Her face was ashen, Margaret saw. But she’d already told enough. The woman was shivering and leaning into Coulton’s arms and he set her aside, just as if she were a sack of potatoes, and he drew his Colt Peacemaker from the pocket of his chesterfield and rolled his burly shoulders and went in. Margaret was right behind him. But this compartment, too, was as good as empty: a pincushion, stitching thrown in a panic underfoot, a half-eaten green apple rolling around under the window. Coulton tore off his bowler and leaned his head far out the window and squinted into the wind, then twisted to peer back the other way.
“Well?” demanded Margaret. She was furious with herself. She’d done everything she could think of to stop this from happening a second time.
“Bugger’s gone,” Coulton shouted, his face still in the wind. He leaned back in. “Right off the train, looks like. Could be he fell. Or jumped.”
“He didn’t jump,” she said. “He’s still on board.”
Coulton checked the chambers of his revolver, snapped it shut. “All right” was all he said. He reached for his bowler. Then he paused.
“Say it,” she said bitterly. “Go on. Tell me I should’ve listened to you.”
He shook his head. “This ain’t your fault, Margaret.”
But she just scowled and held out a gloved hand and took the weapon from him. She turned it sidelong, expertly, and sighted down the barrel. “I brought him on board,” she said. “So, yes. It is.”
When she opened the door she saw all the disgruntled faces gathered now in the corridor, mostly gentlemen in silk hats, holding out handkerchiefs to the woman. A conductor was pushing his way through, demanding to know what was going on.
She turned back to Coulton, put a gloved hand on his wrist. “You make sure the children are safe. If he’s after anyone, it’s them.”
Coulton nodded. “And you?”
She adjusted her little crucifix, met his eye. “I’ll finish this,” she said angrily.
* * *
Up at the front of the train, in the second-class carriage, Alice drew the window curtains, plunging them all into partial darkness. She was trying to understand Marlowe’s meaning. He’s found us. He’s here.
Charlie was on his feet, swaying with the train, crowding the compartment unnecessarily. “Who’s he talking about? Not Walter Laster?” he demanded. “Mrs. Harrogate said he wasn’t going to wake up.”
Alice paused. “Walter … Laster?”
“Walter. The litch.”
Alice went to the door and locked it. Then she pulled down her traveling case, unwrapped her revolver from out of its oilcloth, opened the little leather satchel she carried the cartridges in. She loaded it carefully, trying to steady her thoughts. Walter Laster: that’d be the one Mrs. Harrogate was riding with, in the rear coach. The man Coulton had dragged in, the night before.
“Mrs. Harrogate said he’s dead. Dead and not dead.” Charlie’d started to breathe sharp fast breaths, almost panting in his fear. “We’ve got to get out of here, we’ve got to go. We can’t stay. I seen him, he’s got these long teeth, and he can crawl on the walls like a spider, and his skin, it’s all white—”
Charlie started to shake the door hard, so that the glass rattled in its bracket.
“It’s locked, Charlie,” she said, trying to calm him. “No one’s getting through. Mr. Coulton will be back soon, it’s all right.”
“It’s not all right,” Charlie said, giving up on the door. “You don’t know what he is. He’s not a person.” His voice was rising now in pitch. “Nothing ever hurt me, Miss Alice. Ever. But he did. He hurt me.” Charlie unbuttoned his cuffs, rolled up his sleeves. On each forearm were four deep, infected-looking claw marks. “Mrs. Harrogate said he was already dead. What kind of dead does that?”
“The kind that needs a little more encouragement, I guess. Like a bullet through the eye.” Alice looked at Marlowe. “Is that who you were talking about? Walter Laster?”
Marlowe’s eyes were big. “No,” he whispered.
“Who, then?”
“The other one. The man from the hotel.”
Alice went very still. “Jacob Marber’s on the train?”
The little boy nodded. His voice was barely more than a whisper. “And he knows we’re here too.”
* * *
They waited. The minutes ticked by, Charlie and Marlowe looking increasingly scared. But Coulton didn’t come. There was a thick, muffled kind of silence in the side corridor beyond, as if the railway carriage were emptied, as if all its passengers had fallen into a deep sleep.