"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 table.
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
perfectly 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 telegraph 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. Dwerrihouse
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
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 Somers."
"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 time, 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 Clayborough. 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."