THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS

: Stories By English Authors: England

The events which I am about to relate took place between nine and

ten years ago. Sebastopol had fallen in the early spring, the peace

of Paris had been concluded since March, our commercial relations

with the Russian empire were but recently renewed; and I, returning

home after my first northward journey since the war, was well

pleased with the prospect of spending the month of December under

the hospitable and thoroug ly English roof of my excellent friend,

Jonathan Jelf, Esq., of Dumbleton Manor, Clayborough, East Anglia.

Travelling in the interests of the wellknown firm in which it

is my lot to be a junior partner, I had been called upon to visit

not only the capitals of Russia and Poland, but had found it also

necessary to pass some weeks among the trading ports of the Baltic;

whence it came that the year was already far spent before I again

set foot on English soil, and that, instead of shooting pheasants

with him, as I had hoped, in October, I came to be my friend's

guest during the more genial Christmas-tide.



My voyage over, and a few days given up to business in Liverpool

and London, I hastened down to Clayborough with all the delight of

a school-boy whose holidays are at hand. My way lay by the Great

East Anglian line as far as Clayborough station, where I was to

be met by one of the Dumbleton carriages and conveyed across the

remaining nine miles of country. It was a fogey afternoon, singularly

warm for the 4th of December, and I had arranged to leave London by

the 4:15 express. The early darkness of winter had already closed

in; the lamps were lighted in the carriages; a clinging damp

dimmed the windows, adhered to the door-handles, and pervaded all

the atmosphere; while the gas-jets at the neighbouring book-stand

diffused a luminous haze that only served to make the gloom of the

terminus more visible. Having arrived some seven minutes before the

starting of the train, and, by the connivance of the guard, taken

sole possession of empty compartment, I lighted my travelling-lamp,

made myself particularly snug, and settled down to the undisturbed

enjoyment of a book and a cigar. Great, therefore, was my

disappointment when, at the last moment, a gentleman came hurrying

along the platform, glanced into my carriage, opened the locked

door with a private key, a stepped in.



It struck me at the first glance that I had seen him before--a

tall, spare man, thin-lipped, light-eyed, with an ungraceful stoop

in the shoulders and scant gray hair worn somewhat long upon collar.

He carried a light waterproof coat, an umbrella, and a large brown

japanned deed-box, which last he placed under the seat. This done, he

felt carefully in his breast-pocket, as if to make certain of the

safety of his purse or pocket-book, laid his umbrella in the netting

overhead, spread the waterproof across his knees, and exchanged

his hat for a travelling-cap of some Scotch mateial. By this time

the train was moving out of the station and into the faint gray of

the wintry twilight beyond.



I now recognised my companion. I recognised him from the moment when

he removed his hat and uncovered the lofty, furrowed, and somewhat

narrow brow beneath. I had met him, as I distinctly remembered, some

three years before, at the very house for which, in all probability,

he was now bound, like myself. His name was Dwerrihouse, he was

a lawyer by profession, and, if I was not greatly mistaken, was

first cousin to the wife of my host. I knew also that he was a

man eminently "well-to-do," both as regarded his professional and

private means. The Jelfs entertained him with that sort of observant

courtesy which falls to the lot of the rich relation, the children

made much of him, and the old butler, albeit somewhat surly "to the

general," treated him with deference. I thought, observing him by

the vague mixture of lamplight and twilight, that Mrs. Jelf's cousin

looked all the worse for the three years' wear and tear which had

gone over his head since our last meeting. He was very pale, and

had a restless light in his eye that I did not remember to have

observed before. The anxious lines, too, about his mouth were

deepened, and there was a cavernous, hollow look about his cheeks

and temples which seemed to speak of sickness or sorrow. He had

glanced at me as he came in, but without any gleam of recognition

in his face. Now he glanced again, as I fancied, somewhat doubtfully.

When he did so for the third or fourth time I ventured to address

him.



"Mr. John Dwerrihouse, I think?"



"That is my name," he replied.



"I had the pleasure of meeting you at Dumbleton about three years

ago."



Mr. Dwerrihouse bowed.



"I thought I knew your face," he said; "but your name, I regret to

say--"



"Langford--William Langford. I have known Jonathan Jelf since

we were boys together at Merchant Taylor's, and I generally spend

a few weeks at Dumbleton in the shooting season. I suppose we are

bound for the same destination?"



"Not if you are on your way to the manor," he replied. "I am

travelling upon business,--rather troublesome business too,--while

you, doubtless, have only pleasure in view."



"Just so. I am in the habit of looking forward to this visit as to

the brightest three weeks in all the year."



"It is a pleasant house," said Mr. Dwerrihouse.



"The pleasantest I know."



"And Jelf is thoroughly hospitable."



"The best and kindest fellow in the world!"



"They have invited me to spend Christmas week with them," pursued

Mr. Dwerrihouse, after a moment's pause.



"And you are coming?"



"I cannot tell. It must depend on the issue of this business

which I have in hand. You have heard perhaps that we are about to

construct a branch line from Blackwater to Stockbridge."



I explained that I had been for some months away from England, and

had therefore heard nothng of the contemplated improvement. Mr.

Dwerrihouse smiled complacently.



"It _will_ be an improvement,"he said," a great improvement.

Stockbridge is a flourishing town, and needs but a more direct

railway communicaion with the metropolis to become an important

centre of commerce. This branch was my own idea. I brought the project

before the board, and have myself superintended the execution of

it up to the present time."



"You are an East Anglian director, I presume?"



"My interest in the company," replied Mr. Dwerringhouse, "is

threefold. I am a director, I am a considerable shareholder, and,

as head of the firm of Dwerrihouse, Dwerrihouse & Craik, I am the

company's principal solicitor."



Loquacious, self-important, full of his pet project, and apparently

unable to talk on any other subject, Mr. Dwerrihouse then went

on to tell of the opposition he had encountered and the obstacles

he had overcome in the cause of the Stockbridge branch. I was

entertained with a multitude of local details and local grievances.

