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 mean while,
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 is 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 twenty-second of September!"
On the twenty-second of September! I looked in Jonathan Jelf's
face, and he in mine. I felt my own paling 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 related
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 twenty-third; 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 lonely place, he struck him down with the life-preserver, and
so killed him; and how, finding what he had done, he dragged 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
mean while 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
in his hand the identical life-preserver with which he committed
it.
THE SIGNAL-MAN.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
"Halloa! Below there!"
When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the
door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short
pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground,
that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came;
but, instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep
cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about and looked
down the Line. There was something remarkable in his manner of
doing so, though I could not have said, for my life, what. But I
know it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though
his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep trench,
and mine was high above him, and so steeped in the glow of an angry
sunset that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at
all.
"Halloa! Below!"
From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and,
raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him.
"Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?"
He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him without
pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle question. Just
then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly
changing into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused
me to start back, as though it had force to draw me down. When
such vapor as rose to my height from this rapid train had passed
me and was skimming away over the landscape, I looked down again,
and saw him refurling the flag he had shown while the train went
by.
I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed to
regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up
flag towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards
distant. I called down to him, "All right!" and made for that point.
There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough zigzag
descending path notched out; which I followed.
The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was
made through a clammy stone that became oozier and wetter as I
went down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give
me time to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with
which he had pointed out the path.
When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him
again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by
which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were
waiting for me to appear. He had his left hand at his chin, and
that left elbow rested on his right hand crossed over his breast.
His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness, that
I stopped a moment, wondering at it.
I resumed my downward way, and, stepping out upon the level of
the railroad and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark,
sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post
was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side,
a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip
of sky: the perspective one way, only a crooked prolongation of
this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction,
terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a
black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous,
depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its
way to this spot, and it had an earthy deadly smell; and so much
cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if
I had left the natural world.
Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him.
Not even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one
step, and lifted his hand.
This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted
my attention when I looked down from up yonder. A visitor was a
rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped? In
me, he merely saw a man who had been shut up within narrow limits
all his life, and who, being at last set free, had a newly awakened
interest in these great works. To such purpose I spoke to him;
but I am far from sure of the terms I used, for, besides that I
am not happy in opening any conversation, there was something in
the man that daunted me.
He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the
tunnel's mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were missing
from it, and then looked at me.
That light was part of his charge? Was it not?
He answered in a low voice, "Don't you know it is?"
The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed
eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man.
I have speculated since whether there may have been infection in
his mind.
In my turn, I stepped back. But in making the action, I detected
in his eyes some latent fear of me. This put the monstrous thought
to flight.
"You look at me," I said, forcing a smile, "as if you had a dread
of me."
"I was doubtful," he returned, "whether I had seen you before."
"Where?"
He pointed to the red light he had looked at.
"There?" I said.
Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), "Yes."
"My good fellow, what should I do there? However, be that as it
may, I never was there, you may swear."
"I think I may," he rejoined. "Yes, I am sure I may."
His manner cleared, like my own. He replied to my remarks with
readiness, and in well-chosen words. Had he much to do there? Yes;
that was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness
and watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual
work--manual labor--he had next to none. To change that signal,
to trim those lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then,
was all he had to do under that head. Regarding those many long
and lonely hours of which I seemed to make so much, he could only
say that the routine of his life had shaped itself into that form,
and he had grown used to it. He had taught himself a language down
here,--if only to know it by sight, and to have formed his own
crude ideas of its pronunciation, could be called learning it.
He had also worked at fractions and decimals, and tried a little
algebra; but he was, and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures.
Was it necessary for him, when on duty, always to remain in that
channel of damp air, and could he never rise into the sunshine from
between those high stone walls? Why, that depended upon times and
circumstances. Under some conditions there would be less upon the
Line than under others, and the same held good as to certain hours
of the day and night. In bright weather, he did choose occasions
for getting a little above these lower shadows; but, being at all
times liable to be called by his electric bell, and at such times
listening for it with redoubled anxiety, the relief was less than
I would suppose.
