Night Music Read Free

back to the van in which they had arrived. The townspeople who had gathered to watch were also drifting away, but not without a final curious glance at the figure of Mr. Berger.
    â€œLet’s go through it again, shall we?” said Carswell, and Mr. Berger told his story one last time. The details remained the same. He was certain of what he had witnessed.
    â€œI have to tell you,” said Carswell, when Mr. Berger had finished speaking, “that the driver of the train saw nothing, and was unaware of any impact. As you can imagine, he was quite shocked to hear that a woman had been reported as throwing herself under his wheels. He aided in the examination of the train himself. It turns out that he has some unfortunate experience of such matters. Before he was promoted to driver, he was a fireman on an engine that struck a man near Coleford Junction. He told us that the driver saw the man on the rails but couldn’t brake in time. The engine made a terrible mess of the poor fellow, he said. There was no mistaking what had happened. He seems to think that, if he had somehow hit a woman without knowing, we’d have no trouble finding her remains.”
    Carswell lit a cigarette. He offered one to Mr. Berger, who declined. He preferred his pipe, even though it had long since gone out.
    â€œDo you live alone, sir?” asked Carswell.
    â€œYes, I do.”
    â€œFrom what I understand, you moved to Glossom fairly recently.”
    â€œThat’s correct. My mother died, and she left me her cottage.”
    â€œAnd you say that you’re a writer?”
    â€œTrying to be a writer. I’ve started to wonder if I’m really destined to be any good at it, to be honest.”
    â€œSolitary business, writing, or so I would imagine.”
    â€œIt does tend to be, yes.”
    â€œYou’re not married?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œGirlfriend?”
    â€œNo,” said Mr. Berger, then added, “not at the moment.”
    He didn’t want Inspector Carswell to think that there might be anything odd or unsavory about his bachelor existence.
    â€œAh.”
    Carswell drew deeply on his cigarette.
    â€œDo you miss her?”
    â€œMiss who?”
    â€œYour mother.”
    Mr. Berger considered it an odd question to ask, but answered nonetheless.
    â€œOf course,” he said. “I would visit her when I could, and we spoke on the telephone once a week.”
    Carswell nodded, as if this explained a lot.
    â€œMust be strange, coming to a new town and living in the house in which your mother died. She passed away at home, didn’t she?”
    Mr. Berger thought that Inspector Carswell seemed to know a lot about his mother. Clearly, he had not just been asking about a missing woman during his time in Glossom.
    â€œYes, she did,” he replied. “Forgive me, Inspector, but what has this got to do with the incident on the line?”
    Carswell took the cigarette from his mouth and examined the burning tip, as though some answer might be found in the ash.
    â€œI’m beginning to wonder if you might not have been mistaken in what you saw,” he said.
    â€œMistaken? How can one be mistaken about a suicide?”
    â€œThere is no body, sir. There’s no blood, no clothing, nothing. We haven’t even been able to find the red bag that you mentioned. There’s no sign that anything untoward happened on the track at all. So . . .”
    Carswell took one last drag on his cigarette, then dropped it on the dirt and ground it out forcefully with the heel of his shoe.
    â€œLet’s just say that you were mistaken, and leave it at that, shall we? Perhaps you might like to find some other way to occupy your evenings, now that winter is setting in. Join the bridge club, or take up singing in the church choir. You might even find a young lady to walk out with. What I’m saying is, you’ve had a traumatic time of it, and it would be good for you