"Unless"--his manner suddenly changed to one of pitiable
anxiety--"unless you're from the Company, sir, to--to----"
"No; I have come on Mr Carlyle's behalf," replied Carrados, walking to a
chair as though he moved by a kind of instinct.
Hutchins laughed his wry contempt.
"Mr Carlyle!" he reiterated; "Mr Carlyle! Fat lot of good he's been.
Why don't he _do_ something for his money?"
"He has," replied Carrados, with imperturbable good-humour; "he has sent
me. Now, I want to ask you a few questions."
"A few questions!" roared the irate man. "Why, blast it, I have done
nothing else but answer questions for a month. I didn't pay Mr Carlyle
to ask me questions; I can get enough of that for nixes. Why don't you
go and ask Mr Herbert Ananias Mead your few questions--then you might
find out something."
There was a slight movement by the door and Carrados knew that the girl
had quietly left the room.
"You saw that, sir?" demanded the father, diverted to a new line of
bitterness. "You saw that girl--my own daughter, that I've worked for
all her life?"
"No," replied Carrados.
"The girl that's just gone out--she's my daughter," explained Hutchins.
"I know, but I did not see her. I see nothing. I am blind."
"Blind!" exclaimed the old fellow, sitting up in startled wonderment.
"You mean it, sir? You walk all right and you look at me as if you saw
me. You're kidding surely."
"No," smiled Carrados. "It's quite right."
"Then it's a funny business, sir--you what are blind expecting to find
something that those with their eyes couldn't," ruminated Hutchins
sagely.
"There are things that you can't see with your eyes, Hutchins."
"Perhaps you are right, sir. Well, what is it you want to know?"
"Light a cigar first," said the blind man, holding out his case and
waiting until the various sounds told him that his host was smoking
contentedly. "The train you were driving at the time of the accident was
the six-twenty-seven from Notcliff. It stopped everywhere until it
reached Lambeth Bridge, the chief London station of your line. There it
became something of an express, and leaving Lambeth Bridge at
seven-eleven, should not stop again until it fetched Swanstead on
Thames, eleven miles out, at seven-thirty-four. Then it stopped on and
off from Swanstead to Ingerfield, the terminus of that branch, which it
reached at eight-five."
Hutchins nodded, and then, remembering, said: "That's right, sir."
"That was your business all day--running between Notcliff and
Ingerfield?"
"Yes, sir. Three journeys up and three down mostly."
"With the same stops on all the down journeys?"
"No. The seven-eleven is the only one that does a run from the Bridge to
Swanstead. You see, it is just on the close of the evening rush, as they
call it. A good many late business gentlemen living at Swanstead use
the seven-eleven regular. The other journeys we stop at every station to
Lambeth Bridge, and then here and there beyond."
"There are, of course, other trains doing exactly the same journey--a
service, in fact?"
"Yes, sir. About six."
"And do any of those--say, during the rush--do any of those run non-stop
from Lambeth to Swanstead?"
Hutchins reflected a moment. All the choler and restlessness had melted
out of the man's face. He was again the excellent artisan, slow but
capable and self-reliant.
"That I couldn't definitely say, sir. Very few short-distance trains
pass the junction, but some of those may. A guide would show us in a
minute but I haven't got one."
"Never mind. You said at the inquest that it was no uncommon thing for
you to be pulled up at the 'stop' signal east of Knight's Cross Station.
How often would that happen--only with the seven-eleven, mind."
"Perhaps three times a week; perhaps twice."
"The accident was on a Thursday. Have you noticed that you were pulled
up oftener on a Thursday than on any other day?"
A smile crossed the driver's face at the question.
"You don't happen to live at Swanstead yourself, sir?" he asked in
reply.
"No," admitted Carrados. "Why?"
"Well, sir, we were _always_ pulled up on Thursday; practically always,
you may say. It got to be quite a saying among those who used the train
regular; they used to look out for it."
Carrados's sightless eyes had the one quality of concealing emotion
supremely. "Oh," he commented softly, "always; and it was quite a
saying, was it? And _why_ was it always so on Thursday?"
"It had to do with the early closing, I'm told. The suburban traffic was
a bit different. By rights we ought to have been set back two minutes
for that day, but I suppose it wasn't thought worth while to alter us in
the time-table, so we most always had to wait outside Three Deep tunnel
for a west-bound electric to make good."
