11 - Ticket to Oblivion Read Online Free

Moreton-in-Marsh. The station was opened in 1853.’
    ‘I can live quite happily without that information, sir.’
    ‘Knowledge is power, Victor.’
    ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ grumbled Leeming.
    ‘Travel is an education in itself.’
    ‘That’s the main reason I prefer to stay in London.’
    ‘Doesn’t this investigation appeal to you in any way?’
    ‘Not when it involves spending hours on the railway.’
    ‘A real challenge confronts us,’ said Colbeck, enthusiastically, ‘and it’s one that’s brimming with interest. In the course of a non-stop train journey of just under sixty miles, two young women disappear as if in a puff of smoke. Surely that fact excites your curiosity?
    Leeming grimaced. ‘To be honest, sir, it doesn’t.’
    ‘Why not, may I ask?’
    ‘It’s because we both know how this investigation will end.’
    ‘Do we?’ Colbeck was surprised. ‘Please enlighten me.’
    ‘Those women must have left the train while it was travelling at speed,’ said Leeming. ‘It’s only a matter of time before their dead bodies are found in the bushes somewhere along the line.’
    ‘Are you suggesting that they had a bizarre suicide pact?’
    ‘No, sir – I believe that they fell out by accident.’
    ‘In that case, the entire train must have been occupied by blind passengers. Evidently, they were also deaf. As the two women tumbled out of their carriage, nobody managed to see them or hear their terrified screams. And then there’s the guard,’ added Colbeck. ‘He’s paid to keep his eyes peeled for anything untoward.’ He pursed his lips. ‘I’m sorry, Victor. Your theory doesn’t hold water.’
    Leeming was hurt. ‘What do
you
think happened?’
    ‘I prefer to keep an open mind. Strange things happen on the OWWR. It’s no wonder my father-in-law calls it the Old Worse and Worse. But then, of course, he’s biased. Until he retired, he drove locomotives for the LNWR and looks with disdain on rival companies. In his view,’ Colbeck went on, ‘the OWWR had a fatal defect.’
    ‘What was that, sir?’
    ‘In its early stages, Brunel was heavily involved.’
    ‘Mr Andrews has no time for Brunel, does he?’
    ‘Let’s just say that he’s yet to recognise Brunel’s undoubted genius. I suspect that you’d agree with him on that score, Victor.’
    ‘People who build railways have ruined this country,’ asserted Leeming.
    ‘I see them as far-sighted men who are pioneers of progress. The day will come when their achievement is fullyappreciated. Admittedly,’ said Colbeck, ‘the development of the railway system has attracted its fair share of rogues, men like George Hudson who sought to exploit it for his own ends and who was involved in all manner of financial malpractice. It remains to be seen if Sir Marcus Burnhope views railways as a priceless national asset or merely as a source of personal income.’
    ‘Why do you say that, sir?’
    ‘Read these telegraphs, Victor,’ said the other, extracting them from an inside pocket. Leeming took them and studied each one. ‘What do you notice about them?’
    ‘They tell us very little about his missing daughter,’ noted Leeming.
    ‘But they reveal something important about Sir Marcus himself.’
    ‘Do they?’
    ‘He’s very frugal with words until we reach his name. Then he feels obliged – in all three cases – to state that he’s on the board of directors of the OWWR.’ Colbeck gave a questioning smile. ‘What sort of man does that?’

CHAPTER THREE
    Dominic Vaughan had been wrong about the Beckford sisters. Of the two, he’d found Cassandra infinitely more patient, intelligent yet submissive and therefore far more suitable as the wife of a husband drawn to the groves of academe. It was not that he thought Paulina unattractive. On the contrary, he willingly conceded that, in purely physical terms, she was unequalled but it was a glaring beauty that unnerved instead of enticed him. Paulina also had a patrician