was drawn back and a ticket collector said, ‘Ticket, please.’
Mrs McGillicuddy turned to him with vehemence.
‘A woman has been strangled,’ she said. ‘In a train that has just passed. I saw it.’
The ticket collector looked at her doubtfully.
‘I beg your pardon, madam?’
‘A man strangled a woman! In a train. I saw it—through there.’ She pointed to the window.
The ticket collector looked extremely doubtful.
‘Strangled?’ he said disbelievingly.
‘Yes, strangled! I saw it, I tell you. You must do something at once!’
The ticket collector coughed apologetically.
‘You don’t think, madam, that you may have had a little nap and—er—’ he broke off tactfully.
‘I have had a nap, but if you think this was a dream, you’re quite wrong. I saw it, I tell you.’
The ticket collector’s eyes dropped to the open magazine lying on the seat. On the exposed page was a girl being strangled whilst a man with a revolver threatened the pair from an open doorway.
He said persuasively: ‘Now don’t you think, madam, that you’d been reading an exciting story, and that you just dropped off, and awaking a little confused—’
Mrs McGillicuddy interrupted him.
‘I saw it,’ she said. ‘I was as wide awake as you are. And I looked out of the window into the window of the train alongside, and a man was strangling a woman. And what I want to know is, what are you going to do about it?’
‘Well—madam—’
‘You’re going to do something, I suppose?’
The ticket collector sighed reluctantly and glanced at his watch.
‘We shall be in Brackhampton in exactly seven minutes. I’ll report what you’ve told me. In what direction was the train you mention going?’
‘This direction, of course. You don’t suppose I’d have been able to see this if a train had flashed past going in the other direction?’
The ticket collector looked as though he thought Mrs McGillicuddy was quite capable of seeing anything anywhere as the fancy took her. But he remained polite.
‘You can rely on me, madam,’ he said. ‘I will report your statement. Perhaps I might have your name and address—just in case …’
Mrs McGillicuddy gave him the address where she would be staying for the next few days and her permanent address in Scotland, and he wrote them down. Then he withdrew with the air of a man who has done his duty and dealt successfully with a tiresome member of the travelling public.
Mrs McGillicuddy remained frowning and vaguely unsatisfied. Would the ticket collector report her statement? Or had he just been soothing her down? There were, she supposed vaguely, a lot of elderly women travelling around, fully convinced that they had unmasked communist plots, were in danger of being murdered, saw flying saucers and secret space ships, and reported murders that had never taken place. If the man dismissed her as one of those …
The train was slowing down now, passing over points and running through the bright lights of a large town.
Mrs McGillicuddy opened her handbag, pulled out a receipted bill which was all she could find, wrote a rapid note on the back of it with her ball-pen, put it into a spare envelope that she fortunately happened to have, stuck the envelope down and wrote on it.
The train drew slowly into a crowded platform. The usual ubiquitous Voice was intoning:
‘The train now arriving at Platform 1 is the 5.38 for Milchester, Waverton, Roxeter, and stations to Chadmouth. Passengers for Market Basing take the train now waiting at No. 3 platform. No. 1 bay for stopping train to Carbury.’
Mrs McGillicuddy looked anxiously along the platform. So many passengers and so few porters. Ah, there was one! She hailed him authoritatively.
‘Porter! Please take this at once to the Stationmaster’s office.’
She handed him the envelope, and with it a shilling.
Then, with a sigh, she leaned back. Well, she had done what she could. Her mind lingered with an instant’s regret on the shilling … Sixpence would really have been enough …
Her mind went back to the scene she had witnessed. Horrible, quite horrible … She was a strong-nerved woman, but she shivered. What a strange—what a fantastic thing to happen to her, Elspeth McGillicuddy! If the blind of the carriage had not happened to fly up … But that, of course, was Providence.
Providence had willed that she, Elspeth McGillicuddy, should be a witness of the crime. Her lips set grimly.
Voices shouted, whistles blew, doors were banged shut. The 5.38 drew slowly out of Brackhampton station. An hour and five minutes later it stopped at Milchester.
Mrs McGillicuddy collected her parcels and her suitcase and got out. She peered up and down the platform. Her mind reiterated its former judgment: not enough porters. Such porters as there were seemed to be engaged with mail bags and luggage vans. Passengers nowadays seemed always expected to carry their own cases. Well, she couldn’t carry her suitcase and her umbrella and all her parcels. She would have to wait. In due course she secured a porter.
‘Taxi?’
‘There will be something to meet me, I expect.’
Outside Milchester station, a taxi-driver who had been watching the exit came forward. He spoke in a soft local voice.
‘Is it Mrs McGillicuddy? For St Mary Mead?’
Mrs McGillicuddy acknowledged her identity. The porter was recompensed, adequately if not handsomely. The car, with Mrs McGillicuddy, her suitcase, and her parcels drove off into the night. It was a nine-mile drive. Sitting bolt upright in the car, Mrs McGillicuddy was unable to relax. Her feelings yearned for expression. At last the taxi drove along the familiar village street and finally drew up at its destination; Mrs McGillicuddy got out and walked up the brick path to the door. The driver deposited the cases inside as the door was opened by an elderly maid. Mrs McGillicuddy passed straight through the hall to where, at the open sitting-room door, her hostess awaited her; an elderly frail old lady.
‘Elspeth!’
‘Jane!’
They kissed and, without preamble or circumlocution, Mrs McGillicuddy burst into speech.
‘Oh, Jane!’ she wailed. ‘I’ve just seen a murder!’
True to the precepts handed down to her by her mother and grandmother—to
