Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly by Donald Thomas

not be quite as late arriving in Baker Street tonight as I had supposed.”
    I did not like to suggest that optimism is no substitute for proof.

6
    O ur last inquiry in the village was at mid-morning. Its venue was the old “Rest and Be Thankful” inn, dating from an age when most travellers went on foot—“Shanks Pony” as the term was in my childhood. They toiled up from the foreshore to the height of Boniface Down, where this homely signboard announced a respite.
    As we ducked our heads under the low lintel of the bar parlour and stepped down on to its floor of waxed red tiles, our visitor was waiting, in conversation with the landlady. Samuel Wesley, a grey-haired veteran of the South Coast Railway engine drivers, was not a drinking man. His neat, plain Sunday suit, worn out of courtesy to us, had the discreet badge of a Missionary Fellowship in its buttonhole.
    We shook hands and sat down with nothing stronger than small beer between us. Introductions were brief. Samuel Wesley was, as he said, a lover of truth and straight talk. Attempted suicide was “a terrible thing to say about a young man.” Unlike Reginald Winter, he was reluctant to say it.
    â€œI suppose you might call it that, Mr Holmes, according to what you saw and how your mind works.”
    â€œQuite true, Mr Wesley. And what did you see?”
    â€œNothing at first, sir, for there is a curve in that tunnel and you don’t see the line ahead until you’re almost out of it. It was young Arthur, my fireman. He noticed one of the schoolboys running across close to the embankment, as he might run in a game. Then he was lost sight of as he went under the lee of the bank. I was watching the pressure gauges, which can’t be read very easily in the tunnel for want of light.”
    â€œWhat would your speed be?”
    â€œOh, thirty miles an hour at the most, and I daresay more like twenty-five just there. It isn’t a place for anyone to do away with themselves.”
    â€œBut it is accessible to those with suicide in mind.”
    Mr Wesley took a modest pull at his small beer and shrugged.
    â€œThat’s true, sir. But Arthur suddenly shouted to me, ‘Stop! Brake!’ I had my hand on the lever, and even before I’d seen the boy, I’d given it a darn good pull. It didn’t take half as long to do it as to tell it!”
    â€œAnd the train stopped?”
    â€œNot at once. They don’t stop at once. What you get first, Mr Holmes, is a bit of a jerk. Then she do slide on the rails. And then she do stop with a big jerk and all the passengers is thrown about.”
    â€œAnd when did you first see the boy?”
    Mr Wesley exhaled thoughtfully.
    â€œWith the weight of a train behind you it can take the best part of a hundred yards to come to rest. While she was sliding I saw him standing there on the track, looking straight at us.”
    â€œVery disagreeable for you,” I said sympathetically.
    He looked surprised.
    â€œOh, I never thought we’d hit him, doctor. Not where he was. He’d only to step aside. A hundred yards nearer would have been a different matter, but he could never have got that close. We came right up to him before she was at rest, but he couldn’t have done himself any harm.”
    â€œAnd then?”
    â€œHe got off the line, sir. I think he went after another boy I didn’t see. Down behind the bank, most like. He shouted at someone. I never saw the other. Arthur thought there was one in the linesman’s hut at first.”
    â€œDid you think that the boy who had been on the railway line was afraid of the other boy you never saw?”
    Samuel Wesley thought this amusing and shook his head.
    â€œI did not, Mr Holmes! Your young chap was smallish but in a mood to knock seven bells out of someone. A terrier! Don’t ask me what it was about, though. I got down from the footplate to give ’im a piece of my mind but he ran