Chapter 9. Mrs Spriggs' Ordeal

One cold night in February, at 2.a.m., Mr Spriggs, a genial youthful figure, who might have been taken for a benign schoolmaster, but was in fact a railwayman in his forties, was killed by a train as he worked on the track in a tunnel between Hendon and Colindale.

The Coroner was critical of the safety precautions taken by London Transport, but Mrs Spriggs blamed the flagman. It was his duty to warn oncoming trains of the presence of workmen. She was convinced that if the facts were as the flagman gave them at the enquiry, he would also have been taken unawares and killed with her husband.

Her husband's death had a catastrophic effect on Mrs. Spriggs. She lost all initiative, refused to eat or walk, or do anything other than smoke, weep, and get drunk. She began to shrivel and shrink, her face screwed up like a squashed lemon, she lost weight, her clothes hung on her: she slept in them on the sofa in the sitting room where the curtains were never drawn back. She wanted to die, threatened that she had a loaded revolver in the house, but wouldn't say where. Her frightened neighbours and relatives insisted that I call a psychiatrist: he offered to admit her into a hospital, but she refused.

Some weeks passed. Obsessed with the accident, she ruminated endlessly on certain mysterious aspects. There were specific safety regulations always strictly enforced. All men involved with work on the line were trained to treat the occupational hazard with the greatest seriousness, and to follow carefully the safety regulations. Her husband, of all men, was careful, cautious and responsible. He was not the type to take any chances.

Her suspicions hardened, and now widened to include another man, not only the flagman, but also Ted, her husband's workmate. She waited for the inquest, losing weight, smoking, weeping, crushed.

The attitude of her friends shifted. The flood of sympathy spent itself. Her response to commiseration was cool. They