Death of a Stranger - Anne Perry [157]
“Excuse me! Excuse me!” he cried more sharply. They parted for him.
One caught at his sleeve. “What’s wrong?” he said anxiously, feeling the carriage pitching from side to side.
“Nothing!” Monk lied. “Excuse me!” He jerked free and went on forward, Baltimore on his heels now.
Then Dundas had been accused of the fraud, and Monk had forgotten about brakes in the fear and dismay of trying to prove his innocence. But there was too much evidence, carefully placed. Dundas was tried, convicted, sent to prison.
Less than a month later there had been the crash . . . a day exactly like this one, another train roaring through the peace of the countryside, belching steam and sparks, blindly careering toward a death of mangled steel and blood and flames.
Monk had realized it all, but it was too late to do anything but save what he could out of the pieces, and stop Baltimore from doing it again. Dundas had been more than willing to give everything he owned to stop it.
That was it! The last piece falling into place, sickeningly, making Monk halt where he stood at the end of the carriage behind the engine. Baltimore, a step behind, knocked against him and all but drove the air out of his lungs.
He had not known it at the time he had handed the money to Baltimore to bribe the enquiry, he had known it afterwards, when it could not be undone. It was not to protect Dundas’s reputation, or the Baltimore company, although that mattered, a thousand men and their families. Nolan Baltimore had said he would implicate Monk in the faulty brakes. It had been his signature on the banking forms that had provided the money for their development. It had been to save Monk that Dundas had been prepared to sacrifice everything he had left.
As he lunged forward, forced open the carriage door against the onrushing air and stepped out onto the narrow ledge at the side, clinging to the door frame, it was more than the wind, the steam and the smuts that stung his skin and his eyes, it was an agony of memory, a sacrifice, a loss, the price of his own escape from ruin and prison as well.
He turned to see how far he had to inch along the carriage until he could scramble onto the plates that connected the carriage to the coal wagon and the engine.
Baltimore was screaming something behind him.
By then Dundas had understood what the price was. He might even have felt the jail fever in his bones and known he would die there. Certainly he knew the hatred of the injured and the bereaved after the crash. Blame for it would have destroyed any man, dogged him for the rest of his life. Poverty was a small price in comparison. Perhaps he trusted that his wife would have borne that lightly compared with Monk’s ruin. He might even have discussed it with her.
Maybe that was why she had smiled even as she wept for him when she told Monk of his death.
He must move. The train was still increasing speed. If his hand slipped, if he lost his hold on the door frame, he would be dead in seconds. He must not look down. The countryside was a blur, like something seen through a rain-smeared window.
He started to inch along, moving his hands then his feet. It was not far to the front of the carriage, two yards maybe, but they were the longest two yards on earth.
There was no time to delay, no time to think. He put one hand along as far as he dared, and stretched his foot to grip. He let go with the other hand and jerked his body forward. The carriage swayed and he slipped, and grasped again. He almost fell onto the footplate behind the coal wagon, the sweat breaking out on his body until his clothes were cold and wet against his skin.
He turned to see Baltimore teetering on the edge, white with terror, and shot out his hand to haul him in. Baltimore’s knees crumpled and he sank down onto the plate.
The noise was indescribable. Monk gestured toward the coal wagon.
Baltimore clambered to his feet, waving his hands.
“He’ll never hear us!” he shouted desperately. His hair flying,