Death of a Frightened Editor Read online

  By the time of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction in the 1920s and 30s, railways had become a popular milieu, not only for murders but also as a means of creating alibis for suspects, with train timetables and ticket forgeries featuring prominently. Railway settings were often used in their novels by such authors as Freeman Wills Crofts (a former railway engineer), John Rhode, Lynn Brock, and of course Agatha Christie who apart from Murder on the Orient Express wrote several other mysteries in which trains and railways played an important part, The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928), where an American heiress is found strangled on Le Train Bleu bound for the French Riviera, The ABC Murders (1936) in which a copy of the eponymous ABC Railway Guide is found alongside the victims, and 4.50 from Paddington (1957), where a murder is seen to take place on the eponymous train. Some other mysteries from the Golden Age era where the crime takes place during a train journey are: The Two Tickets Puzzle (1930) by J.J. Connington, where a man is found shot dead on the 10.35 local train from Horston, and railway tickets play a key role in the murder story; Death in the Tunnel (1936) by Miles Burton, where the murder of a man in a railway carriage whilst the train is stopped in a tunnel seems impossible; The Wheel Spins (1936) (a.k.a. The Lady Vanishes) by Ethel Lina White, made into the famous Alfred Hitchcock thriller film; Southern Electric Murder (1938) by F.J. Whaley, which has the body of a man who has been shot discovered in the compartment of a train as it pulls into Worthing Station; and The Singing Sands (1952), Josephine Tey’s posthumously published last novel, which starts with the author’s Inspector Grant being on the spot when a dead man is found in a railway sleeping-car compartment as the train is about to arrive at its destination; the story demonstrates the ease with which it is possible to commit a murder on a train and leave unnoticed. Further afield, US writer Todd Downing set his richly atmospheric murder story Vultures in the Sky (1935) aboard a train journeying from Laredo to Mexico City; and in Obelists En Route (1934) by C. Daly King, a famous banker is found dead in a swimming pool aboard a super luxury express train making its first trip non-stop from New York to San Francisco.

  Poisoning by strychnine is a particularly horrible and painful death, causing extreme rigidity of the body and face, as with Alexis Mortensen’s death. Before the Golden Age of Detective Fiction strychnine was rarely used as a murder method in literature. Two early examples are Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), which has two murders committed using strychnine, and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novel The Sign of Four (1890), where someone is murdered with a poison dart, Dr Watson confirming that strychnine had been used. The first Golden Age of Detection novel to feature a poisoning by strychnine is Agatha Christie’s debut The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). The poison also featured in her short stories ‘The Coming of Mr Quin’ and ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’. The author’s experience working as a dispenser during the First World War meant that her knowledge of medicine and chemistry was put to good use in her novels, with more than thirty murders or attempted murders by poison in her books.

  John Dickson Carr often used strychnine poisoning as a murder method in his Golden Age novels. A young boy dies from eating chocolates laced with strychnine in The Black Spectacles (1939). And writing as Carter Dickson, in The Plague Court Murders (1935), two women are poisoned with strychnine but recover. In The Magic Lantern Murders (1936), two men are murdered with this poison. In The White Priory Murders (1935), a man collapses in a bar after eating a chocolate laced with a small amount of strychnine, but recovers after being taken to a nearby nursing home. Another US authored crime novel of the period, The Tragedy of Y (1932) by Ellery Queen writing as Barnaby Ross, features a graphically described scene in which a 14-year old boy drinks an egg-nog poisoned with strychnine but recovers after being made to vomit.

  Belton Cobb was a British Golden Age author whose particular forte was murder by poison—arsenic, morphine and strychnine being prevalent amongst his frequent novels on this theme. Poison (or similar) features in the titles of at least six of his novels. The stronger early titles include No Alibi and The Poisoner’s Mistake (both 1936), Like a Guilty Thing (1938), Inspector Burmann’s Busiest Day and Death Defies the Doctor (both 1939). In Fatal Dose (1937), a guest at a seaside guest house is poisoned with strychnine: His later title Stolen Strychnine (1949) starts with the theft of a doctor’s car containing strychnine and the abduction of a child from a nursery school; the book is mentioned in Bitter Nemesis: The Intimate History of Strychnine (2007) by John Buckingham.