"You were prepared for it then?"
"Yes, sir, I was," said Hutchins, reddening at some recollection, "and
very down about it was one of the jury over that. But, mayhap once in
three months, I did get through even on a Thursday, and it's not for me
to question whether things are right or wrong just because they are not
what I may expect. The signals are my orders, sir--stop! go on! and it's
for me to obey, as you would a general on the field of battle. What
would happen otherwise! It was nonsense what they said about going
cautious; and the man who started it was a barber who didn't know the
difference between a 'distance' and a 'stop' signal down to the minute
they gave their verdict. My orders, sir, given me by that signal, was
'Go right ahead and keep to your running time!'"
Carrados nodded a soothing assent. "That is all, I think," he remarked.
"All!" exclaimed Hutchins in surprise. "Why, sir, you can't have got
much idea of it yet."
"Quite enough. And I know it isn't pleasant for you to be taken along
the same ground over and over again."
The man moved awkwardly in his chair and pulled nervously at his
grizzled beard.
"You mustn't take any notice of what I said just now, sir," he
apologized. "You somehow make me feel that something may come of it; but
I've been badgered about and accused and cross-examined from one to
another of them these weeks till it's fairly made me bitter against
everything. And now they talk of putting me in a lavatory--me that has
been with the company for five and forty years and on the foot-plate
thirty-two--a man suspected of running past a danger signal."
"You have had a rough time, Hutchins; you will have to exercise your
patience a little longer yet," said Carrados sympathetically.
"You think something may come of it, sir? You think you will be able to
clear me? Believe me, sir, if you could give me something to look
forward to it might save me from----" He pulled himself up and shook his
head sorrowfully. "I've been near it," he added simply.
Carrados reflected and took his resolution.
"To-day is Wednesday. I think you may hope to hear something from your
general manager towards the middle of next week."
"Good God, sir! You really mean that?"
"In the interval show your good sense by behaving reasonably. Keep
civilly to yourself and don't talk. Above all"--he nodded towards a
quart jug that stood on the table between them, an incident that filled
the simple-minded engineer with boundless wonder when he recalled it
afterwards--"above all, leave that alone."
Hutchins snatched up the vessel and brought it crashing down on the
hearthstone, his face shining with a set resolution.
"I've done with it, sir. It was the bitterness and despair that drove me
to that. Now I can do without it."
The door was hastily opened and Miss Hutchins looked anxiously from her
father to the visitors and back again.
"Oh, whatever is the matter?" she exclaimed. "I heard a great crash."
"This gentleman is going to clear me, Meg, my dear," blurted out the old
man irrepressibly. "And I've done with the drink for ever."
"Hutchins! Hutchins!" said Carrados warningly.
"My daughter, sir; you wouldn't have her not know?" pleaded Hutchins,
rather crest-fallen. "It won't go any further."
Carrados laughed quietly to himself as he felt Margaret Hutchins's
startled and questioning eyes attempting to read his mind. He shook
hands with the engine-driver without further comment, however, and
walked out into the commonplace little street under Parkinson's
unobtrusive guidance.
"Very nice of Miss Hutchins to go into half-mourning, Parkinson," he
remarked as they went along. "Thoughtful, and yet not ostentatious."
"Yes, sir," agreed Parkinson, who had long ceased to wonder at his
master's perceptions.
"The Romans, Parkinson, had a saying to the effect that gold carries no
smell. That is a pity sometimes. What jewellery did Miss Hutchins wear?"
"Very little, sir. A plain gold brooch representing a merry-thought--the
merry-thought of a sparrow, I should say, sir. The only other article
was a smooth-backed gun-metal watch, suspended from a gun-metal bow."
"Nothing showy or expensive, eh?"
"Oh dear no, sir. Quite appropriate for a young person of her position."
"Just what I should have expected." He slackened his pace. "We are
passing a hoarding, are we not?"
"Yes, sir."
"We will stand here a moment. Read me the letterpress of the poster
before us."
"This 'Oxo' one, sir?"
"Yes."
"'Oxo,' sir."
Carrados was convulsed with silent laughter. Parkinson had infinitely
more dignity and conceded merely a tolerant recognition of the
ludicrous.
"That was a bad shot, Parkinson," remarked his master when he could
speak. "We will try another."