The rapacity of one squire, the impracticability of another, the

indignation of the rector whose glebe was threatened, the culpable

indifference of the Stockbridge townspeople, who could _not_

be brought to see that their most vital interests hinged upon a

junction with the Great East Anglian line; the spite of the local

newspaper, and the unheard-of difficulties attending the Common

question, were each and all laid before me with a circumstantiality

that possessed the deepest interest for my excellent fellow-traveller,

but none whatever for myself. From these, to my despair, he went on

to more intricate matters: to the approximate expenses of construction

per mile; to the estimates sent in by different contractors; to

the probable traffic returns of the new line; to the provisional

clauses of the new act as enumerated in Schedule D of the company's

last half-yearly report; and so on and on and on, till my head

ached and my attention flagged and my eyes kept closing in spite

of every effort that I made to keep them open. At length I was

roused by these words:



"Seventy-five thousand pounds, cash down" "Seventy-five thousand

pounds, cash down," I repeated, in the liveliest tone I could

assume. "That is a heavy sum."



"A heavy sum to carry here," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse, pointing

significantly to his breastpocket, "but a mere fraction of what

we shall ultimately have to pay."



"You do not mean to say that you have seventy-five thousand pounds

at this moment upon your person?" I exclaimed.



"My good sir, have I not been telling you so for the last half-hour?"

said Mr. Dwerrihouse, testily. "That money has to be paid over at

half-past eight o'clock this evening, at the office of Sir Thomas's

solicitors, on completion of the deed of sale."



"But how will you get across by night from Blackwater to Stockbridge

with seventy-five thousand pounds in your pocket?"



"To Stockbridge!" echoed the lawyer. "I find I have made myself very

imperfectly understood. I thought I had explained how this sum

only carries us as far as Mallingford,--the first stage, as it were,

of our journey,--and how our route from Blackwater to Mallingford

lies entirely through Sir Thomas Liddell's property."



"I beg your pardon," I stammered. "I fear my thoughts were wandering.

So you only go as far as Mallingford to-night?"



"Precisely. I shall get a conveyance from the 'Blackwater Arms.'

And you?"



'Oh, Jelf sends a trap to meet me at Clayborbough! Can I be the

bearer of any message from you?"



"You may say, if you please, Mr. Langford, that I wished I could

have been your companion all the way, and that I will come over,

if possible, before Christmas."



"Nothing more?"



Mr. Dwerrihouse smiled grimly. "Well," he said, "you may tell my

cousin that she need not burn the hall down in my honour _time_,

and that I shall be obliged if she will order the blue-room chimney

to be swept before I arrive."



"That sounds tragic. Had you a conflagration on the occasion of

your last visit to Dumbleton?"



"Something like it. There had been no fire lighted in my bedroom

since the spring, the flue was foul, and the rooks had built in

it; so when I went up to dress for dinner I found the room full of

smoke and the chimney on fire. Are we already at Blackwater?"



The train had gradually come to a pause while Mr. Dwerrihouse was

speaking, and, on putting my head out of the window, I could see

the station some few hundred yards ahead. There was another train

before us blocking the way, and the guard was making use of the

delay to collect the Blackwater tickets. I had scarcely ascertained

our position when the ruddy-faced official appeared at our carriage

door.



"Tickets, sir!" said he.



"I am for Clayborough," I replied, holding out the tiny pink card.



He took it, glanced at it by the light of his little lantern, gave

it back, looked, as I fancied, somewhat sharply at my fellow-traveller,

and disappeared.



"He did not ask for yours," I said, with some surprise.



"They never do," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse; "they all know me, and

of course I travel free."



"Blackwater! Blackwater!" cried the porter, running along the

platform beside us as we glided into the station.



Mr. Dwerrihouse pulled out his deed-box, put his travelling-cap in

his pocket, resumed his hat, took down his umbrella, and prepared

to be gone.



"Many thanks, Mr. Langford, for your society," he said, with

old-fashioned courtesy. "I wish you a good-evening."



"Good-evening," I replied, putting out my hand.



But he either did not see it or did not choose to see it, and,

slightly lifting his hat, stepped out upon the platform. Having done

this, he moved slowly away and mingled with the departing crowd.



Leaning forward to watch him out of sight, I trod upon something

which proved to be a cigar-case. It had fallen, no doubt, from the

pocket of his waterproof coat, and was made of dark morocco leather,

with a silver monogram upon the side. I sprang out of the carriage

just as the guard came up to lock me in.



"Is there one minute to spare?" I asked, eagerly. "The gentleman

who travelled down with me from town has dropped his cigar-case;

he is not yet out of the station."



"Just a minute and a half, sir," replied the guard. "You must be

quick."



I dashed along the platform as fast as my feet could carry me. It

was a large station, and Mr. Dwerrihouse had by this time got more

than half-way to the farther end.



I, however, saw him distinctly, moving slowly with the stream.

Then, as I drew nearer, I saw that he had met some friend, that

they were talking as they walked, that they presently fell back

somewhat from the crowd and stood aside in earnest conversation.

I made straight for the spot where they were waiting. There was a

vivid gas-jet just above their heads, and the light fell full upon

their faces. I saw both distinctly--the face of Mr. Dwerrihouse and

the face of his companion. Running, breathless, eager as I was,

getting in the way of porters and passengers, and fearful every

instant lest I should see the train going on without me, I yet

observed that the new-comer was considerably younger and shorter than

the director, that he was sandy-haired, mustachioed, small-featured,

and dressed in a close-cut suit of Scotch tweed. I was now within

a few yards of them. I ran against a stout gentleman, I was nearly

knocked down by a luggage-truck, I stumbled over a carpet-bag; I

gained the spot just as the driver's whistle warned me to return.