  Nigel Moss

  1

  Alexis Mortensen, Editor and proprietor of Society, which was a scurrilous rag-bag of gossip and pictures, rose from his chair in the first-class Pullman coach of the 5.20 Victoria to Brighton train, and walked through the open doorway into the corridor.

  And none of the remaining occupants noticed that he had left them until after Death, travelling at 60 miles an hour, had reached out for him . . .

  Until Mrs. Freda Harrison, plump and fifty-ish, with a man’s sense of humour, glanced up at a sudden break in one of Sam Mackie’s nightly tall stories and asked in a startled voice: “Where’s Mr. Mortensen?”

  Only his Maker knew the answer then, and the manner of his going; only after long seeking did Scotland Yard, too, find the way of it: and uncovered a story so incredible as to outrage fiction and produce the most grotesque file ever to be housed in the cabinets of the Yard.

  But during those weeks a handful of upright men walked in their pasts: pasts they had thought hidden and done with; walked desperately and in fear.

  Death was singularly incongruous in his mise en scène: among eight people, a companionage, lounging at tables set out with silver beneath rose-shaded lights, with convivial drinks of many colours circulating. A scene of bon viveur rather than a coup de la mort. Yet, it was there amid bursts of laughter and light badinage that

  Death came prancing . . .

  came a’dancing.

  with never so much as a hint of his coming.

  The eight were a strangely heterogeneous company. In addition to Mortensen who was to die, there was Marriott Edgar, a dreary personality with a boring ‘I’d take a risk’ bon-mot seemingly brought away with him from his occupation; he was general manager of an insurance office. He shared a table with Mortensen. There was William Phillips, stockbroker, wealthy and now ponderous in movement, his prowess on the Rugby field far behind him, and Mrs. Freda Harrison, 56, steel-eyed, with the air of having cleaved a way through her years, and now helping ‘fallen women’ to find a new life. There was Alfred Starmer, manager of the share-buying department of a great bank, a rotund little man known as ‘Robin Redbreast’ not only from the customary red waistcoat which he wore, but because of his habit of laying his head on one side when speaking and twinkling his small beady eyes that were never still. Then, there was Edwin Crispin, crime reporter on a London morning paper, ‘The Sun’, the least prosperous of the eight. Finally, there were the elegant Thomas Betterton with his cravat, tiepin and watch-chain as meticulously arranged as were the instruments before those operations which had gained for him a reputation among Harley Street surgeons, and, as an odd table companion, Sam Mackie, loud-check suited, over-fat and jolly, a Cockney, better known in racing circles as Honest Sam. A bookmaker, of course.

  All were known to each other. They had travelled in the same coach, indeed in the same seats five nights a week for many months. The Pullman, in fact assumed proportions of a travelling club in which conversation was mutual and general, and drinks were stood round by round. On occasions when one of the eight had an engagement in Town, or was delayed in getting to the station, the available seat was seized upon by a predatory traveller. But usually there were the same eight, inseparably bound together for the space of one hour every evening from Monday to Friday—as they were on this evening of Friday, October 11.

  It was one of those October evenings in which England specialises, a sudden chilly entr’acte between warm, sunshiny days of an
Indian Summer, a grim reminder that Winter was only a stone’s throw away. The sky was grey-blue and heavy and a nippy wind chilled the air. The fact was evidenced by a smear of mist on the window-panes as the outside air struck the glass warm inside from the atmosphere of the Pullman. Somebody rubbed a finger over a pane and peeked out. Clapham Junction flashed by; five minutes had been sufficient to cloud the windows.

  But there was nothing chilly inside. If anything the atmosphere had more of warmth than customary, a fact which had its genesis, probably from the day—Friday being the last day of the working week to all except Mackie, who usually had three race meetings on a Saturday instead of one. White-jacketed stewards bustled in and out with trays, the butt of good-humoured raillery.

  “What about Sam’s whisky and soda, Steward? His tongue’s hanging out.”

