OVERHEARD IN THE TRAIN
It was with a feeling of grim amusement that Mr. Paxton bought himself
a first-class ticket. It was, probably, the last occasion on which he
would ride first-class for some considerable time to come. The die had
fallen; the game was lost--Eries had dropped more than one. Not only
had he lost all he had to lose, he was a defaulter. It was out of his
power to settle, he was going to emigrate instead. He had with him a
Gladstone bag; it contained all his worldly possessions that he
proposed to take with him on his travels. His intention was, having
told Miss Strong the news, and having bidden a last farewell, to go
straight from Brighton to Southampton, and thence, by the American
line, to the continent on whose shores Europe dumps so many of its
failures.
The train was later than are the trains which are popular with City
men. It seemed almost empty at London Bridge. Mr. Paxton had a
compartment to himself. He had an evening paper with him. He turned to
the money article. Eries had closed a point lower even than he had
supposed. It did not matter. A point lower, more or less, would make
no difference to him--the difference would be to the brokers who had
trusted him. Wishing to do anything but think, he looked to see what
other news the paper might contain. Some sensational headlines caught
his eye.
"ROBBERY OF THE DUCHESS OF DATCHET'S DIAMONDS!
"AN EXTRAORDINARY TALE."
The announcement amused him.
"After all that is the sort of line which I ought to have made my
own--robbing pure and simple. It's more profitable than what Daisy
says that I call 'punting.'"
He read on. The tale was told in the usual sensational style, though
the telling could scarcely have been more sensational than the tale
which was told. That afternoon, it appeared, an amazing robbery had
taken place--amazing, first, because of the almost incredible value of
what had been stolen; and, second, because of the daring fashion in
which the deed had been done. In spite of the desperate nature of his
own position--or, perhaps, because of it--Mr. Paxton drank in the
story with avidity.
The Duchess of Datchet, the young, and, if report was true, the
beautiful wife of one of England's greatest and richest noblemen, had
been on a visit to the Queen at Windsor--the honoured guest of the
Sovereign. As a fitting mark of the occasion, and in order to appear
before Her Majesty in the splendours which so well became her, the
Duchess had taken with her the famous Datchet diamonds. As all the
world knows the Dukes of Datchet have been collectors of diamonds
during, at any rate, the last two centuries.
The value of their collection is fabulous--the intrinsic value of the
stones which the duchess had taken with her on that memorable journey,
according to the paper, was at least £250,000--a quarter of a million
of money! This was the net value--indeed, it seemed that one might
almost say it was the trade value, and was quite apart from any
adventitious value which they might possess, from, for instance, the
point of view of historical association.
Mr. Paxton drew a long breath as he read:
"Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds--a quarter of a million! I am
not at all sure that I should not have liked to have had a finger in
such a pie as that. It would be better than punting at Eries."
The diamonds, it seemed, arrived all right at Windsor, and the duchess
too. The visit passed off with due _éclat_. It was as Her Grace was
returning that the deed was done, though how it was done was, as yet,
a profound mystery.
"Of course," commented Mr. Paxton to himself, "all criminal London
knew what she had taken with her. The betting is that they never lost
sight of those diamonds from first to last; to adequately safeguard
them she ought to have taken with her a regiment of soldiers."
Although she had not gone so far as a regiment of soldiers, that
precaution had been taken--and precautions, moreover, which had been
found to be adequate, over and over again, on previous occasions--was
sufficiently plain. The duchess had travelled in a reserved saloon
carriage by the five minutes past four train from Windsor to
Paddington. She had been accompanied by two servants, her maid, and a
man-servant named Stephen Eversleigh. Eversleigh was one of a family
of servants the members of which had been in the employment of the
Dukes of Datchet for generations.
It was he who was in charge of the diamonds. They were in a leather
despatch-box. The duchess placed them in it with her own hand, locked
the box, and retained the key in her own possession. Eversleigh
carried the box from the duchess's apartment in the Castle to the
carriage which conveyed her to the railway station. He placed it on
the seat in front of her.
