"Sorry to disturb you so unceremoniously," said Hankey, "but it is
necessary. I bring you unexpected news of supreme moment. Please dress,
and while you are dressing I will tell you of a very startling
development in the Russell affair."
"Is the news good or bad?"
"Good, I think; but time alone will disclose that. But please dress as
quickly as you can, for you will have to go on a journey immediately. I
have taken the liberty of ordering something for you to eat, and it
should be here in a minute or two. You have just half an hour in which
to catch the train you must travel by."
"What is the news?" asked Gilbert, going on dressing all the while.
"Well, last night, after I left you, I went to my office, late as it
was, and I found one of my subordinates waiting for me. It was the man
whose duty it was to shadow Russell. He reported that he had kept sight
of him until he went into his own house. My man then hung about, and
after some time, a conveyance drove up, into which presently Russell,
his wife and child got. He followed them to the railway depot, and
finally saw them depart in the Northern Pacific Express for Winnipeg."
"Gone!" exclaimed Gilbert; "and with a start of half-a-day! And James
Russell leaves St. Paul the very day I arrive. That's curious. Had he
got warning? But how?"
"Perhaps he saw you in the streets yesterday--you were about a good
deal, were you not?"
"Yes; that may be it."
"It does not matter much, anyhow; the fact remains that he went away
last night."
"And I must go after him at once. That's what you mean?"
"That's part of it; but there is more to tell you, much more. For, this
morning, about forty minutes ago--oh, I lost no time, you will
perceive--one of my men who has to be on duty all night at my office,
came to my house and woke me up. He was aware Russell was on board the
Northern Pacific Express going to Winnipeg last night, and he had come
hot-foot to show me an early edition of the _Pioneer Press_--that's our
leading paper--in which there is a long account of a dreadful accident
to this very express. It had collided with a freight train, both trains
being wrecked and smashed to pieces. Many of the passengers have been
killed, and most of the survivors are badly injured."
"And Russell?" Gilbert inquired breathlessly.
"He is not in the list of the dead; his name appears amongst those whose
injuries are probably fatal. This is why I am hurrying you up. If you
wish to see him alive, you must catch the first train. Now, do you see?
Was not my knocking you up in this way justified?"
"Yes, indeed. I am grateful to you for your zeal. How far up the line
was the accident?"
"A few miles south of Glyndon. You can be there in a comparatively short
time."
"I think I should like you to come with me," said Gilbert, after a brief
silence; "that is, if you are disengaged."
"I can manage to come all right, and I should like to know the end;
though it's possible the man may recover. On the other hand, if he knows
he is certain to die, there's just a chance he may be willing to own up
and make restitution, if that's in his power."
"A death-bed confession! Now, I should say," remarked Gilbert, "Russell
is the last man on earth to make one."
But now there appeared a waiter with a tray on which was some breakfast,
and the conversation stopped.
Ten minutes later, Gilbert and Hankey were speeding northwards on the
Northern Pacific to the scene of the collision, where they arrived in
due course. On the way up, every one was talking of the appalling
disaster. Many in the train were relatives of the victims, and the whole
atmosphere was charged with grief and sorrow. Gilbert Eversleigh was too
young and too sensitive not to sympathize with and share these feelings.
They made such an impression on him that the vengeance he cherished, and
the hatred he felt for Silwood were decidedly modified, though he was
scarcely aware of it himself.
The express stopped some fifty yards away from the spot where the
collision had taken place. When Gilbert and the detective alighted, they
saw an enormous crowd had already gathered together, large numbers
having flocked in from the surrounding country. For the most part, it
was a quiet and silent crowd. The Shadow of Death lay heavy upon it;
here and there, however, were little groups weeping and sobbing and
wringing their hands. In the midst of one stood a woman, suddenly
crazed, who alternately screamed and laughed.
The scene was such, the circumstances were such, that they could not
fail to make an ineffaceable impression on Gilbert's mind.
It was an unparalleled scene of destruction.