  “Are you waiting to get to Brighton to catch those sardines?”

  “Coming, sir, at once.”

  “Supposing I bought a thousand Ashanti’s, Starmer . . . ?”

  “You’d lose your money”—that was Phillips replying.

  “Put a tenner on Asterisk, cock—but not with me”; this from Mackie. “I can’t afford to lose money.” A sarcastic laugh greeted the complaint. “It’s the tax on me cigars, cock.” Afterwards, memory recalled the exact activities of each of the eight at the moment when tragedy began its path.

  Betterton was almost through a plate of sardines on toast. Mackie was finishing his first whisky and soda and calling for a second. Edgar had pushed away his plate after a frugal fare of tea and buttered toast. Crispin was toying with a glass of beer. Only Mortensen and Mrs. Harrison had empty covers.

  Mortensen had finished his meal of mixed grill before the train started. The plates had been cleared away, and he had placed on the table his bottle of Bismuth tablets, which was a standing joke in the car, but also a free-for-all. Reeves, the chief steward, had turned to Mrs. Harrison.

  “Your usual pot of tea, ma’am?” he asked.

  “Please, steward. And have you any chicken sandwiches this trip?”

  At that, Mackie had exploded in a roar of laughter that shook the car.

  The train sped on. It was creeping up to sixty miles an hour.

  2

  Mackie had laughed till the tears ran down his purpled face. It took him a minute or so to regain his composure. He apologised to Mrs. Harrison.

  “Sorry, lady,” he announced. “But it was the chicken sangwiches (that is how he pronounced it) as done it.” He leaned forward, and eyed his fellow passengers. “Chicken sangwiches wuz me speciality during the war,” he announced.

  The company waited with anticipatory grins. When Sam Mackie roared with mirth there was usually a story in the background; and Sam being what he was the story was bound to be entertaining.

  “That’s all right, Sam,” Mrs Harrison retorted. “But I shall insist you tell us the story.”

  Mackie produced two cigars eight inches long, passed one over to Betterton, bit off the end of his own and with studied deliberation, while he peered at his company from cupped hands, lit and puffed it into a glow. He settled himself comfortably. The four at the further end of the car edged their chairs sideways and leaned forward to hear.

  “Now, one day,” Sam began, “a geezer what’s called Legs Lieman on account of his legs bein’ so short they only just reaches the ground, comes to me and says: ‘Sam, does you want ter make some ghelt?’

  “Did I want ter make some money? Me? Wot with the war and no racing to speak of, I was dipping into me capital. So I nods. He says as how he’s got a ’orse wots running in blinkers and can’t see proper on account of the lack of a few nicker.”

  Mackie paused, perhaps to give the company a chance to work out the idiom. He took a couple of puffs at his cigar. “It seems,” he continued, “that this ’ere horse was a hobo name of Enrico Tiberti, him being an Eyetalian losing his job as a waiter on account of bein’ rumbled cookin’ the customers’ bills, and now has a barrer with a lid on it, which same he pushes down to Hammersmith Broadway and sells coffee and sangwidges.”

  “Didn’t seem much in my line,” Mackie said, and patted his stomach. “Can you see me—ME—shuvvin’ a barrer full of cups and bread?” He broke off to acknowledge the chuckles—they couldn’t but they would have liked to. “I says so, but Legs was kinda insistent, so I goes to Hammersmith. Sure enough there was the barrer and little Enrico shuvvin’ orf sangwidges at one and a tanner a time to a starvin’ population faster’n us bookies hands out tickets on the favourite we knows ain’t goin’ to win.

  “‘For the love of Mike what do you put in ’em—gold?’ I says to Enrico when there was a lull in the queue. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Chicken. It’s me speciality’; and he puts up a scheme which means we’re goin’ to open bars all over London selling chicken sangwiches. He couldn’t do it himself because he reckoned it would cost five hundred nicker capital, and he hadn’t got five hundred shillings. Well, to cut a long story short I goes in with him. We opens up sangwidges bars in the West End and we advertises chicken sangwidges at two bob a time . . .”

