Bones in London - Edgar Wallace [70]
“Easy as shelling peas, dear old thing,” he said, “and this time I’m going to show you just how she can go.”
“Old Joe don’t let her go more than quarter speed,” said the diminutive stoker warningly.
“Blow old Joe!” said Bones severely. “He’s a joilly unenterprising old engine-driver. That’s why the naughty old line doesn’t pay. The idea of running ‘Mary Louisa’ at quarter speed!”
He turned to the girl for approval, but she felt that, in the circumstances and with only the haziest knowledge of engineering, it would be wiser to offer no opinion.
Bones pushed the lever a little farther over, and the “Mary Louisa” reeled under the shock.
“In re knighthood, dear old miss,” said Bones confidentially. His words came jerkily, because the footplate of an outraged locomotive pounding forward at an unaccustomed speed was not a good foundation for continued eloquence. “Rendering the jolly old country a service – helping the Cabinet – dear old Chenney awfully fond of me–”
“Aren’t we going rather fast?” said the girl, gripping the side of the cab for support.
“Not at all,” jerked Bones, “not at all. I am going to show ’em just how this–”
He felt a touch on his arm, and looked down at the diminutive stoker.
“There’s a lot of sand round here,” said the melancholy child; “it won’t hurt you to jump. I’m going to.”
“Jump!” gasped Bones. “What do you mean? Hey! Don’t do that, you silly young–”
But his black-visaged assistant was already poised on the step of the engine, and Bones, looking back, saw him performing somersaults down a sandy slope. Bones looked at the girl in amazement.
“Suicide, dear old miss!” he said in an awed voice. “Terrible.”
“Isn’t that a station?” said the girl, more interested for the moment in her own future.
Bones peered through the windows ahead.
“That’s the junction, dear old thing,” he said. “This is where we stop her.”
He tugged at the lever, but the lever was not to be moved. He tugged desperately, but it seemed the steel bar was riveted in position. The “Mary Louisa” was leaping along at an incredible speed, and less than five hundred yards away was the dead-end of the Bayham platform, into which the Lynhaven train was due to run.
Bones went white and looked at the girl with fearful eyes. He took a swift scrutiny to the left and right, but they had passed out of the sandy country, and any attempt to leave the train now would mean certain destruction.
The Right Honourable Mr Parkinson Chenney had concluded a very satisfactory morning’s work of inspection at Tolness, and had secured all the information he needed to answer any question which might be put to him in Parliament by the best-informed of questioners.
He was lunching with the officers of the small garrison, when a telephone message was brought to him. He read it and smiled.
“Good!” he said. “Gentlemen, I am afraid I have to leave you a little earlier than I expected. Colonel Wraggle, will you see that my special train is ready! I must leave in ten minutes. The Chinese Commission has arrived,” he said impressively, “or, rather, it arrives in London this afternoon, and I am deputed by the Prime Minister–”
He explained to his respectful audience just what part he had played in securing Chinese Coal Concessions. He made a little speech on the immense value to the Empire in particular and the world in general of these new coalfields which had been secured to the country through the acumen, genius, forethought, and patriotic disinterestedness of the Cabinet.
He would not claim to set any particular merit on his own action, and went on to claim it. By which time his train was ready. It was indeed vital that he should be in London to meet a commission which had shown such reluctance to trade with foreign devils, and had been, moreover, so punctilious in its demand for ceremonious receptions, but he had not the slightest doubt about his ability to reach London before the boat train arrived. He had two and a half