Free Death in the Tunnel by Miles Burton Page A

you’ve got to take a mouthful of air when you can, and think yourself lucky to get that.”
    They had a mild taste of this when a heavy goods train came through, steaming hard against the gradient. A torrent of red sparks poured from the funnel of the engine, and they understood Prentice’s first supposition on seeing the red light. As the engine passed them, the whirl of disturbed air seemed to snatch them in an endeavour to drag them under the wheels. Then, immediately they were enveloped in a warm clinging murk of steam and sulphurous smoke. The hot cinders descended on the backs of their necks, the trucks roared and clanged past within a few inches of them. Not until the train had passed and the air had cleared a little did they venture to leave the refuge in which they had taken shelter.
    Arnold and Merrion had provided themselves with powerful torches, with which they inspected the floor and sides of the tunnel. But the most careful search revealed nothing among the grime and cinders which covered everything but the rails themselves. They had asked the ganger to tell them when they reached the middle of the tunnel, but it seemed an age before he did so. And here their search became even more meticulous than before. Slowly they pursued their way, examining every square inch between the intervals of dodging the passing trains.
    The ganger watched their persistence with an amused tolerance. “You’re giving yourselves a lot of trouble for nothing, gentlemen,” he said. “I don’t care what that driver and fireman say. There was nobody in the tunnel on Thursday evening, as I know well enough. Why, how could he have got in or out? You’re seeing things for yourselves, now, and it ought to be as plain to you as it is to me.”
    They were inclined to agree with him. And yet, unless some supernatural explanation could be imagined, how was the presence of the lights to be accounted for? That Prentice and Haynes had actually seen them, neither Arnold nor Merrion had any doubt, despite the incredulity of the local railwaymen.
    Still they plodded on, and, as they did so, the atmosphere seemed to get worse, and the sulphurous fumes more suffocating. Merrion remarked upon this. “The air wasn’t quite so bad just now,” he said. “And yet you say we’re past the middle of the tunnel, where one would expect it to be at its worst. How do you account for that?”
    â€œIt’s always so,” the ganger replied. “You see, there’s a ventilating shaft about the middle. We’re fifty or sixty yards beyond it now. The air will get worse again for a bit, then better as we get towards the southern end. Hallo, I believe your friend’s found something. Look out, sir! That’s the whistle of a down train coming.”
    Arnold had devoted his attention to the down line, while Merrion had kept his directed on the up. At the ganger’s warning, he hastily stepped across to the up line. “There’s something there, between the rails,” he said. “Something that reflected the light of my torch. I distinctly saw it glitter. We’ll have a look when this confounded train is past.”
    The train roared past them, and it was a minute or two before the reek which it left in its wake cleared sufficiently to allow anything to be seen. And then, between the rails of the down line, Merrion saw something glittering. Arnold went forward and picked it up. It was a curved fragment of thin red glass.
    This find led to others of a similar nature. As they advanced, step by step, other fragments of glass appeared in the light of their torches. Each of these they picked up, to find that some were red and others green. It was left to Merrion to make the final discovery. Close to the side of the tunnel, and lying on the ground three or four yards apart, he found two brass electric lamp-holders, badly dented and with the porcelain interiors smashed to atoms, but