For three minutes, with scrupulous conscientiousness on the part of the
reader and every appearance of keen interest on the part of the hearer,
there were set forth the particulars of a sale by auction of superfluous
timber and builders' material.
"That will do," said Carrados, when the last detail had been reached.
"We can be seen from the door of No. 107 still?"
"Yes, sir."
"No indication of anyone coming to us from there?"
"No, sir."
Carrados walked thoughtfully on again. In the Holloway Road they
rejoined the waiting motor car. "Lambeth Bridge Station," was the order
the driver received.
From the station the car was sent on home and Parkinson was instructed
to take two first-class singles for Richmond, which could be reached by
changing at Stafford Road. The "evening rush" had not yet commenced and
they had no difficulty in finding an empty carriage when the train came
in.
Parkinson was kept busy that journey describing what he saw at various
points between Lambeth Bridge and Knight's Cross. For a quarter of a
mile Carrados's demands on the eyes and the memory of his remarkable
servant were wide and incessant. Then his questions ceased. They had
passed the "stop" signal, east of Knight's Cross Station.
The following afternoon they made the return journey as far as Knight's
Cross. This time, however, the surroundings failed to interest Carrados.
"We are going to look at some rooms," was the information he offered on
the subject, and an imperturbable "Yes, sir" had been the extent of
Parkinson's comment on the unusual proceeding. After leaving the station
they turned sharply along a road that ran parallel with the line, a dull
thoroughfare of substantial, elderly houses that were beginning to sink
into decrepitude. Here and there a corner residence displayed the brass
plate of a professional occupant, but for the most part they were given
up to the various branches of second-rate apartment letting.
"The third house after the one with the flagstaff," said Carrados.
Parkinson rang the bell, which was answered by a young servant, who took
an early opportunity of assuring them that she was not tidy as it was
rather early in the afternoon. She informed Carrados, in reply to his
inquiry, that Miss Chubb was at home, and showed them into a melancholy
little sitting-room to await her appearance.
"I shall be 'almost' blind here, Parkinson," remarked Carrados, walking
about the room. "It saves explanation."
"Very good, sir," replied Parkinson.
Five minutes later, an interval suggesting that Miss Chubb also found it
rather early in the afternoon, Carrados was arranging to take rooms for
his attendant and himself for the short time that he would be in London,
seeing an oculist.
"One bedroom, mine, must face north," he stipulated. "It has to do with
the light."
Miss Chubb replied that she quite understood. Some gentlemen, she added,
had their requirements, others their fancies. She endeavoured to suit
all. The bedroom she had in view from the first _did_ face north. She
would not have known, only the last gentleman, curiously enough, had
made the same request.
"A sufferer like myself?" inquired Carrados affably.
Miss Chubb did not think so. In his case she regarded it merely as a
fancy. He had said that he could not sleep on any other side. She had
had to turn out of her own room to accommodate him, but if one kept an
apartment-house one had to be adaptable; and Mr Ghoosh was certainly
very liberal in his ideas.
"Ghoosh? An Indian gentleman, I presume?" hazarded Carrados.
It appeared that Mr Ghoosh was an Indian. Miss Chubb confided that at
first she had been rather perturbed at the idea of taking in "a black
man," as she confessed to regarding him. She reiterated, however, that
Mr Ghoosh proved to be "quite the gentleman." Five minutes of affability
put Carrados in full possession of Mr Ghoosh's manner of life and
movements--the dates of his arrival and departure, his solitariness and
his daily habits.
"This would be the best bedroom," said Miss Chubb.
It was a fair-sized room on the first floor. The window looked out on to
the roof of an outbuilding; beyond, the deep cutting of the railway
line. Opposite stood the dead wall that Mr Carlyle had spoken of.
Carrados "looked" round the room with the discriminating glance that
sometimes proved so embarrassing to those who knew him.
"I have to take a little daily exercise," he remarked, walking to the
window and running his hand up the woodwork. "You will not mind my
fixing a 'developer' here, Miss Chubb--a few small screws?"
Miss Chubb thought not. Then she was sure not. Finally she ridiculed the
idea of minding with scorn.
"If there is width enough," mused Carrados, spanning the upright
critically. "Do you happen to have a wooden foot-rule convenient?"
"Well, to be sure!" exclaimed Miss Chubb, opening a rapid succession of
drawers until she produced the required article. "When we did out this
room after Mr Ghoosh, there was this very ruler among the things that he
hadn't thought worth taking. This is what you require, sir?"