To my utter stupefaction, they were no longer there. I had seen

them but two seconds before--and they were gone! I stood still; I

looked to right and left; I saw no sign of them in any direcion.

It was as if the platform had gaped and swallowed them.



"There were two gentlemen standing here a moment ago," I said to

a porter at my elbow; "which way can they have gone?"



"I saw no gentlemen, sir," replied the man. The whistle shrilled

out again. The guard, far up the platform, held up his arm, and

shouted to me to "come on!"



"If you're going on by this train, sir," said the porter, "you must

run for it."



I did run for it, just gained the carriage as the train began to

move, was shoved in by the guard, and left, breathless and bewildered,

with Mr. Dwerrihouse's cigar-case still in my hand.



It was the strangest disappearance in the world; It was

like a transformation trick in a pantomime. They were there one

moment,--palpably there, walking, with the gaslight full upon their

faces,--and the next moment they were gone. There was no door near,

no window, no staircase; it was a mere slip of barren platform,

tapestried with big advertisements. Could anything be more mysteious?



It was not worth thinking about, and yet, for my life, I could not

help pondering upon it--pondering, wondering, conjecturing, turning

it over and over in my mind, and beating my brains for a solution

of the enigma. I thought of it all the way from Blackwater

to Clayborough. I thought of it all the way from Clayborough to

Dumbleton, as I rattled along the smooth highway in a trim dog-cart,

drawn by a splendid black mare and driven by the silentest and

dapperest of East Anglian grooms.



We did the nine miles in something less than an hour, and pulled

up before the lodge-gates just as the church clock was striking

half-past seven. A couple of minutes more, and the warm glow of

the lighted hall was flooding out upon the gravel, a hearty grasp

was on my hand, and a clear jovial voice was bidding me "welcome

to Dumbleton."



"And now, my dear fellow," said my host, when the first greeting

was over, "you have no time to spare. We dine at eight, and there

are people coming to meet you, so you must just get the dressing

business over as quickly as may be. By the way, you will meet some

acquaintances; the Biddulphs are coming, and Prendergast (Prendergast

of the Skirmishers) is staying in the house. Adieu! Mrs. Jelf will

be expecting you in the drawing-room."



I was ushered to my room--not the blue room, of which Mr. Dwerrihouse

had made disagreeable experience, but a pretty little bachelor's

chamber, hung with a delicate chintz and made cheerful by a blazing

fire. I unlocked my portmanteau. I tried to be expeditious, but the

memory of my railway adventure haunted me. I could not get free of

it; I could not shake it off. It impeded me, worried me, it tripped

me up, it caused me to mislay my studs, to mistie my cravat, to

wrench the buttons off my gloves. Worst of all, it made me so late

that the party had all assembled before I reached the drawing-room.

I had scarcely paid my respects to Mrs. Jelf when dinner was

announced, and we paired off, some eight or ten couples strong,

into the dining-room.



I am not going to describe either the guests or the dinner. All

provincial parties bear the strictest family resemblance, and I

am not aware that an East Anglian banquet offers any exception to

the rule. There was the usual country baronet and his wife; there

were the usual country parsons and their wives; there was the

sempiternal turkey and haunch of venison. Vanitas vanitatum. There

is nothing new under the sun.



I was placed about midway down the table. I had taken one rector's

wife down to dinner, and I had another at my left hand. They talked

across me, and their talk was about babies; it was dreadfully dull.

At length there came a pause. The entrees had just been removed,

and the turkey had come upon the scene. The conversation had all

along been of the languidest, but at this moment it happened to

have stagnated altogether. Jelf was carving the turkey; Mrs. Jelf

looked as if she was trying to think of something to say; everybody

else was silent. Moved by an unlucky impulse, I thought I would

relate my adventure.



"By the way, Jelf," I began, "I came down part of the way to-day

with a friend of yours."



"Indeed!" said the master of the feast, slicing scientifically into

the breast of the turkey. "With whom, pray?"



"With one who bade me tell you that he should, if possible, pay

you a visit before Christmas."



"I cannot think who that could be," said my friend, smiling.



"It must be Major Thorp," suggested Mrs. Jelf.



I shook my head.



"It was not Major Thorp," I replied; "it was a near relation of

your own, Mrs. Jelf."



"Then I am more puzzled than ever," rep! my hostess. "Pray tell

me who it was."



"It was no less a person than your cousin, Mr. John Dwerrihouse."



Jonathan Jelf laid down his knife and fork. Mrs. Jelf looked at

me in a strange, startled way, and said never a word.



"And he desired me to tell you, my dear madam, that you need not

take the trouble to burn the hall down in his honour this time, but

only to have the chimney of the blue room swept before his arrival."



Before I had reached the end of my sentence I became aware of

something ominous in the faces of the guests. I felt I had said

something which I had better have left unsaid, and that for some

unexplained reason my words had evoked a general consternation. I

sat confounded, not daring to utter another syllable, and for at

least two whole minutes there was dead silence round the toble.

Then Captain Prendergast came to the rescue.



"You have been abroad for some months, have you not, Mr. Langford?"

he said, with the desperation of one who flings himself into the

breach.



"I heard you had been to Russia. Surely you have something to tell

us of the state and temper of the country after the war?"



I was heartily grateful to the gallant Skirmisher for this diversion

in my favour. I answered him, I fear, somewhat lamely; but he kept

the conversation up, and presently one or two others joined in

and so the difficulty, whatever it might have been, was bridged

over--bridged over, but not repaired. A something, an awkwardness,

a visible constraint remained. The guests hitherto had been simply

dull, but now they were evidently uncomfortable and embarrassed.



The dessert had scarcely been placed upon the table when the ladies

left the room. I seized the opportunity to select a vacant chair

next Captain Prendergast.



"In heaven's name," I whispered, "what was the matter just now?

What had I said?"



"You mentioned the name of John Dwerrihouse."



"What of that? I had seen him not two hours before."



"It is a most astounding circumstance that you should have seen

him," said Captain Prendergast. "Are you sure it was he?"