He himself sat outside with the maid. When the carriage reached the
station he carried it to the duchess's saloon. The duchess was the
sole occupant of the saloon. She travelled with the despatch-box in
front of her all the way to London. The duke met her at Paddington.
Eversleigh again placed the box on the front seat of the carriage, the
duke and duchess, sitting side by side, having it in full view as the
brougham passed through the London streets. The diamonds, when not in
actual use, were always kept, for safe custody, at Bartlett's Bank.
The confidential agent of the bank was awaiting their arrival when
the brougham reached the ducal mansion in Grosvenor Square. The
despatch-box was taken straight to him, and, more for form's sake than
anything else, was opened by the duchess in his presence, so that he
might see that it really did contain the diamonds before he gave the
usual receipt.
It was as well for the bank's sake that on that occasion the form was
observed. When the box was opened, it was empty! There was nothing of
any sort to show that the diamonds had ever been in it--they had
vanished into air!
When he had reached this point Mr. Paxton put the paper down. He
laughed.
"That's a teaser. The position seems to promise a pleasing problem for
one of those masters of the art of detection who have been cutting
such antics lately in popular fiction. If I were appointed to ferret
out the mystery, I fancy that I should begin by wanting to know a few
things about her Grace the Duchess. I wonder what happened to that
despatch-box while she and it were _tête-à-tête?_ It is to be hoped
that she possesses her husband's entire confidence, otherwise it is
just possible that she is in for a rare old time of it."
The newspaper had little more to tell. There were the usual attempts
to fill a column with a paragraph; the stereotyped statements about
the clues which the police were supposed to be following up, but all
that they amounted to was this: that the duchess asserted that she had
placed the diamonds in the despatch-box at Windsor Castle, and that,
as a matter of plain fact, they were not in it when the box reached
Grosvenor Square.
Mr. Paxton leaned back in his seat, thrust his hands into his trouser
pockets, and mused.
"What lucky beggars those thieves must be! What wouldn't any one do
for a quarter of a million--what wouldn't I? Even supposing that the
value of the stones is over-stated, and that they are only worth half
as much, there is some spending in £125,000. It would set me up for
life, with a little over. What prospect is there in front of me--don't
I know that there is none? Existence in a country which I have not the
faintest desire to go to; a life which I hate; a continual struggling
and striving for the barest daily bread, with, in all human
probability, failure, and a nameless grave at the end. What use is
there in living out such a life as that? But if I could only lay my
hands on even an appreciable fraction of that quarter of a million,
with Daisy at my side--God bless the girl! how ill I have treated
her!--how different it all would be!"
Mr. Paxton was possessed by a feeling of restlessness; his thoughts
pricked him in his most secret places. For him, the train was moving
much too slowly; had it flown on the wings of the wind it could
scarcely have kept pace with the whirlwind in his brain. Rising to his
feet, he began to move backwards and forwards in the space between the
seats--anything was better than complete inaction.
The compartment in which he was travelling was not a new one; indeed,
so far was it from being a new one, that it belonged to a type which,
if not actually obsolete, at any rate nowadays is rarely seen. An
oblong sheet of plate-glass was let into the partition on either side,
within a few inches of the roof. This sheet of plate-glass was set in
a brass frame, the frame itself being swung on a pivot.
Desirous of doing anything which would enable him, even temporarily,
to escape from his thoughts, Mr. Paxton gave way to his idle and, one
might almost add, impertinent curiosity. He stood, first on one seat,
and peered through the glass into the adjoining compartment. So far as
he was able to see, from the post of vantage which he occupied, it was
vacant. He swung the glass round on its pivot. He listened. There was
not a sound. Satisfied--if, that is, the knowledge gave him any
satisfaction!--that there was no one there, he prepared to repeat the
process of espial on the other seat.
But in this case the result was different. No sooner had he brought
his eyes on a level with the sheet of glass, than he dropped down off
the seat again with the rapidity of a jack-in-the-box.
"By George! I've seen that man before! It would hardly do to be caught
playing the part of Peeping Tom."