"Yes," replied Carrados, accepting it, "I think this is exactly what I
require." It was a common new white-wood rule, such as one might buy at
any small stationer's for a penny. He carelessly took off the width of
the upright, reading the figures with a touch; and then continued to run
a finger-tip delicately up and down the edges of the instrument.
"Four and seven-eighths," was his unspoken conclusion.
"I hope it will do, sir."
"Admirably," replied Carrados. "But I haven't reached the end of my
requirements yet, Miss Chubb."
"No, sir?" said the landlady, feeling that it would be a pleasure to
oblige so agreeable a gentleman, "what else might there be?"
"Although I can see very little I like to have a light, but not any kind
of light. Gas I cannot do with. Do you think that you would be able to
find me an oil lamp?"
"Certainly, sir. I got out a very nice brass lamp that I have specially
for Mr Ghoosh. He read a good deal of an evening and he preferred a
lamp."
"That is very convenient. I suppose it is large enough to burn for a
whole evening?"
"Yes, indeed. And very particular he was always to have it filled every
day."
"A lamp without oil is not very useful," smiled Carrados, following her
towards another room, and absentmindedly slipping the foot-rule into his
pocket.
Whatever Parkinson thought of the arrangement of going into second-rate
apartments in an obscure street it is to be inferred that his devotion
to his master was sufficient to overcome his private emotions as a
self-respecting "man." At all events, as they were approaching the
station he asked, and without a trace of feeling, whether there were any
orders for him with reference to the proposed migration.
"None, Parkinson," replied his master. "We must be satisfied with our
present quarters."
"I beg your pardon, sir," said Parkinson, with some constraint. "I
understood that you had taken the rooms for a week certain."
"I am afraid that Miss Chubb will be under the same impression.
Unforeseen circumstances will prevent our going, however. Mr Greatorex
must write to-morrow, enclosing a cheque, with my regrets, and adding a
penny for this ruler which I seem to have brought away with me. It, at
least, is something for the money."
Parkinson may be excused for not attempting to understand the course of
events.
"Here is your train coming in, sir," he merely said.
"We will let it go and wait for another. Is there a signal at either end
of the platform?"
"Yes, sir; at the further end."
"Let us walk towards it. Are there any of the porters or officials about
here?"
"No, sir; none."
"Take this ruler. I want you to go up the steps--there are steps up the
signal, by the way?"
"Yes, sir."
"I want you to measure the glass of the lamp. Do not go up any higher
than is necessary, but if you have to stretch be careful not to mark on
the measurement with your nail, although the impulse is a natural one.
That has been done already."
Parkinson looked apprehensively around and about. Fortunately the part
was a dark and unfrequented spot and everyone else was moving towards
the exit at the other end of the platform. Fortunately, also, the signal
was not a high one.
"As near as I can judge on the rounded surface, the glass is four and
seven-eighths across," reported Parkinson.
"Thank you," replied Carrados, returning the measure to his pocket,
"four and seven-eighths is quite near enough. Now we will take the next
train back."
Sunday evening came, and with it Mr Carlyle to The Turrets at the
appointed hour. He brought to the situation a mind poised for any
eventuality and a trenchant eye. As the time went on and the
impenetrable Carrados made no allusion to the case, Carlyle's manner
inclined to a waggish commiseration of his host's position. Actually, he
said little, but the crisp precision of his voice when the path lay open
to a remark of any significance left little to be said.
It was not until they had finished dinner and returned to the library
that Carrados gave the slightest hint of anything unusual being in the
air. His first indication of coming events was to remove the key from
the outside to the inside of the door.
"What are you doing, Max?" demanded Mr Carlyle, his curiosity overcoming
the indirect attitude.
"You have been very entertaining, Louis," replied his friend, "but
Parkinson should be back very soon now and it is as well to be prepared.
Do you happen to carry a revolver?"
"Not when I come to dine with you, Max," replied Carlyle, with all the
aplomb he could muster. "Is it usual?"
Carrados smiled affectionately at his guest's agile recovery and touched
the secret spring of a drawer in an antique bureau by his side. The
little hidden receptacle shot smoothly out, disclosing a pair of
dull-blued pistols.
"To-night, at all events, it might be prudent," he replied, handing one
to Carlyle and putting the other into his own pocket. "Our man may be
here at any minute, and we do not know in what temper he will come."
