind had seen an opening. He was sure there was a latent demand for small motors, a demand which he did not doubt could be developed to respectable proportions. Inquiries in likely directions confirmed his opinion, and he decided to throw up his job and start a small factory. To obtain the necessary technical knowledge, he spent three years on a small salary in an electric works. Then he set himself to overcome his major difficulty—the lack of capital. This he found easier than he had expected. Henry Swinburn had a year or two previously married his sister, and Henry had developed a considerable respect for his brother-in-law’s engineering ability. When he heard Andrew’s scheme, he announced that he was prepared to come in and put up his entire capital. It amounted to less than a thousand, but it sufficed. The two young men took an old shed in a slum in York, fitted it with the minimum of machinery, mostly second-hand, and set to work. Andrew was a mechanical genius, but no business man, while Henry was good at figures and an excellent canvasser. They prospered, adding slowly but steadily to their plant and staff. Soon they took over a couple of additional sheds, bought more machines and increased their personnel to a dozen. Then came the War. At first it looked as if the business would close down and its owners join His Majesty’s forces. But just then the War Office discovered that they required a large number of tiny electromotors in connexion with certain field signalling apparatus, and, looking round, found that those supplied by the Crowther firm were exactly what they wanted. Henceforward for four years there was no shortage of work. The great difficulty of Andrew and Henry was to obtain sufficient plant and labour to complete their orders. They gave up the York sheds and took over a factory at Cold Pickerby, which, with a little alteration, suited their purpose.

In the post-War boom they continued to coin. When it was over Andrew thought he had done enough work and would like to see the world before he died. He therefore retired from the concern, taking with him his entire capital of £190,000. He bought an old house in the neighbourhood, The Moat, went round the world, and then settled down to amuse himself with a number of hobbies, including photography and some rather amateurish attempts at market gardening.

Henry Swinburn continued to carry on the works, now helped by Charles, his only son. Charles had had a good training, having taken a degree in science in Leeds University. In 1927 Henry died, and then Charles came into the property. Mrs Swinburn had died some years earlier, so, as Charles was an only child, he found himself alone in the world. He took a small house, got a man and wife to look after him, and settled down to devote himself to the business. Under his management it had been reasonably prosperous till the world slump had come. Now, as has been said, Charles was faced with bankruptcy.

Leaving the works, Charles turned along the Malton Road till he came to the River Gayle, on which the little town was built. His mind, freed for the moment from business, became filled with its usual preoccupation—Una Mellor. He preferred taking the path along the river bank because it was usually deserted and he could indulge his day-dream with greater ease. In spite of his preoccupation, however, he could not but subconsciously admire the stretch of country presented to him, often as he had seen it. To-day it was looking specially charming, lit up as it was by the rich August sunshine. The little river, narrow and placid, wound here through open country, but a little farther on it entered a belt of trees, through which the crocketed spire of the parish church reached up a pointing finger. To the right of the trees were the jumbled houses of the town, while behind, towards the north-east, the country swept irregularly up to the higher ground of the moors.

Charles passed along the river through the trees till, reaching the church, he turned through its well-kept grounds and found himself in the Mall. Cold Pickerby was a clean and pleasant little town of some eight thousand inhabitants, situated in the triangle at whose corners were Thirsk, Easingwold and Helmsley. Its great glory was Pickerby Castle, a twelfth-century ruin covering the summit of a rocky crag just west of the town, and which, owing to certain peculiarities of construction, was the Mecca of archaeologists from far and near. The town had a sheep market, which once a year converted the streets into dusky rivers of expostulating fauna, a house in which Queen Elizabeth had slept, and an inn which had been an inn when Domesday Book was compiled.

In the Mall was Charles Swinburn’s goal—the Cold Pickerby Club. Here the élite of the town’s business men lunched, and when Charles entered the lounge he was greeted by half a dozen who had already arrived. There was Brent of Brent Magnus Ltd, Witheroe the bank manager, Crosby the solicitor, and Stimpson and Hughes, both owners of large shops. Stimpson was holding forth on some matter of finance.

‘Eight per cent doesn’t sound so bad,’ he was saying, ‘but when you remember that they paid fifteen last year, it puts a different complexion on things.’

‘Who have halved their profits, Stimpson?’ Charles asked as he joined the group.

‘Bender & Truesett. Dividend just announced. Eight per cent.’

‘They’re in good company,’ Witheroe declared. ‘Can anyone tell me a firm whose profits are not down fifty per cent?’

Charles was startled. Here was another blow! Most of such money as remained to him was in Bender & Truesett’s. It was true that his principal was now so small that the loss in actual cash would be but slight, yet in his almost desperate position every little counted.

‘That’s a nasty jar,’ he said as lightly as he could. ‘I’ve got a few shares.’ Witheroe, the bank manager, knew he had shares, and Witheroe, of all people, must not suspect his embarrassment. Not to mention his holding would look worse than admitting the loss.

‘So have I, worse luck,’ declared Crosby. ‘I should have thought Bender & Truesett was about the soundest firm in the north-east.’

‘They’re sound enough,’ Stimpson returned. ‘They’re putting something like seventeen thousand more to reserve than last year. Considering everything, I don’t think that’s so bad.’

As Crosby replied, Charles felt a touch on the arm. Brent beckoned him into a corner.