Westmorland Alone. Ian Sansom

defect, bearing failure, boiler defect, bolt failure, brake failure, broken rail, debris, defective this or that, drive shaft failure, driver error, fireman error, excessive loading, excessive speed, lack of signal detection, landslip, signal layout defect. Series implexa causaram.’ This was not, suffice it to say, the signalman’s answer. It was Morley, interrupting.

      ‘I beg your pardon?’ said the policeman, looking across for the first time at the three of us perched at the end of the table. ‘I don’t think you’re a part of this conversation, sir, are you?’

      ‘And signalman error,’ said Morley, to the signalman. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so. Let’s not assume. It’s a checklist, from The Locomotive Accident Examination Guide, I think, first published by Hoyten and Cole in—’

      The policeman looked despairingly at his two companions.

      ‘I do mind you saying so, sir, actually. And I’d be grateful if you’d keep your thoughts to yourself for the moment. If you were involved in the crash you’ll have an opportunity to give a statement, along with everyone else.’

      ‘Father,’ said Miriam, with a voice of restraint. ‘Irritabis crabrones.’

      ‘It’s only what the company’s accident expert will say, when he arrives,’ said Morley. ‘I thought it might save you some time.’

      ‘He’s only trying to help,’ said Miriam. ‘Sorry, Officer.’

      ‘Si cum hac exceptione detur sapientia, ut illam inclusam teneam nec enuntiem, reiciam.’

      ‘What’s he saying?’ asked the policeman.

      ‘If wisdom were offered me on condition that I should keep it bottled up, I would not accept it,’ said Miriam. ‘Roughly.’

      ‘Well, he’s going to need to bottle it up for the moment, if you don’t mind. We’re more than qualified to be able to get to the bottom of things, thank you. We’re just trying to establish what might have happened—’

      ‘I know what happened,’ said the signalman.

      ‘What?’ asked Morley.

      ‘Please!’ said the policeman. ‘I’m conducting an interview here.’

      ‘Apologies, Officer,’ said Morley.

      ‘What happened, then?’ the policeman asked the signalman.

      ‘I was about to say,’ said the signalman. ‘I’ve already explained to Eric—’

      ‘The stationmaster?’

      Eric, standing smartly by the table, quietly nodded, his LMS cap lending the nod an air of locomotive authority.

      ‘Well?’ said the policeman.

      ‘It was children on the line. I didn’t have any choice.’

      ‘Children?’ said the policeman.

      ‘Gypsy children. It’s those ones that come for the fair, and then never went away,’ said the signalman.

      ‘The Appleby Fair,’ said Morley to me.

      I wrote it down.

      ‘The Appleby Fair,’ said the policeman.

      ‘That’s right,’ said the signalman. ‘They come up here and then they hang around and you can’t get rid of the buggers and they let their bloody children run wild, and if it wasn’t for them—’

      ‘You know, I have always wanted to visit the Appleby Fair,’ said Morley to me.

      ‘You’re not missing anything,’ said the signalman to Morley. ‘And if it wasn’t for those bloody kids none of this would have happened. I didn’t have any choice. I had to divert the train into the dairy siding.’

      ‘The dairy siding?’ asked Morley.

      ‘The Express Dairy Creamery. The milk goes down to London.’

      ‘I see,’ said the policeman. He sat back in his chair and sighed.

      There was an awkward silence. The police looked relieved. The stationmaster, his companion and the signalman looked devastated: this was their crash, after all. Morley, unfortunately, was determined to make it his.

      ‘An interesting case, is it not?’ said Morley.

      ‘If you wouldn’t mind leaving the police work to us, sir,’ said the policeman.

      ‘Philosophically interesting, I mean, Officer.’

      ‘Sorry, sir, you are?’ asked the policeman.

      ‘Swanton Morley,’ announced Morley, in his brisk, no-nonsense fashion.

      ‘The People’s Professor?’ said the policeman.

      ‘I am sometimes referred to as such, yes,’ said Morley.

      The policeman’s manner changed entirely. ‘Very nice to meet you, Mr Morley.’ He leaned across the table and vigorously shook Morley’s hand. ‘My father was a great one for your books, sir.’

      ‘I’m delighted to hear it.’

      ‘He loved your books on wildlife,’ continued the policeman.

      ‘Very good,’ said Morley.

      ‘And the ones on hobbies and home improvements.’

      ‘Excellent.’

      ‘He was less keen on the philosophical ones.’

      ‘Ah, well—’

      ‘And I’ve never read any myself. We gave them all away when my father passed on.’

      ‘Well, never mind,’ said Morley. ‘What we have here, funnily enough, is a classic philosophical problem.’

      ‘Is it indeed?’

      ‘It is. A classic moral dilemma.’

      ‘You’d better write that down,’ the senior policeman instructed his burly colleague.

      ‘Really, Sergeant?’ asked the burly one.

      ‘Write it down,’ repeated the policeman. ‘It might be significant.’ He stared at Morley as if beholding a work of art. ‘The People’s Professor, well, well. Lads, you’ve read the People’s Professor?’ The two other policemen shook their heads.

      ‘Ah well,’ said Morley to me. ‘Non quivis suavia comedit edulia.’

      ‘What did he say?’ the policeman asked Miriam.

      ‘Not sure,’ she said.

      ‘Marvellous,’ said the policeman.

      ‘Notebook to hand?’ Morley asked me. This usually meant that he had seen some opportunity and was about to deliver an impromptu lecture, which he wished to be recorded for posterity. An opportunity this clearly was. I did not alas have a notebook to hand. These are merely my recollections.

      ‘Might I elaborate?’ he asked the policeman.

      ‘By all means, Mr Morley.’

      Morley turned to address the signalman, who was looking defeated and ashamed. ‘I’m so sorry you should have been faced with such a dilemma, young man. Mr Wilson, is it not, if I heard correctly?’

      ‘That’s right, sir. George Wilson.’

      ‘Well, Mr Wilson, I’m afraid you have been confronted with one of the fundamental questions in ethics.’

      ‘Has he?’ said the policeman.

      ‘Indeed he has. We might call it the “Changing the Points Problem”.’ (For a full elaboration of the problem, see Morley’s article, ‘The “Changing the Points Problem”’ in the Journal of Philosophy, vol.113, summer 1938: another article