"As sure as of my own identity. We were talking all the way between

London and Blackwater. But why does that surprise you?"



"_Because_" replied Captain Prendergast, dropping his voice

to the lowest whisper--"_because John Dwerrihouse absconded three

months ago with seventy-five thousand pounds of the company's money,

and has never been heard of since_."



John Dwerrihouse had absconded three months ago--and I had seen him

only a few hours back! John Dwerrihouse had embezzled seventy-five

thousand pounds of the company's money, yet told me that he carried

that sum upon his person! Were ever facts so strangely incongruous,

so difficult to reconcile? How should he have ventured again into

the light of day? How dared he show himself along the line? Above

all, what had he been doing throughout those mysterious three months

of disappearance?



Perplexing questions these--questions which at once suggested

themselves to the minds of all concerned, but which admitted of no

easy solution. I could find no reply to them. Captain Prendergast

had not even a suggestion to offer. Jonathan Jelf, who seized the

first opportunity of drawing me aside and learning all that I had

to tell, was more amazed and bewildered than either of us. He

came to my room that night, when all the guests were gone, and we

talked the thing over from every point of view; without, it must

be confessed, arriving at any kind of conclusion.



"I do not ask you," he said," whether you can have mistaken your

man. That is impossible."



"As impossible as that I should mistake some stranger for yourself."



"It is not a question of looks or voice, but of facts. That he

should have alluded to the fire in the blue room is proof enough

of John Dwerrihouse's identity. How did he look?"



"Older, I thought; considerably older, paler, and more anxious."



He has had enough to make him look anxious, anyhow, "said my friend,

gloomily, "be he innocent or guilty."



"I am inclined to believe that he is innocent," I replied. "He showed

no embarrassment when I addressed him, and no uneasiness when the

guard came round. His conversation was open to a fault. I might

almost say that he talked too freely of the business which he had

in hand."



"That again is strange, for I know no one more reticent on such

subjects. He actually told you that he had the seventy-five thousand

pounds in his pocket?"



"He did."



"Humph! My wife has an idea about it, and she may be right--"



"What idea?"



"Well, she fancies--women are so clever, you know, at putting

themselves inside people's motives --she fancies that he was

tempted, that he did actually take the money, and that he has been

concealing himself these three months in some wild part of the

country, struggling possibly with his conscience all the time,

and daring neither to abscond with his booty nor to come back and

restore it."



"But now that he has come back?"



"That is the point. She conceives that he has probably thrown

himself upon the company's mercy, made restitution of the money,

and, being forgiven, is permitted to carry the business through as

if nothing whatever had happened."



"The last," I replied, "is an impossible case. Mrs. Jelf thinks

like a generous and delicate minded woman, but not in the least like

a board of railway directors. They would never carry forgiveness

so far."



"I fear not; and yet it is the only conjecture that bears a semblance

of likelihood. However we can run over to Clayborough to-morrow and

see if anything is to be learned. By the way Prendergast tells me

you picked up his cigar-case."



"I did so, and here it is."



Jelf took the cigar-case, examined it by the light of the lamp, and

said at once that it was beyond doubt Mr. Dwerrihouse's property,

and that he remembered to have seen him use it.



"Here, too, is his monogram on the side," he added--" a big J

transfixing a capital D. He used to carry the same on his note-paper."



"It offers, at all events, a proof that I was not dreaming."



"Ay, but it is time you were asleep and dreaming now. I am ashamed

to have kept you up so long. Good-night."



"Good-night, and remember that I am more than ready to go with you

to Clayborough or Blackwater or London or anywhere, if I can be of

the least service."



"Thanks! I know you mean it, old friend, and it may be that I shall

put you to the test, Once more, good-night."



So we parted for that night, and met again in the breakfast-room

at half-past eight next morning. It was a hurried, silent,

uncomfortable meal; none of us had slept well, and all were thinking

of the same subject. Mrs. Jelf had evidently been crying. Jelf

was impatient to be off, and both Captain Prendergast and myself

felt ourselves to be in the painful position of outsiders who are

involuntarily brought into a domestic trouble. Within twenty minutes

after we had left the breakfast-table the dog-cart was brought

round, and my friend and I were on the road to Clayborough.



"Tell you what it is, Langford," he said, as we sped along between

the wintry hedges," I do not much fancy to bring up Dwerrihouse's

name at Clayborough. All the officials know that he is my wife's

relation, and the subject just now is hardly a pleasant one. If

you don't much mind, we will make the 11:10 to Blackwater. It's

an important station, and we shall stand a far better chance of

picking up information there than at Clayborough."



So we took the 11:10, which happened to be an express, and, arriving

at Blackwater about a quarter before twelve, proceeded at once to

prosecute our inquiry.



We began by asking for the station-master, a big, blunt, businesslike

person, who at once averred that he knew Mr. John Dwerrihouse

pefectly well, and that there was no director on the line whom he

had seen and spoken to so frequently.



"He used to be down here two or three times a week about three

months ago," said he, "when the new line was first set afoot; but

since then, you know, gentlemen--"



He paused significantly.



Jelf flushed scarlet.



"Yes, yes," he said, hurriedly; "we know all about that. The point

now to be ascertained is whether anything has been seen or heard

of him lately."



"Not to my knowledge," replied the stationmaster.



"He is not known to have been down the line any time yesterday,

for instance?"



The station-master shook his head.



"The East Anglian, sir," said he, "is about the last place where

he would dare to show himself. Why, there isn't a station-master,

there isn't guard, there isn't a porter, who doesn't know

Mr. Dwerrihouse by sight as well as he knows his own face in the

looking-glass, or who wouldn't telegrapg for the police as soon

as he had set eyes on him at any point along the line. Bless you,

sir! there's been a standing order out against him ever since the

25th of September last."



