Death of a Commuter

Case for Three Detectives

Case without a Corpse

Case with No Conclusion

Case with Four Clowns

Case with Ropes and Rings

Case for Sergeant Beef

Cold Blood

At Death's Door

Death of Cold

Death for a Ducat

Dead Man's Shoes

A Louse for the Hangman

Our Jubilee is Death

Jack on the Gallows Tree

Furious Old Women

A Bone and a Hank of Hair

Die All, Die Merrily

Nothing Like Blood

Such is Death

Death in Albert Park

Death at Hallows End

Death on the Black Sands

Death at St Asprey's School

Death on Allhallowe'en

Death on Romney Marsh

Death with Blue Ribbon

Published in 1988 by

Academy Chicago Publishers

213 West Institute Place

Chicago, Illinois 60610

Copyright © Leo Bruce, 1967

Printed and bound in the USA

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bruce, Leo, 1903-1980

Death of a commuter.

I. Title.

PR6005.R673D43  1988        823′.912   88-24194

ISBN 0-89733-326-8 (pbk.)

To

Cameron Rougvie

whose thrillers thrill and

whose mysteries mystify

F
IVE
M
EN
O
CCUPIED
T
HEIR
U
SUAL
P
LACES IN A
F
IRST-CLASS
carriage, but the sixth place was empty.

This seemed to cause some disquiet to those present. One watched the platform, another glanced at his wristwatch. It was clearly an unusual occurrence.

Dogman broke the silence. He was sitting next to the empty place. His check suit and striped tie lacked the restraint evident in the dark suits of the others and no one welcomed his inquiry for it was unusual to exchange remarks until one pipe had been smoked and the newspaper read—about half-way to London. But Dogman, conventional though he might appear to others, had never quite conformed to the etiquette of group commuting.

“I wonder what's happened to Parador,” he said brightly.

Thriver, a wizened solicitor frowned and picked up his paper. He had never approved of Dogman, a bookmaker, and did not know how he had managed to thrust himself into this company. But James Rumble was more polite.

“Overslept, perhaps,” he said gruffly. He was a partner in a large travel agency and considered rather a man of the world.

The brothers Limpole who occupied the other two seats said nothing at all. They never wasted words, or anything else.

The missing man, a certain Felix Parador, was a jaunty near-millionaire in his sixties, generous and popular but full of personal prejudices. It seemed to all of them extraordinary that he should be missing.

Every weekday morning since the end of the summer holiday season the six of them had shared this compartment on the 8.52, the fast city train from the new town of Brenstead. Every morning they had exchanged the same gruff scarcely audible greetings and indulged in a few words of general conversation towards the end of the journey. They knew one another's little ways, how Thriver kept a small velvet pad in his overcoat pocket with which to re-polish his brilliant shoes as they came into London, how the elder Limpole, Charles, would read the paper through then hand it over to Edward to avoid the expense of two newspapers, how James Rumble smoked a pipe and Willy James Dogman a cheroot.

Perhaps if two of them met in Brenstead or in the presence of their wives there might be some chit-chat exchanged, or something as closely personal as an enquiry after health. But not in the morning. Not in that compartment. The nearest they had ever gone towards intimacy was an exchange of comments on last night's television. Felix Parador did
The Times
crossword and made history one morning by asking Thriver to lend him a pencil or pen, accepting it with a silent nod. Yet when one of them was absent they were none of them at ease. Perhaps, though it was probably no more than a missed train, it reminded them of human mortality and the evanescence of their own lives, insisting to each uncomfortably that one morning his seat too, would be empty.

Then an unprecedented thing happened. The sliding door was pushed back and a man entered. He was a strange-looking man, too, dressed in black, with black tie and socks. If he had worn a silk hat he might have been an undertaker. Except for his heavy dark glasses. Undertakers do not wear dark glasses.

At first everyone was too dumbfounded to speak. Intruders
were unheard of here. But when the man prepared to sit down Willy James Dogman found his voice.

“That seat's taken,” he said.

The man had a curiously deep voice which made his words sound impressive.

“He won't be coming,”
he said.

No one pretended any longer to be immersed in his newspaper. But they left it to Dogman to go farther.

“What do you mean?” Dogman asked the intruder.

“Just that.
He won't be coming.”

Damnable to have to listen to someone wearing dark glasses. You can never tell whom, exactly, he's addressing.

“How do
you
know?” asked Dogman.