Conscious of so much, he was also conscious at the same time of an
increase of curiosity. Among Mr. Paxton's attributes was that one
which is supposed to be the peculiar perquisite of royalty--a memory
for faces. If, for any cause, a face had once been brought to his
notice, he never afterwards forgot it. He had seen through that sheet
of glass a countenance which he had seen before, and that quite
recently.
"The chances are that I sha'n't be noticed if I am careful; and if I
am caught I'll make a joke of it. I'll peep again."
He peeped again. As he did so audible words all but escaped his lips.
"The deuce! it's the beggar who was last night with Daisy on the
pier."
There could not be a doubt about it; in the carriage next to his sat
the individual whose companionship with Miss Strong had so annoyed
him. Mr. Paxton, peering warily through the further end of the glass,
treated Mr. Lawrence to a prolonged critical inspection, which was not
likely to be prejudiced in that gentleman's favour.
Mr. Lawrence sat facing his observer, on Mr. Paxton's right, in the
corner of the carriage. That he was not alone was plain. Mr. Paxton
saw that he smiled, and that his lips were moving. Unfortunately, from
Mr. Paxton's point of view, it was not easy to see who was his
associate; whoever it was sat just in front of him, and therefore out
of Mr. Paxton's line of vision. This was the more annoying in that Mr.
Lawrence took such evident interest in the conversation he was
carrying on. An idea occurred to Mr. Paxton.
"The fellow doesn't seem to see me. When I turned that other thing
upon its pivot it didn't make any sound. I wonder, if I were to open
this affair half an inch or so, if I could hear what the fellow's
saying?"
Mr. Paxton was not in a mood to be particular. On the contrary, he was
in one of those moods which come to all of us, in some dark hour of
our lives, when we do the things which, being done, we never cease
regretting. Mr. Paxton knelt on the cushions and he opened the frame,
as he had said, just half an inch, and he put his ear as close to the
opening as he conveniently could, without running the risk of being
seen, and he listened. At first he heard nothing for his pains. He had
not got his ear just right, and the roar of the train drowned all
other sounds. Slightly shifting his position Mr. Paxton suddenly
found, however, that he could hear quite well.
The speakers, to make themselves audible to each other, had to shout
nearly at the top of their voices, and this, secure in their privacy,
they did, the result being that Mr. Paxton could hear just as well
what was being said as the person who, to all intents and purposes,
was seated close beside him.
The first voice he heard was Mr. Lawrence's.
It should be noted that here and there he lost a word, as probably
also did the person who was actually addressed; but the general sense
of the conversation he caught quite well.
"I told you I could do it. You only want patience and resolution to
take advantage of your opportunities, and a big coup is as easily
carried off as a small one."
Mr. Lawrence's voice ceased. The rejoinder came from a voice which
struck Mr. Paxton as being a very curious one indeed. The speaker
spoke not only with a strong nasal twang, but also, occasionally, with
an odd idiom. The unseen listener told himself that the speaker was
probably the newest thing in races--"a German-American."
"With the assistance of a friend--eh?"
Mr. Lawrence's voice again; in it more than a suggestion of scorn.
"The assistance of a friend! When it comes to the scratch, it is on
himself that a man must rely. What a friend principally does is to
take the lion's share of the spoil."
"Well--why not? A man will not be able to be much of a friend to
another, if, first of all, he is not a friend to himself--eh?"
Mr. Lawrence appeared to make no answer--possibly he did not relish
the other's reasoning. Presently the same voice came again, as if the
speaker intended to be apologetic--
"Understand me, my good friend, I do not say that what you did was not
clever. No, it was damn clever!--that I do say. And I always have said
that there was no one in the profession who can come near you. In your
line of business, or out of it, how many are there who can touch for a
quarter of a million, I want to know? Now, tell me, how did you do
it--is it a secret, eh?"
If Mr. Lawrence had been piqued, the other's words seemed to have
appeased him.
"Not from you--the thing was as plain as walking! The bigger the thing
you have to do the more simply you do it the better it will be done."
"It does not seem as though it were simple when you read it in the
papers--eh? What do you think?"