"And yet," pursued my friend, "a gentleman who travelled down yesterday

from London to Clayborough by the afternoon express testifies that

he saw Mr. Dwerrihouse in the train, and that Mr. Dwerrinhouse

alighted at Blackwater station."



"Quite impossible, sir," replied the station-master promptly.



"Why impossible?"



"Because there is no station along the line where he is so well

known or where he would run so great a risk. It would be just

running his head into the lion's mouth; he would have been mad to

come nigh Blackwater station; and if he had come he would have been

en arrested before he left the platform."



"Can you tell me who took the Blackwater tickets of that train?"



"I can, sir. It was the guard, Benjamin Sommers."



"And where can I find him?"



"You can find him, sir, by staying here, if you please, till one

o'clock. He will be coming through with the up express from Crampton,

which stays in Blackwater for ten minutes."



We waited for the up express, beguiling the time as best we could

by strolling along the Blackwater road till we came almost to the

outskirts of the town, from which the station was distant nearly

a couple of miles. By one o'clock we were back again upon the

platform and waiting for the train. It came punctually, and I at

once recognised the ruddy-faced guard who had gone down with my

train the evening before.



"The gentlemen want to ask you something about Mr. Dwerrihouse,

Somers," said the station-master, by way of introduction.



The guard flashed a keen glance from my face to Jelf's and back

again to mine.



"Mr. John Dwerrihouse, the late director?" said he, interrogatively.



"The same," replied my friend. "Should you know him if you saw

him?"



"Anywhere, sir."



"Do you know if he was in the 4:15 express yesterday afternoon?"



"He was not, sir."



"How can you answer so positively?"



"Because I looked into every carriage and saw every face in that

train, and I could take my oath that Mr. Dwerrihouse was not in it.

This gentleman was," he added, turning sharply upon me. "I don't

know that I ever saw him before in my life, but I remember _his_

face perfectly. You nearly missed taking your seat in time at this

station, sir, and you got out at Clayborough."



"Quite true, guard," I replied; "but do you not remember the face

of the gentleman who travelled down in the same carriage with me

as far as here?"



"It was my impression, sir, that you travelled down alone," said

Somers, with a look of some surprise.



"By no means. I had a fellow-traveller as far as Blackwater, and

it was in trying to restore him the cigar-case which he had dropped

in the carriage that I so nearly let you go on without me."



"I remember your saying something about a cigar-case, certainly,"

replied the guard; "but--"



"You asked for my ticket just before we entered station."



"I did, sir."



"Then you must have seen him. He sat in the corner next the very

door to which you came."



"No, indeed; I saw no one."



I looked at Jelf. I began to think the guard was in the ex-director's

confidence, and paid for his silence.



"If I had seen another traveller I should have asked for his ticket,"

added Somers. "Did you see me ask for his ticket, sir?"



"I observed that you did not ask for it, but he explained that by

saying--" I hesitated. I feared I might be telling too much, and

so broke off abruptly.



The guard and the station-master exchanged glances. The former

looked impatiently at his watch.



"I am obliged to go on in four minutes more sir," he said.



"One last question, then," interposed Jelf, with a sort of

desperation. "If this gentleman's fellow traveller had been Mr.

John Dwerrihouse, and he had been sitting in the corner next the

door in which you took the tickets, could you have failed to see

and recognise him?"



"No, sir; it would have been quite impossible!"



"And you are certain you did _not_ see him?"



"As I said before, sir, I could take my oath, I did not see him.

And if it wasn't that I don't like to contradict a gentleman, I

would say I could also take my oath that this gentlemen was quite

alone in the carriage the whole way from London to Clayborough.

Why, sir," he added dropping his voice so as to be inaudible to the

station-master, who had been called away to speak to some person

close by, "you expressly asked me to give you a compartment to

yourself, and I did so. I locked you in, and you were so good as

to give me something for myself."



"Yes; but Mr. Dwerrihouse had a key of his own."



"I never saw him, sir; I saw no one in that compartment but yourself.

Beg pardon, sir; my time's up."



And with this the ruddy guard touched his cap and was gone. In

another minute the heavy panting of the engine began afresh, and

the "train" glided slowly out of the station.



We looked at each other for some moments in silence. I was the

first to speak.



"Mr. Benjamin Somers knows more than he chooses to tell," I said.



"Humph! do you think so?"



"It must be. He could not have come to the door without seeing him;

it's impossible."



"There is one thing not impossible, my dear fellow."



"What is that?"



"That you may have fallen asleep and dreamed the whole thing."



"Could I dream of a branch line that I had never heard of? Could

I dream of a hundred and one business details that had no kind of

interest for me? Could I dream of the seventy-five thousand pounds?"



"Perhaps you might have seen or heard some vague account of the

affair while you were abroad. It might have made no impression

upon you at the, and might have come back to you in your dreams,

recalled perhaps by the mere names of the stations on the line."



"What about the fire in the chimney of the blue room--should I have

heard of that during my journey?"



"Well, no; I admit there is a difficulty about that point."



"And what about the cigar-case?"



"Ay, by Jove! there is the cigar-case. That _is_ a stubborn

fact. Well, it's a mysterious affair, and it will need a better

detective than myself, I fancy, to clear it up. I suppose we may

as well go home."



A week had not gone by when I received a letter from the secretary

of the East Anglian Railway Company, requesting the favour of my

attendance at a special board meeting not then many days distant.

No reasons were alleged and no apologies offered for this demand

upon my time, but they had heard, it was clear, of my inquiries

anent the missing director, and had a mind to put me through some

sort of official examination upon the subject. Being still a guest

at Dumbleton Hall, I had to go up to London for the purpose and

Jonathan Jelf accompanied me. I found the direction of the Great

East Anglian line represented by a party of some twelve or fourteen

gentlemen seated in solemn conclave round a huge green baize table,

in a gloomy board room adjoining the London terminus.



