In a poor little house in a wretched little town on a miserable day in
November, two men sat by a small wood fire, warming their hands at the
tiny blaze and silently watching the flicker of the flames. They were
both young men; the elder was not more than twenty-six or seven and the
younger was perhaps a year behind.
[Illustration: "TWO MEN SAT BY A SMALL WOOD FIRE."]
One of them was plain Charlie Osborne; the other rejoiced in the more
aristocratic sobriquet of Eustace Margraf. But it mattered little by
what different names they were called, since Fortune had forgotten to
call on both alike. In short, they were "broke"--almost "stony broke."
There had been a lock-out at the works at which they were both employed,
and although they had neither of them joined the combination, they were
none the less out of a job, and the fact of their former employment at
the works that had locked them out told heavily against their chance of
procuring other work in the town.
Neither was there much likelihood of their going back to the works, for
the owners were rich men who could afford a long struggle, and the men
were obstinate; and even if the strikers ever got back, Osborne and
Margraf were in the awkward positions of being blacklegs. Thus it was
that Fortune had forgotten these two young men who sat by their little
fire, doggedly silent, too low-hearted even to curse Fortune.
"I shall go to London, Charlie," said the elder, suddenly, without
looking up.
"What shall we do there?" growled the other. Osborne and Margraf had
been more inseparable than brothers since the death of each of their
parents ten years ago. Therefore it was that, when the latter announced
his intention of going to London, the former instantly assumed his own
share in the venture, and asked:--
"What shall _we_ do in London?"
"Don't know till I get there," answered Margraf, who, be it observed,
did not encourage the first person plural. First person singular was a
good deal more in his line. Yet he loved his chum, too, in his own way;
but it was not the best way.
"What's the use of going, then?"
"What's the use of staying in this d---- show? What's the use of tramping
round day and night after a job that never comes? What's the use of
anything? I'm tired of mill work; it isn't what I was made for. I'm
going to try my luck at something better. You needn't come."
But because Charlie Osborne was accustomed to be led by his comrade, he
too gave out his intention to try his fortunes in London. This was not
quite what Margraf wanted. He evidently had a scheme in contemplation
in which he would prefer to be alone.
"I'll tell you what, Charlie, old fellow," he said after awhile. "I've
got a plan I want you to help carry out. I want you and me to separate
for three years--only three years--and try our luck alone. At the end of
the three years we will meet again and see how each has got on, and
divide takings."
"Not see each other at all?" asked Charlie, ruefully. His love for his
chum was of the better kind; the second person singular species.
"No, not at all," answered the other, firmly, as though he were laying
down a painful but apparent duty. "Not have any communication with each
other except in case of extreme necessity. In that case we can put an
advertisement in the _Daily Telegraph_. We will make a point of always
seeing that paper."
After a longer demur than he was accustomed to raise to any scheme of
Margraf's, however wild and chimerical, Charlie at last let his usual
submission, and a vague suspicion that his companionship might be
dragging Margraf back from attaining a position more worthy of that
gentleman's talents, get the better of him. He made a hard fight for the
privilege of exchanging letters during the three years, but Eustace
remained obdurate. There was to be no communication except under the
circumstances and in the manner named. Each was to take care to see the
_Daily Telegraph_ every morning in case of such communications; and at
the exact expiration of the three years, that is, on the 15th November,
188-, they were to meet at twelve o'clock noon at Charing Cross station.
So these two men divided up their little stock of belongings and smaller
capital of money, took a third-class ticket each to London, went
together to Charing Cross to verify the scene of their future reunion,
and shook hands.
"We meet here in three years from to-day."
"We do, all being well. Good-bye, Charlie."
"Good-bye, old fellow."
Thus they parted, each on his separate quest for fortune.
[Illustration: "GOOD-BYE, OLD FELLOW."]
On the evening of the 14th November, 188-, Eustace Margraf, Esq.,
Director and Chairman of the Anglican Debenture Corporation, Ltd., eke
of the General Stock and Shareholders' Protective Union, Ltd., and
various other like speculative companies, sat in the luxurious
dining-room of his well-appointed residence in Lewisham Park. He had
finished his sumptuous but solitary meal, and, reclining in a spacious
armchair, sipped his rare old wine. It was three years all but a day
since he had parted from Charlie Osborne on Charing Cross Station, and
set out with eighteenpence in his pocket to seek his fortune. In that
brief time he had rapidly risen to wealth and distinction. Three years
ago he was a penniless mechanic, forsaken by Fortune and discontented
with his life; to-day he was a rich man, smiled on and courted by
Fortune and envied by all her minions, and still he was discontented
with his life.
