William Monk 13 - Death of a Stranger

his fault . . . it was your father’s. And now you’re going to do the same—unless you stop this train.”
    Baltimore shook his head more fiercely, his eyes wild, his voice high-pitched. “But we’re supplying those brakes all over India! There’s tens of thousands of pounds of orders!” he protested.
    “Recall them!” Monk shouted at him. “But first tell the driver to stop this bloody train before the brakes fail and we come off the viaduct!”
    “Will . . . will they?” Baltimore said hoarsely. “They worked perfectly well when we tested them. I’m not a fool.”
    “They only fail on an incline, with a certain load,” Monk told him, shards of memory falling into place more vividly every moment. He could remember this same feeling of urgency before, the same rattle of wheels over the rail ties, the roar of movement, steel on steel, the knowledge of disaster ahead.
    “Most of the time they’re excellent,” he went on. “But when the weight and the speed get above a certain level and with a curve in the track, then they don’t hold. This is a far heavier train than usual, and there’s exactly such a place just before the viaduct ahead. We can’t be far from it now. Don’t stand there, for God’s sake! Go and tell the driver to slow up, then stop! Go on!”
    “I don’t believe it. . . .” It was a protest, and a lie. It was clear in Baltimore’s frantic eyes and dry lips.
    The train was already gathering speed. They were finding it harder to stand upright, even though Baltimore had his back against the carriage wall.
    “Are you sure enough of that to risk your life?” Monk asked, his voice ruthless. “I’m not. I’m going, with or without you.” And he backed away, almost losing his balance as he turned and started towards the other compartments and the front of the carriage next to the engine.
    Baltimore jerked around and plunged after him.
    Monk charged through the next compartment, scattering the few company men along for the inaugural ride. They were too startled to block his way.
    He felt a wild exhilaration unlike anything he had known in years. He could remember! Dreadful as some of the memory was, filled with pain and grief, with helplessness and the knowledge that Dundas was innocent and he had not saved him, it was no longer confusion. It was as clear as the reality of the moment. He had failed Dundas, but he had not betrayed him. He had been honest. He knew that, not from evidence or from other people’s word, but from his own mind.
    He was in the next compartment, pushing through the men, who were angry at his intrusion. The train, hurtling through the countryside toward the incline and the single track of the viaduct, brought back the time before when he had been on that other train, as if it had all been only weeks ago. He remembered Dundas telling him how he had tried to persuade Nolan Baltimore to wait, test the brakes more carefully, and Baltimore had refused. There was no proof, only Dundas’s fear.
    “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