"Our man!" exclaimed Carlyle, craning forward in excitement. "Max! you
don't mean to say that you have got Mead to admit it?"
"No one has admitted it," said Carrados. "And it is not Mead."
"Not Mead.... Do you mean that Hutchins----?"
"Neither Mead nor Hutchins. The man who tampered with the signal--for
Hutchins was right and a green light _was_ exhibited--is a young Indian
from Bengal. His name is Drishna and he lives at Swanstead."
Mr Carlyle stared at his friend between sheer surprise and blank
incredulity.
"You really mean this, Carrados?" he said.
"My fatal reputation for humour!" smiled Carrados. "If I am wrong,
Louis, the next hour will expose it."
"But why--why--why? The colossal villainy, the unparalleled audacity!"
Mr Carlyle lost himself among incredulous superlatives and could only
stare.
"Chiefly to get himself out of a disastrous speculation," replied
Carrados, answering the question. "If there was another motive--or at
least an incentive--which I suspect, doubtless we shall hear of it."
"All the same, Max, I don't think that you have treated me quite
fairly," protested Carlyle, getting over his first surprise and passing
to a sense of injury. "Here we are and I know nothing, absolutely
nothing, of the whole affair."
"We both have our ideas of pleasantry, Louis," replied Carrados
genially. "But I dare say you are right and perhaps there is still time
to atone." In the fewest possible words he outlined the course of his
investigations. "And now you know all that is to be known until Drishna
arrives."
"But will he come?" questioned Carlyle doubtfully. "He may be
suspicious."
"Yes, he will be suspicious."
"Then he will not come."
"On the contrary, Louis, he will come because my letter will make him
suspicious. He _is_ coming; otherwise Parkinson would have telephoned
me at once and we should have had to take other measures."
"What did you say, Max?" asked Carlyle curiously.
"I wrote that I was anxious to discuss an Indo-Scythian inscription with
him, and sent my car in the hope that he would be able to oblige me."
"But is he interested in Indo-Scythian inscriptions?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," admitted Carrados, and Mr Carlyle was
throwing up his hands in despair when the sound of a motor car wheels
softly kissing the gravel surface of the drive outside brought him to
his feet.
"By gad, you are right, Max!" he exclaimed, peeping through the
curtains. "There is a man inside."
"Mr Drishna," announced Parkinson, a minute later.
The visitor came into the room with leisurely self-possession that might
have been real or a desperate assumption. He was a slightly built young
man of about twenty-five, with black hair and eyes, a small, carefully
trained moustache, and a dark olive skin. His physiognomy was not
displeasing, but his expression had a harsh and supercilious tinge. In
attire he erred towards the immaculately spruce.
"Mr Carrados?" he said inquiringly.
Carrados, who had risen, bowed slightly without offering his hand.
"This gentleman," he said, indicating his friend, "is Mr Carlyle, the
celebrated private detective."
The Indian shot a very sharp glance at the object of this description.
Then he sat down.
"You wrote me a letter, Mr Carrados," he remarked, in English that
scarcely betrayed any foreign origin, "a rather curious letter, I may
say. You asked me about an ancient inscription. I know nothing of
antiquities; but I thought, as you had sent, that it would be more
courteous if I came and explained this to you."
"That was the object of my letter," replied Carrados.
"You wished to see me?" said Drishna, unable to stand the ordeal of the
silence that Carrados imposed after his remark.
"When you left Miss Chubb's house you left a ruler behind." One lay on
the desk by Carrados and he took it up as he spoke.
"I don't understand what you are talking about," said Drishna guardedly.
"You are making some mistake."
"The ruler was marked at four and seven-eighths inches--the measure of
the glass of the signal lamp outside."
The unfortunate young man was unable to repress a start. His face lost
its healthy tone. Then, with a sudden impulse, he made a step forward
and snatched the object from Carrados's hand.
"If it is mine I have a right to it," he exclaimed, snapping the ruler
in two and throwing it on to the back of the blazing fire. "It is
nothing."
"Pardon me, I did not say that the one you have so impetuously disposed
of was yours. As a matter of fact, it was mine. Yours is--elsewhere."
"Wherever it is you have no right to it if it is mine," panted Drishna,
with rising excitement. "You are a thief, Mr Carrados. I will not stay
any longer here."