It was strange that he should cherish this discontent, for Eustace
Margraf, mindful of the fact that he was made for something better than
mill work, had matriculated and graduated at the World's University in
the Department of Forgery and Theft. He had taken the highest diplomas
in fraud; he had passed with honours the test of an accomplished
swindler; and in the intricacies of embezzlement he was Senior Wrangler.
Yet he was not content; some men are never satisfied.
This evening, as he sat sampling his '18 Oporto, with the daily paper at
his elbow, he actually felt some amount of regret that he had entered
the course for such distinctions--which, by the way, his modesty forbade
him publishing to the world at large. Only a select few knew the extent
of his accomplishments.
In the paper at his side there was a little paragraph which had given
his memory a rather unpleasant jog. It was in the personal column, and
ran as follows: "E. M.--Don't forget to-morrow, noon, C. C.
Station.--Charlie." He wanted to see Charlie, for he still loved him
after his old fashion; but the memories which the advertisement called
up, and a doubt as to whether Charlie would appreciate his
accomplishments, made him fidgety; and the recollection of all that must
pass between now and noon to-morrow filled him with uneasiness. For
to-night he was to stake everything in one tremendous venture. If he
succeeded he would need to do nothing more all his life; if he
failed----
To-night, at eight o'clock, the Continental mail train would start from
Charing Cross Station with seventy-five thousand pounds worth of bullion
for the Bank of France. If Eustace Margraf succeeded in his enterprise,
it would reach Paris with the same weight of valueless shot in the
strong iron boxes.
Everything had been nicely and minutely arranged. The shot had been
carefully weighed to a quarter of a grain, and portioned into three
equal lots to match the cases of bullion, which would be weighed on
leaving London, again at Dover, once more at Calais, and finally on
arrival at Paris. A key to fit the cases had been secretly made from a
wax impression of the original, how obtained none but Margraf knew. This
key he would hand to his confederates this evening at Charing Cross
Station, after which he would go down by the seven o'clock train
preceding the mail.
The stoker of the mail, an old railway hand, had been bribed, together
with the guard in whose compartment the bullion would travel. It had
been thought desirable to deal differently with the front guard and the
driver; a specially prepared and powerful drug was to be given them in a
pint of beer just before starting, which would take effect about an hour
after administration and last till the sleepers should be aroused by
brandy. During their slumber the stoker would pull up at convenient
places on the line to allow the robbers to enter the guard's carriage
and leave it with their booty, when they would make off to where Margraf
had arranged to meet them; he would manage the rest. The front guard and
the driver, meanwhile, would for their own sakes be glad enough to say
nothing about their long slumber.
All these arrangements had been made with great nicety, and told over
twice; and yet Margraf was uneasy and nervous as he thought of all the
risk he ran. Twice he stretched out his hand for the bell-rope for
telegram forms to stay the whole business; once he went so far as to
ring the bell, but he altered his mind by the time the servant answered
it, and ordered hot brandy instead. It was now six o'clock; in another
hour he must hand over the duplicate key to his accomplices and board
the train for Dover.
Every moment he grew more nervous, his hand became so shaky that brandy
failed to steady it; his face grew pale and haggard; his nerves were
strung to a painful tension; and all sorts of possibilities of failure
in his scheme haunted him till he could have cried out from sheer
nervousness.
[Illustration: "A LIFE LIKE THIS WOULD KILL ME!"]
"God!" he exclaimed, as he drained a glass of brandy and water and rose
to go. "A life like this would kill me. Well, this shall be the last
risk. If it turns out all right--as it must--I shall give this kind of
business up. I shall have plenty then, and old Charlie will go off and
live quietly and comfortably."
* * * * *
The rear guard of the seven o'clock Continental finished his last cup of
tea, put on his thick winter coat, kissed his wife and baby girl, and
took up his lantern preparatory to joining his train. He reached the
station as the great engine was being coupled and gave the driver a
cheery salute, which that official acknowledged with a surly growl.
"Something put Jimmy out to-night," he laughed to the fireman, a young,
inexperienced fellow, making his trial trip, and passed on to make his
inspection of things in general before starting.