Being courteously received by the chairman (who at once began

by saying that certain statements of mine respecting Mr. John

Dwerrihouse had come to the knowledge of the direction, and that

they in consequence desired to confer with me on those points), we

were placed at the table and the inquiry proceeded in due form.



I was first asked if I knew Mr. John Dwerrihouse, how long I had

been acquainted with him, and whether I could identify him at sight.

I was then asked when I had seen him last. To which I replied,

"On the 4th of this present month, December, 1856." Then came the

inquiry of where I had seen him on that fourth day of December;

to which I replied that I met him in a first-class compartment of

the 4:15 down express, that he got in just as the train was leaving

the London terminus, and that he alighted at Blackwater station.

The chairman then inquired whether I had held any communication

with my fellow-traveller; whereupon I related, as nearly as I could

remember it, the whole bulk and substance of Mr. John Dwerrihouse's

diffuse information respecting the new branch line.



To all this the board listened with profound attention, while the

chairman presided and the secretary took notes. I then produced

the cigar-case. It was passed from hand to hand, and recognised

by all. There was not a man present who did not remember that plain

cigar-case with its silver monogram, or to whom it seemed anything

less entirely corroborative of my evidence. When at length I had

told all that I had to tell, the chairman whispered something to

the secretary; the secretary touched a silver hand-bell, and the

guard, Benjamin Somers, was ushered into the room. He was then

examined as carefully as myself. He declared that he knew Mr. John

Dwerrihouse perfectly well, that he could not be mistaken in him,

that he remembered going down with the 4:15 express on the afternoon in

question, that he remembered me, and that, there being one or two

empty first-class compartments on that especial afternoon, he had,

in compliance with my request, placed me in a carriage by myself.

He was positive that I remained alone in that compartment all the

way from London to Claylborough. He was ready to take his oath

that Dwerrihouse was neither in that carriage with me nor in any

compartment of that train. He remembered distinctly to have examined

my ticket to Blackwater; was certain that there was no one else

at that time in the carriage; could not have failed to observe a

second person, if there had been one; had that second person been

Mr. John Dwerrihouse, should have quietly double-locked the door of

the carriage and have at once given information to the Blackwater

station-master. So clear, so decisive, so ready, was Somers with

this testimony, that the board looked fairly puzzled.



"You hear this person's statement, Mr. Langford," said the chairman.

"It contradicts yours in every particular. What have you to say in

reply?"



"I can only repeat what I said before. I am quite as positive of

the truth of my own assertions as Mr. Somers can be of the truth

of his."



"You say that Mr. Dwerrihouse alighted in Blackwater, and that he

was in possession of a private key. Are you sure that he had not

alighted by means of that key before the guard came round for the

tickets?"



"I am quite positive that he did not leave the carriage till the

train had fairly entered the station, and the other Blackwater

passengers alighted. I even saw that he was met there by a friend."



"Indeed! Did you see that person distinctly?"



"Quite distinctly."



"Can you describe his appearance?"



"I think so. He was short and very slight, sandy-haired, with

a bushy moustache and beard, and he wore a closely fitting suit

of gray tweed. His age I should take to be about thirty-eight or

forty."



"Did Mr. Dwerrihouse leave the station in this person's company?"



"I cannot tell. I saw them walking together down the platform, and

then I saw them standing inside under a gas-jet, talking earnestly.

After that I lost sight of them quite suddenly, and just then my

train went on, and I with it."



The chairman and secretary conferred together in an undertone. The

directors whispered to one another. One or two looked suspiciously

at the guard. I could see that my evidence remained unshaken, and

that, like myself, they suspected some complicity between the guard

and the defaulter.



"How far did you conduct that 4:15 express on the day in question,

Somers?" asked the chairman.



"All through, sir," replied the guard, "from London to Crampton."



"How was it that you were not relieved at Clayborough? I thought

there was always a change of guards at Clayborough."



"There used to be, sir, till the new regulations came in force

last midsummer, since when the guards in charge of express trains

go the whole way through."



The chairman turned to the secretary.



"I think it would be as well," he said, "if we had the day-book to

refer to upon this point."



Again the secretary touched the silver handbell, and desired

the porter in attendance to summon Mr. Raikes. From a word or two

dropped by another of the directors I gathered that Mr. Raikes

was one of the under-secretaries.



He came, a small, slight, sandy-haired, keen-eyed man, with an

eager, nervous manner, and a forest of light beard and moustache.

He just showed himself at the door of the board room, and, being

requested to bring a certain day-book from a certain shelf in a

certain room, bowed and vanished.



He was there such a moment, and the surprise of seeing him was so

great and sudden, that it was not till the door had closed upon him

that I found voice to speak. He was no sooner gone, however, than

I sprang to my feet.



"That person," I said, "is the same who met Mr. Dwerrihouse upon

the platform at Blackwater!"



There was a general movement of surprise. The chairman looked grave

and somewhat agitated.



"Take care, Mr. Langford," he said; "take care what you say."



"I am as positive of his identity as of my own."



"Do you consider the consequences of your words? Do you consider

that you are bringing a charge of the gravest character against

one of the company's servants?"



"I am willing to be put upon my oath, if necessary. The man who

came to that door a minute since is the same whom I saw talking

with Mr. Dwerrihouse on the Blackwater platform. Were he twenty

times the company's servant, I could say neither more nor less."



The chairman turned again to the guard.



"Did you see Mr. Raikes in the train or on the platform?" he asked.



Somers shook his head.



"I am confident Mr. Raikes was not in the train," he said, "and I

certainly did not see him on the platform."



The chairman turned next to the secretary.



"Mr. Raikes is in your office, Mr. Hunter," he said. "Can you

remember if he was absent on the 4th instant?"



"I do not think he was," replied the secretary, "but I am not

prepared to speak positively. I have been away most afternoons

myself lately, and Mr. Raikes might easily have absented himself

if he had been disposed."



At this moment the under-secretary returned with the day-book under

his arm.