He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an
official book in which he had to make certain entries, a telegraphic
instrument with its dial face and needles, and the little bell
of which he had spoken. On my trusting that he would excuse the
remark that he had been well educated, and (I hoped I might say
without offence) perhaps educated above that station, he observed
that instances of slight incongruity in such-wise would rarely be
found wanting among large bodies of men; that he had heard it was
so in workhouses, in the police force, even in that last desperate
resource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or less, in any
great railway staff. He had been, when young (if I could believe
it, sitting in that hut; he scarcely could), a student of natural
philosophy, and had attended lectures; but he had run wild, misused
his opportunities, gone down, and never risen again. He had no
complaint to offer about that. He had made his bed, and he lay upon
it. It was far too late to make another.
All that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, with his
grave dark regards divided between me and the fire. He threw in
the word "Sir" from time to time, and especially when he referred
to his youth, as though to request me to understand that he claimed
to be nothing but what I found him. He was several times interrupted
by the little bell, and had to read off messages, and send replies.
Once he had to stand without the door and display a flag as a train
passed, and make some verbal communication to the driver. In the
discharge of his duties I observed him to be remarkably exact and
vigilant, breaking off his discourse at a syllable, and remaining
silent until what he had to do was done.
In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest
of men to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance
that while he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen
color, turned his face towards the little bell when it did NOT
ring, opened the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude
the unhealthy damp), and looked out towards the red light near the
mouth of the tunnel. On both of those occasions he came back to
the fire with the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked,
without being able to define, when we were so far asunder.
Said I, when I rose to leave him, "You almost make me think that
I have met with a contented man."
(I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.)
"I believe I used to be so," he rejoined, in the low voice in which
he had first spoken; "but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled."
He would have recalled the words if he could. He had said them,
however, and I took them up quickly.
"With what? What is your trouble?"
"It is very difficult to impart, sir. It is very, very difficult
to speak of. If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell
you."
"But I expressly intend to make you another visit. Say, when shall
it be?"
"I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten to-morrow
night, sir."
"I will come at eleven."
He thanked me, and went out at the door with me. "I'll show my
white light, sir," he said, in his peculiar low voice, "till you
have found the way up. When you have found it, don't call out!
And when you are at the top, don't call out!"
His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said
no more than, "Very well."
"And when you come down to-morrow night, don't call out! Let me ask
you a parting question. What made you cry, 'Halloa! Below there!'
to-night?"
"Heaven knows," said I. "I cried something to that effect--"
"Not to that effect, sir. Those were the very words. I know them
well."
"Admit those were the very words. I said them, no doubt, because
I saw you below."
"For no other reason?"
"What other reason could I possibly have?"
"You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any supernatural
way?"
"No."
He wished me good night, and held up his light. I walked by the
side of the down Line of rails (with a very disagreeable sensation
of a train coming behind me), until I found the path. It was easier
to mount than to descend, and I got back to my inn without any
adventure.
Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch of
the zigzag next night, as the distant clocks were striking eleven.
He was waiting for me at the bottom, with his white light on.
"I have not called out," I said, when we came close together; "may
I speak now?"
"By all means, sir."
"Good night, then, and here's my hand."
"Good night, sir, and here's mine."
With that, we walked side by side to his box, entered it, closed
the door, and sat down by the fire.
"I have made up my mind, sir," he began, bending forward as soon
as we were seated, and speaking in a tone but a little above a
whisper, "that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles
me. I took you for some one else yesterday evening. That troubles
me."
"That mistake?"
"No. That some one else."
"Who is it?"
"I don't know."
"Like me?"
"I don't know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across the
face, and the right arm is waved. Violently waved. This way."
I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an
arm gesticulating with the utmost passion and vehemence: "For God's
sake clear the way!"