At the last moment a richly-dressed gentleman, wearing a long fur coat,
and carrying a large travelling rug, entered a first-class smoking
compartment. This gentleman, whom numerous people on the platform
recognised as he passed and saluted respectfully, was Eustace Margraf,
Esq. The carriage he got into was an empty one, and, lying full length
on the seat, covered with his rug, he lit a cigar and composed himself
to make the best of a long and tiresome railway journey. The guard blew
his whistle, the great engine reproduced it in a loud, deep tone, and
the train steamed slowly out of the station, twenty minutes late in
starting.
Left to his own reflections, which were none of the liveliest, and
lulled by the motion of the train, our traveller soon fell into a fitful
sleep, wherein he was haunted by dreams that wrought upon his brain
until he was almost as nervous as he had been in his own room some hours
before.
He awoke suddenly, with a vague sense that the train was travelling at a
most unusual and unaccountable speed: and, as he leapt to his feet in a
half-dazed fright, they shot through Tunbridge--a place at which they
were timed to make a ten minutes' stop--and he was conscious of seeing,
as in a flash, a crowd of frightened and awe-struck faces looking at the
train from the platform. He sank back on the cushioned seat, seized with
a nameless terror. Time and space seemed to his overwrought nerves to be
filled with tokens of some approaching calamity which he was powerless
to prevent; the terrific speed and violent swaying of the train, the
shrill howl of the ceaseless whistle, the terrible darkness and silence
of everything outside his immediate surroundings, and the recollection
of that crowd of terrified faces, all seemed to thrill him with a sense
of impending horror, and the wretched man sat terror-stricken on his
seat, a mere mass of highly-strung and delicate nerves.
[Illustration: "SUDDENLY A FACE PASSED THE WINDOW."]
Suddenly, as he looked into the black night, a face passed the window,
as of someone walking along the footboard to the engine; a stern-set
face, as of one going to certain danger and needing all the pluck he
possessed to carry him through: and at the apparition the traveller
fairly shrieked aloud; but the face passed on and was gone.
In another moment there was a sudden shout--a terrific crash--a wild
chaos of sight and sound--and our traveller knew no more.
When next he found his senses, he was lying among cushions and rugs in
the waiting-room at Tunbridge Wells Station. He awoke with a faint
shiver, and tried to raise himself, but found to his astonishment that
he could not so much as lift a finger. As a matter of fact, he was among
those whom the busy surgeons had given up as a desperate case; and,
after doing all in their power to ease him, abandoned in favour of more
hopeful subjects; but this he did not know.
Several of the passengers whose injuries were only very slight were
discussing the accident in an animated manner, and, as usual in such
cases, many wild and fanciful conjectures were passed about as truth. At
last one said:--
"Does anyone know the rights of the matter?"
"Yes, I do," volunteered a young man with an arm in a sling; and Margraf
lay silently listening, unable to move or speak.
"Well, what is it?"
"Just after we passed Grove Park, the fireman was on the front of the
engine oiling, when he felt the locomotive increasing in speed till it
became so appalling that he grew terrified and could not get back. He is
a young fellow, and this is his trial trip. At length he managed to
crawl back to the cab, where he found the driver lying, as he supposed,
dead. This so increased his terror that he was only able to open the
whistle and pull the cord communicating with the rear guard, and then
fell in a swoon across the tender.
"The rear guard, a plucky young fellow of about six-and-twenty, twigging
the situation, came, as we all know, along the footboard to the
engine"--Margraf listened with all his remaining strength--"in order to
stop the train before it ran into the Ramsgate express, but apparently
was too late."
"But what was up with the driver, and where was the front guard in the
meanwhile?"
"Well, it appears from what the front guard says--marvellous how he
escaped with hardly a scratch--both these men had been drugged, and as
they were both of them to have run the mail train to the Continent
to-night, things look very fishy."
Margraf nearly fainted in his efforts to listen more intensely.
"They were changed on to this train at the last moment, and hence this
accident. The rear guard, poor fellow, was shockingly mangled. Stone
dead, of course; and leaves, I understand, a wife and child. There will
no doubt be a collection made for him. He was a plucky fellow."
"Does anyone know his name?" asked one.
"Yes; his name was Charlie Osborne."
There was a heartrending groan from the cushions and rugs.
"Here," cried a young medical student among the party to a passing
surgeon, "you'd better come and have a look at this poor chap. He isn't
as dead as you thought he was."
[Illustration: THE SURGEON CAME AND LOOKED AT MARGRAF.]
The surgeon came and looked at Margraf.
"Isn't he?" he said, in his cool, professional way. "He is a good deal
farther gone than I thought. He couldn't be gone much farther."
_From Behind the Speaker's Chair._