The intruder hesitated a moment. The question seemed to have baffled him. Then he looked up to see that the train was beginning to move. He nodded towards the platform.

“Well, will he?” he asked.

This left everyone with the uncomfortable feeling that he had meant something else. Somehow one felt that this mysterious man knew who was missing, knew why he was not there, knew where he was.

Dogman bashed on regardless.

“Do you know Mr. Parador?” he asked.

“I didn't know the gentleman's name,” said the intruder.

“But you do now?”

“You've just told me.”

Dogman looked about him at the now preoccupied expressions on the faces of his travelling companions. What more was there to say? he seemed to ask. The intruder drew a folded newspaper from his pocket and began to read. It was the most uncomfortable journey any of them had ever passed.

Fifteen minutes from London, Dogman made an effort to rouse his fellow-travellers to their usual exchange of casual remarks.

“Hear about Hopelady and the bell?” Rev. George Hopelady was the Vicar of Brenstead and famous as a practical joker. “He muffled old Gobler's bell before practice the other night
and the poor old chap was nearly breaking his heart trying to make it chime.” Dogman made expressive gestures. “Pulling away,” he explained.

“Disgraceful. A minister,” said Charles Limpole.

“Oh well. You know Hopelady.”

“I certainly do not. He is not at all the sort of man I should wish to know. A mocking sort of fellow who holds nothing sacred.”

“We don't attend the parish church,” Edward Limpole put in.

There were a few uneasy glances towards the intruder but he took no part in what little conversation there was and when the train came into the great London terminus of Padoria Cross he prepared to leave like the rest of them in silence. Before they had all left the carriage he had melted into the crowd intent on reaching their places of business.

“ ‘Straordinary, that fellow getting into our carriage,” said Thriver to Rumble as they walked towards the platform exit together.

“‘Straordinary,” agreed Rumble and left it at that. With a nod they parted.

Meanwhile Police Officer Brophy, as he insisted on being addressed, was wheeling his bicycle up Downaway Hill towards the Great Ring. This was a beauty spot ten miles from Brenstead which was famous not only in the district but throughout the south of England. Less beautiful than Chanctonbury Ring and less impressive than Stonehenge it still drew many visitors during the summer months to look out over the astonishing coloured map which England seemed to become from its height. The landscape was in some way etherealised from the Great Ring, its blotches wiped out, its pylons inoffensive, its roadside hoardings invisible, its corrugated iron roofs blending with tiled roofs and its bungalows concealed. One could believe England was still an agricultural country.

From the main road up Downaway Hill a narrower road ran to the parking place below the Great Ring. This was enormous but some cunning County Council official had had the wit to
approve plans which made it invisible from the Great Ring itself. Moreover though the concession for a café had been applied for and there had been bitter correspondence in the local paper, no building was allowed and only a movable stall appeared on summer afternoons.

Police Officer Brophy reached the side-turning which led up to the Great Ring and hesitated. It was part of his patrol duties to inspect the car park and the Great Ring itself but he was anxious to reach the top of Downaway Hill where comfort awaited him at the back door of the The Three Thistles. But his conscience won and he made the ascent.

It was as well he did, he reflected later. For in the car park was a car, and in the car was a dead man.

Police Officer Brophy saw the car from a hundred yards away. He saw that it was red and frosted over, looking like a huge frosted cherry. It seemed to have been there for at least the most part of the night. Only when he opened the door beside the driving seat did he get the full shock of surprise because then the body of a middle-aged man, stiff as a poker as he said afterwards, almost fell in his arms.

Police Officer Brophy kept his head. Using considerable strength he pushed the stiff corpse back in its place and slammed the door. His duty was clear. First to inform, then to stand guard over the car until an investigating team should arrive. But to inform he would have to continue on his way to The Three Thistles since there was no other building in the neighbourhood.

It was nearing 10 a.m. when he reached the pub and knocked importantly on the door.

“Can I use your telephone, Mr. Diggs?” he asked, discouraging by the urgency in his manner any immediate offer of hospitality.

Police Officer Brophy knew that unfortunately Sergeant Beckett would be on duty, a man he particularly disliked for what he considered his petty and condescending superiority.

“Police Officer Brophy, here,” he said when he had got through.

“Yes, Brophy, what is it?” said Beckett hurriedly.

“I'm speaking from The Three Thistles public house …”

“Hotel,” put in Mr. Diggs.

“What are you doing there?” asked the sergeant.”