"The papers be damned! Directly you gave me the office that she was
going to take them with her to Windsor, I saw how I was going to get
them, and who I was going to get them from."
"Who--eh?"
"Eversleigh. Stow it--the train is stopping!"
The train was stopping. It had reached a station. The voices ceased.
Mr. Paxton withdrew from his listening place with his brain in a
greater whirl than ever. What had the two men been talking about? What
did they mean by touching for a quarter of a million, and the
reference to Windsor? The name which Mr. Lawrence had just mentioned,
Eversleigh--where, quite recently, had he made its acquaintance? Mr.
Paxton's glance fell on the evening paper which he had thrown on the
seat. He snatched it up. Something like a key to the riddle came to
him in a flash!
He opened the paper with feverish hands, turning to the account of the
robbery of the Duchess of Datchet's diamonds. It was as he thought;
his memory had not played him false--the person who had been in charge
of the gems had been a man named Stephen Eversleigh.
Mr. Paxton's hands fell nervelessly on to his knees. He stared into
vacancy. What did it mean?
The train was off again. Having heard so much, Mr. Paxton felt that he
must hear more. He returned to the place of listening. For some
moments, while the train was drawing clear of the station, the voices
continued silent--probably before exchanging further confidences they
were desirous of being certain that their privacy would remain
uninterrupted. When they were heard again it seemed that the
conversation was being carried on exactly at the point at which Mr.
Paxton had heard it cease.
The German-American was speaking.
"Eversleigh?--that is His Grace's confidential servant--eh?"
"That's the man. I studied Mr. Eversleigh by proxy, and I found out
just two things about him."
"And they were--what were they?"
"One was that he was short-sighted, and the other was that he had a
pair of spectacles which the duke had given him for a birthday
present, and which he thought no end of."
"That wasn't much to find out--eh?"
"You think so? Then that's where you're wrong. It's perhaps just as
well for you that you don't have to play first lead."
"The treasury is more in my line--eh? However, what was the use which
you made of that little find of yours?"
"If it hadn't been for that little find of mine, the possibility is
that the sparklers wouldn't be where they are just now. A friend of
mine had a detective camera. Those spectacles were kept in something
very gorgeous in cases. My friend snapped that spectacle case with his
camera. I had an almost exact duplicate made of the case from the
print he got--purposely not quite exact, you know, but devilish near.
"I found myself at Windsor Station just as Her Grace was about to
start for town. There were a good many people in the booking-office
through which you have to pass to reach the platform. As I expected,
the duchess came in front, with the maid, old Eversleigh bringing up
the rear. Just as Eversleigh came into the booking-office some one
touched him on the shoulder, and held out that duplicate spectacle
case, saying, 'I beg your pardon, sir! Have you lost your glasses?' Of
old Eversleigh's fidelity I say nothing. I don't call mere
straightness anything;--but he certainly wasn't up to the kind
of job he had in hand--not when he was properly handled. He has been
heard to say that he would sooner lose an arm than those precious
spectacles--because the duke gave them to him, you know. Perhaps he
would; anyhow, he lost something worth a trifle more than his arm.
When he felt himself touched on the shoulder, and saw what looked like
that almighty goggle-box in the stranger's hand, he got all of a
flurry, jabbed his fist into the inside pocket of his coat, and to
enable him to do so popped the despatch-box down on the seat beside
him--as I expected that he would do. I happened to be sitting on that
seat with a rug, very nicely screened too by old Eversleigh himself,
and by the stranger with the goggle-box. I nipped my rug over his box,
leaving another one--own brother to the duchess's--exposed. Old
Eversleigh found that the stranger's goggle-box was not his--that his
own was safe in his pocket!--picked up my despatch-box, and marched
off with it, while I travelled with his by the South-Western line to
town; and I can only hope that he was as pleased with the exchange as
I was."
The German-American's voice was heard.
"As you say, in the simplicity of your method, my good friend, was its
beauty. And indeed, after all, simplicity is the very essence, the
very soul, of all true art--eh?"