Murder by Matchlight by Edith Caroline Rivett

Macdonald’s work for the day was not done. When he left the Ross Lanes he returned to Scotland Yard to see Detective Reeves and Inspector Jenkins and to hear their latest reports.

It was Reeves who had been given the job of trying to trace O’Farrel’s movements at St. Pancras Station and he had been very successful in his quest. Armed with O’Farrel’s photograph he had tackled the unpromising job of questioning the station staff about a man who might have travelled on a stopping train to Elstree two days ago. The fact that O’Farrel was remembered was due to his talkativeness. The driver of a horse van who picked up goods at St. Pancras regularly every morning remembered the dead man’s face because O’Farrel had come and chatted to him about his horse, patting the beast and showing a lively affection for horses which nearly made him miss his train. He had jumped into the rearmost compartment just as the guard blew his whistle, and consequently the guard also remembered him, O’Farrel having leaned out of the window and chatted to him at the many stops between St. Pancras and Elstree on the 10.50 train. From the guard Reeves learned that O’Farrel had been alone in his compartment until Cricklewood when a couple of railwaymen joined him and travelled with him to Elstree. At Elstree Reeves went to the studios and produced his photograph. Here he was told that O’Farrel had gone to the office to enter for a crowd part, saying that an agent had sent him. Apparently he had mistaken the date—the job had been for the previous day and he had to return to town having wasted his railway fare. The clerks in the office to whom Reeves talked did not know the name Timothy O’Farrel though they recognised the dead man’s photograph—neither did they know him by the name John Ward. He was simply one of the unknown supers who turn up for crowd parts. “That Irish bloke” was the description given of him by a weary office manager, who asked Reeves how the blazes he was to remember the names of every guy who blew in to cadge a job?