"One moonlight night," said the man, "I was sitting here, when
I heard a voice cry, 'Halloa! Below there!' I started up, looked
from that door, and saw this Some one else standing by the red
light near the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you. The voice
seemed hoarse with shouting, and it cried, 'Look out! Look out!'
And then again, 'Halloa! Below there! Look out!' I caught up my
lamp, turned it on red, and ran towards the figure, calling, 'What's
wrong? What has happened? Where?' It stood just outside the blackness
of the tunnel. I advanced so close upon it that I wondered at its
keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I ran right up at it, and had
my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away, when it was gone."
"Into the tunnel?" said I.
"No. I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards. I stopped and
held my lamp above my head, and saw the figures of the measured
distance, and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and trickling
through the arch. I ran out again, faster than I had run in (for I
had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and I looked all
round the red light with my own red light, and I went up the iron
ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came down again, and ran
back here. I telegraphed both ways, 'An alarm has been given. Is
anything wrong?' The answer came back, both ways, 'All well.'"
Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I
showed him how that this figure must be a deception of his sense of
sight, and how that figures, originating in disease of the delicate
nerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to have
often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the
nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experiments
upon themselves. "As to an imaginary cry," said I, "do but listen
for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak
so low, and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires!"
That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening
for a while, and he ought to know something of the wind and the
wires, he who so often passed long winter nights there, alone and
watching. But he would beg to remark that he had not finished.
I asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words, touching my
arm:--
"Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident on
this Line happened, and within ten hours the dead and wounded were
brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure
had stood."
A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against
it. It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable
coincidence, calculated deeply to impress the mind. But it was
unquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually occur,
and they must be taken into account in dealing with such a subject.
Though to be sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I saw that
he was going to bring the objection to bear upon me), men of
common-sense did not allow much for coincidences in making the ordinary
calculations of life.
He again begged to remark that he had not finished.
I again begged his pardon for being betrayed into interruptions.
"This," he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and glancing
over his shoulder with hollow eyes, "was just a year ago. Six or
seven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and
shock, when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at
that door, looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre again."
He stopped, with a fixed look at me.
"Did it cry out?"
"No. It was silent."
"Did it wave its arm?"
"No. It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands before
the face. Like this."
Once more, I followed his action with my eyes. It was an action of
mourning. I have seen such an attitude in stone figures on tombs.
"Did you go up to it?"
"I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly
because it had turned me faint. When I went to the door again, daylight
was above me, and the ghost was gone."
"But nothing followed? Nothing came of this?"
He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice, giving
a ghastly nod each time.
"That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at a
carriage window on my side, what looked like a confusion of hands
and heads, and something waved. I saw it just in time to signal
the driver, Stop! He shut off, and put his brake on, but the train
drifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more. I ran after it,
and as I went along heard terrible screams and cries. A beautiful
young lady had died instantaneously in one of the compartments, and
was brought in here, and laid down on this floor between us."
Involuntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the boards
at which he pointed, to himself.
"True, sir. True. Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you."
I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was
very dry. The wind and the wires took up the story with a long
lamenting wail.
He resumed. "Now, sir, mark this, and judge how my mind is troubled.
The spectre came back, a week ago. Ever since, it has been there,
now and again, by fits and starts."
"At the light?"
"At the Danger-light."
"What does it seem to do?"
He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that
former gesticulation of "For God's sake clear the way!"
Then he went on. "I have no peace or rest for it. It calls to me,
for many minutes together, in an agonized manner, 'Below there!
Look out! Look out!' It stands waving to me. It rings my little
bell--"
I caught at that. "Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when
I was here, and you went to the door?"
"Twice."
"Why, see," said I, "how your imagination misleads you. My eyes
were on the bell, and my ears were open to the bell, and, if I am
a living man, it did NOT ring at those times. No, nor at any other
time, except when it was rung in the natural course of physical
things by the station communicating with you."