"Be pleased to refer, Mr. Raikes," said the chairman, "to the

entries of the 4th instant, and see what Benjamin Somers's duties

were on that day."



Mr. Raikes threw open the cumbrous volume, and ran a practised eye

and finger down some three or four successive columns of entries.

Stopping suddenly at the foot of a page, he then read aloud that

Benjamin Somers had on that day conducted the 4:15 express from

London to Crampton.



The chairman leaned forward in his seat, looked the under-secretary

full in the face, and said, quite sharply and suddenly:



"Where were you, Mr. Raikes, on the same afternoon?"



"_I_, sir?"



"You, Mr. Raikes. Where were you on the afternoon and evening of

the 4th of the present month?"



"Here, sir, in Mr. Hunter's office. Where else should I be?"



There was a dash of trepidation in the under-secretary's voice as

he said this, but his look of surprise was natural enough.



"We have some reason for believing, Mr. Raikes, that you were

absent that afternoon without leave. Was this the case?"



"Certainly not, sir. I have not had a day's holiday since September.

Mr. Hunter will bear me out in this."



Mr. Hunter repeated what he had previously said on the subject, but

added that the clerks in the adjoining office would be certain to

know. Whereupon the senior clerk, a grave, middle-aged person in

green glasses, was summoned and interrogated.



His testimony cleared the under-secretary at once. He declared

that Mr. Raikes had in no instance, to his knowledge, been absent

during office hours since his return from his annual holiday in

September.



I was confounded. The chairman turned to me with a smile, in which

a shade of covert annoyance was scarcely apparent.



"You hear, Mr. Langford?" he said.



"I hear, sir; but my conviction remains unshaken."



"I fear, Mr. Langford, that your convictions are very insufficiently

based," replied the chairman, with a doubtful cough." I fear that

you 'dream dreams,' and mistake them for actual occurrences. It

is a dangerous habit of mind, and might lead to dangerous results.

Mr. Raikes here would have found himself in an unpleasant position

had he not proved so satisfactory an alibi."



I was about to reply, but he gave me no time.



"I think, gentlemen," he went on to say, addressing the board,"

that we should be wasting time to push this inquiry further. Mr.

Langford's evidence would seem to be of an equal value throughout.

The testimony of Benjamin Somers disproves his first statement,

and the testimony of the last witness disproves his second. I think

we may conclude that Mr. Langford fell asleep in the train on the

occasion of his journey to Clayborough, and dreamed an unusually

vivid and circumstantial dream, of which, however, we have now

heard quite enough."



There are few things more annoying than to find one's positive

convictions met with incredulity. I could not help feeling impatience

at the turn that affairs had taken. I was not proof against the

civil sarcasm of the chairman's manner. Most intolerable of all,

however, was the quiet smile lurking about the corners of Benjamin

Somers's mouth, and the half-triumphant, half-malicious gleam in

the eyes of the under-secretary. The man was evidently puzzled and

somewhat alarmed. His looks seemed furtively to interrogate me.

Who was I? What did I want? Why had I come there to do him an ill

turn with his empoyers? What was it to me whether or no he was

absent without leave?



Seeing all this, and perhaps more irritated by it than the thing

deserved, I begged leave to detain the attention of the board for

a moment longer. Jelf plucked me impatiently by the sleeve.



"Better let the thing drop," he whispered. "The chairman's right

enough; you dreamed it, and the less said now the better."



I was not to be silenced, however, in this fashion. I had yet

something to say, and I would say it. It was to this effect: that

dreams were not usually productive of tangible results, and that I

requested to know in what way the chairman conceived I had evolved

from my dream so substantial and well-made a delusion as the

cigar-case which I had had the honour to place before him at the

commencement of our interview.



"The cigar-case, I admit, Mr. Langford," the chairman replied, "is

a very strong point in your evidence. It is your _only_ strong

point, however, and there is just a possibility that we may all

be misled by a mere accidental resemblance. Will you permit me to

see the case again?"



"It is unlikely," I said, as I handed it to him, "that any other

should bear precisely this monogram, and yet be in all other

particulars exactly similar."



The chairman examined it for a moment in silence, and then passed

it to Mr. Hunter. Mr. Hunter turned it over and over, and shook

his head.



"This is no mere resemblance," he said. "It is John Dwerrihouse's

cigar-case to a certainty. I remember it perfectly; I have seen

it a hundred times."



"I believe I may say the same," added the chairman; "yet how account

for the way in which Mr. Langford asserts that it came into his

possession?"



"I can only repeat," I replied, "that I found it on the floor of

the carriage after Mr. Dwerrihouse had alighted. It was in leaning

out to look after him that I trod upon it, and it was in running

after him for the purpose of restoring it that I saw or believed

I saw, Mr. Raikes standing aside with him in earnest conversation."



Again I felt Jonathan Jelf plucking at my sleeve.



"Look at Raikes," he whispered; "look at Raikes!"



I turned to where the under-secretary had been standing a moment

before, and saw him, white as death, with lips trembling and livid,

stealing toward the door.



To conceive a sudden, strange, and indefinite suspicion, to fling

myself in his way, to take him by the shoulders as if he were a

child, and turn his craven face, perforce, toward the board, were

with me the work of an instant.



"Look at him!" I exclaimed. "Look at his face! I ask no better

witness to the truth of my words."



The chairman's brow darkened.



"Mr. Raikes," he said, sternly, "if you know anything you had better

speak."



Vainly trying to wrench himself from my grasp, the under-secretary

stammered out an incohereent denial.



"Let me go," he said. "I know nothin--you have no right to detain

me--let me go!"



"Did you, or did you not, meet Mr. John Dwerrihouse at Blackwater

station? The charge brought against you is either true or false.

If true, you will do well to throw yourself upon the mercy of the

board and make full confession of all that you know."



The under-secretary wrung his hands in an agony of helpless terror.



"I was away!" he cried. "I was two hundred miles away at the time!