  “I remember them well,” Starmer broke in. “I used to send a messenger for them from the bank for my lunch. A customer of yours you see.”

  Mackie rumbled in his interior. The reason for the rumble became apparent later. “Them sangwidges was the biggest winner I ever had in me life. And I’ve had some in me time. There was Airborne in the Derby, and . . .”

  “Never mind that, Sam?” Betterton protested. “Stick to the sandwiches.”

  “Well, they gets a name. They becomes famous, see. First restaurants wanted to buy ’em in lots. Then hotels and clubs wanted ’em. No word of a lie we had orders for hundreds and hundreds of them chicken sangwidges. We gets to chargin’ two bob a time wholesale, and we wuz working on £500 a day.”

  “Where the devil did you get the chickens in wartime?” Phillips put the question. “Dammit, we couldn’t get a chicken for love nor money, and you’d have to pay black market price for them anyway.”

  Sam laughed again—for a minute. He wiped his streaming tears away with a repulsive-looking red silk handkerchief. Then he paused, and re-lit his cigar. He was a good actor and knew how to time his stories. For no apparent reason he switched his subject. “Did you know as you couldn’t sell billygoats during the war?” he asked. “Nannies, yes. You could sell ’em for four or five quid apiece, cos of the milk. But not billies. You could buy all the billies you liked for five bob a time, and damn glad the owners were to get rid of ’em. Me and me pal has an old stable and a bit o’ ground out Pinner way—that’s in Middlesex. And we starts a bit of farmin’. We ’as a cow and a few pigs. An’ billygoats. We gets a vet to doctor the billies. I reckon you all knows what happens to a tomcat that’s been doctored—askin’ your pardon, lady (this to Mrs. Harrison). They grows twice as big as normal. But, Gawd save us, a billygoat’s ten times worse when he’s treated. If you feeds him well—”

  Mrs. Harrison waved her hands in front of Sam Mackie’s face. “You exasperating man! To the devil with your farm and blasted goats. What about those chicken sandwiches?”

  Six faces looked at Mackie from the chairs, and three more from the doorway; the two stewards and the cook, a momentary lull in their work, were listening.

  And Death had taken his first step.

  “We killed the ruddy goats and got damn near a hundredweight of chicken orf’n every one.” Sam sat back and enjoyed the faces he could see.

  “What!” the ejaculation from six throats sounded like one.

  “Never had a chicken in the place.”

  “And you got away with it?” asked Starmer, who had bought the sandwiches.

  “Sure enough. Listen. You can’t tell goat from chicken not in a sangwidge, anyway. It looks lovely white meat when it’s cut proper. It looks like chicken, and it tastes like chicken. I’ll lay you ten to one in quids as I’ll serve you with goat and chicken and you don’t pick out the chicken twice runnin
g. Any takers?” There weren’t.

  “That wuz Enrico’s idea. He’d known all about it in Eye-tally. It seems as the Eye-talians had served chicken that way to tourists for years and years. Little Enrico’s father ran a restaurant in Naples.”

  Betterton was eyeing Mackie searchingly. “Tell me, Sam,” he said, “is this just a good story, or a true one?”

  “Cut me throat if I tells a lie,” Sam protested. “It happened.”

  “I’ll believe you. Only thing that made me wonder is why the deuce you went off a paying racket like that?” Two loud bangs from the corridor interrupted any reply from Mackie. The unexpectedness and the thud of them jerked the heads of the Pullman’s passengers and spilled their cigarettes and cigars on the tables. The two stewards vanished from the doorway.

  “Why the devil do the fools want to bang empty crates about like that?” Starmer asked, querulously.

  “I expect they’re changing them over in the doorway from the side of the train which comes up on the Brighton platform,” Crispin said. “I don’t know why the devil they have the crates piled in the vestibule at all. Why don’t they keep them in the kitchen or store?”

  Betterton returned to Mackie’s story. “Why on earth did you give up the racket, Sam?”

  “Billygoats ran out, Doc. Besides with the war over there were more chickens about, and more meat, too.” He spoke regretfully.