I know nothing about it--I have nothing to confess--I am innocent--I

call God to witness I am innocent!"



"Two hundred miles away!" echoed the chairman. "What do you mean?"



"I was in Devonshire. I had three weeks' leave of absence--I

appeal to Mr. Hunter--Mr. Hunter knows I had three weeks' leave

of absence! I was in Devonshire all the time; I can prove I was

in Devonshire!"



Seeing him so abject, so incoherent, so wild with apprehension,

the directors began to whisper gravely among themselves, while one

got quietly up and called the porter to guard the door.



"What has your being in Devonshire to do with the matter?" said

the chairman. "When were you in Devonshire?"



"Mr. Raikes took his leave in September," said the secretary, "about

the time when Mr. Dwerrihouse disappeared."



"I never even heard that he had disappeared till I came back!"



"That must remain to be proved," said the chairman. "I shall at

once put this matter in the hands of the police. In the meanwhile,

Mr. Raikes, being myself a magistrate and used to deal with these

cases, I advise you to offer no resistance but to confess while

confession may yet do you service. As for your accomplice--"



The frightened wretch fell upon his knees.



"I had no accomplice!" he cried, "Only have mercy upon me--only

spare my life, and I will confess all! I didn't mean to harm him!

I didn't mean to hurt a hair of his head! Only have mercy upon me,

and let me go!"



The chairman rose in his place, pale and agitated.



"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "what horrible mystery is this? What

does it mean?"



"As sure as there is a God in heaven," said Jonathan Jelf, "it

means that murder has been done."



"No! no! no!" shrieked Raikes, still upon his knees, and cowering

like a beaten hound, "Not murder! No jury that ever sat could bring

it in murder. I thought I had only stunned him--I never meant to

do more than stun him! Manslaughter----manslaughter--not murder!"



Overcome by the horror of this unexpected revelation, the chairman

covered his face with his hand and for a moment or two remained

silent.



"Miserable man," he said at length, "you have betrayed yourself."



"You bade me confess! You urged me to throw myself upon the mercy

of the board!"



"You have confessed to a crime which no one suspected you of having

committed," replied the chairman, "and which this board has no

power either to punish or forgive. All that I can do for you it to

advise you to submit to the law, to plead guilty, and to conceal

nothing. When did you do this deed?"



The guilty man rose to his feet, and leaned heavily against the

table. His answer came reluctantly, like the speech of one dreaming.



"On the 22d of September!"



On the 22d of September! I looked in Jonathan Jelf's face, and he

in mine. I felt my own smiling with a strange sense of wonder and

dread. I saw his blanch suddenly, even to the lips.



"Merciful Heaven!" he whispered. "_What was it, then, that you

saw in the train?_"



What was it that I saw in the train? That question remains unanswered

to this day. I have never been able to reply to it. I only know

that it bore the living likeness of the murdered man, whose body

had then been lying some ten weeks under a rough pile of branches

and brambles and rotting leaves, at the bottom of a deserted chalk-pit

about half-way between Blackwater and Mallingford. I know that it

spoke and moved and looked as that man spoke and moved and looked

in life; that I heard, or seemed to hear, things revealed which

I could never otherwise have learned; that I was guided, as it

were, by that vision on the platform to the identification of the

murderer; and that, a passive instrument myself, I was destined,

by means of these mysterious teachings to bring about the ends of

justice. For these things I have never been able to account.



As for that matter of the cigar-case, it proved, on inquiry, that

the carriage in which I travelled down that afternoon to Clayborough

had not been in use for several weeks, and was, in point of fact,

the same in which poor John Dwerrihouse had performed his last

journey. The case had doubtless been dropped by him, and had lain

unnoticed till I found it.



Upon the details of the murder I have no need to dwell. Those

who desire more ample particulars may find them, and the written

confession of Augustus Raikes, in the files of the "Times" for

1856. Enough that the under-secretary, knowing the history of the

new line, and following the negotiation step by step through all

its stages, determined to waylay Mr. Dwerrihouse, rob him of the

seventy-five thousand pounds, and escape to America with his booty.



In order to effect these ends he obtained leave of absence a few

days before the time appointed for the payment of the money, secured

his passage across the Atlantic in a steamer advertised to start on

the 23d, provided himself with a heavily loaded "life-preserver,"

and went down to Blackwater to await the arrival of his victim.

How he met him on the platform with a pretended message from the

board, how he offered to conduct him by a short cut across the

fields to Mallingford, how, having brought him to a lonelyplace,

he struck him down with the life-preserver, and so killed him, and

how, finding what he had done, he gged the body to the verge of an

out-of-the-way chalk-pit, and there flung it in and piled it over

with branches and brambles, are facts still fresh in the memories

of those who, like the connoisseurs in De Quincey's famous essay,

regard murder as a fine art. Strangely enough, the murderer having

done his work, was afraid to leave the country. He declared that

he had not intended to take the director's life, but only to stun

and rob him and that, finding the blow had killed, he dared not

fly for fear of drawing down suspicion upon his own head. As a mere

robber he would have been safe in the States, but as a murderer he

would inevitably have been pursued and given up to justice. So he

forfeited his passage, returned to the office as usual at the end

of his leave, and locked up his ill-gotten thousands till a more

convenient opportunity. In the meanwhile he had the satisfaction

of finding that Mr. Dwerrihouse was universally believed to have

absconded with the money, no one knew how or whither.



Whether he meant murder or not, however, Mr. Augustus Raikes paid

the full penalty of his crime, and was hanged at the Old Bailey

in the second week in January, 1857. Those who desire to make his

further acquaintance may see him any day (admirably done in wax)

in the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud's exhibition, in Baker

Street. He is there to be found in the midst of a select society of

ladies and gentlemen of atrocious memory, dressed in the close-cut

tweed suit which he wore on the evening of the murder, and holding

ing in his hand the identical life-preserve, with which he committed

it.