In the centre was the wreck of the two trains lying on the torn and
twisted rails. The engines were piled high in the middle, with their
colossal frames seamed, cracked, broken, burnt, and bent into queer
shapes. Some of the coaches and carriages of the ill-fated express had
been smashed into matchwood, others lay about in large pieces and
dislocated sections, and the whole formed a confusion of wood, glass,
and other materials, rendered more terrible from the fact that fire had
swept its destroying torch over a large part of it.
And it was whispered there were bodies, or what had once been bodies,
lying somewhere in that chaos!
Gangs of railroad men were struggling to bring some sort of order into
it, but their progress was necessarily slow. Now and again a charred and
blackened object, which had lost all semblance to anything human, was
dug up and carried away.
On one side of the wreck two large tents had been erected: one was used
as a mortuary, to which the dead were carried; the other served as a
hospital for the injured and wounded, where they were tended by doctors
from the vicinity, who had volunteered their services.
It was to the hospital tent that Gilbert and Hankey directed their
steps, but they experienced considerable difficulty in gaining
admission. However, at last they were allowed in, and a doctor, of whom
they inquired, told them James Russell was still alive, was indeed
likely to live for two days or perhaps longer, but that the nature of
the injuries he had received made his recovery impossible. He was quite
conscious, and knew he was dying.
"He would be glad to see some one he knows," added the doctor.
"How are his wife and child?"
"Both are injured, but not seriously. I have not told them of Russell's
condition."
"Is there any objection, doctor," asked Gilbert, "to my speaking to him
at once?"
"None at all, I think," replied the physician, and he led them to the
pallet on which lay Russell, his head and shoulders swathed in bandages,
and his face, where visible, extraordinarily pinched and white. The
false moustache which he had worn as part of his disguise was gone, the
paint had been washed from his cheeks, and Gilbert had no difficulty
whatever in identifying Cooper Silwood in "James Russell."
"It is he," he whispered to Hankey.
Hankey peered into the face.
"He is now more like that photograph you showed me," said Hankey beneath
his breath to Gilbert.
Gilbert went and stood over Silwood, and looked him in the eyes. The
dying man evinced no surprise at seeing him, but returned Gilbert's gaze
calmly. He was the first to speak.
"Gilbert Eversleigh," he said in a queer voice, that had no weakness in
it. "I expected you to come, but not so soon. How is it you are here so
quickly? The telegram I sent by the doctor to you at the Merchants'
Hotel was despatched only two hours ago."
"You sent me a telegram!" said Gilbert, astonished, but not so much so
as not to note Silwood knew he had been stopping at the Merchants'. "I
have not received it. The reason I am here is, I was aware you were on
board the express, and hearing of the accident, I came at once on the
chance of speaking to you."
"You knew I was on the express?"
"Yes; your movements yesterday were observed."
"I see," said Silwood, thoughtfully. Then he added, "Well, it does not
signify now--nothing signifies any more to me!"
Silwood pronounced these words in a firm voice, though strongly tinged
with regret. Gilbert stood by in silence, many feelings working within
him.
"Nothing matters any more to me personally," continued Silwood; "but
there are others of whom I must think, for they are dear to me. It was
because of them, it was for their sakes, that I sent you the telegram. I
asked the doctor to tell me the truth, the whole truth, about my state;
and when he told me that I should not last more than two or three days,
I had to consider the best course to take. What helped me to make up my
mind was the certainty you had made some discovery--otherwise, I
reasoned, you would not have been in St. Paul yesterday. Had this
accident not occurred, and if I had been alone, I should have succeeded
in baffling you; even hampered by my wife and the boy, I believe I could
have managed to escape pursuit. But now I am dying, and my wife and
child would soon have been hunted down when left to themselves.
Therefore I resolved to ask you to come to me."
Silwood paused, his breath coming a little more quickly than before.
"But why?" asked Gilbert.
"I wished to make a bargain with you."
"To make a bargain!"
"Yes. I thought of offering to tell you the whole truth if you would
consent to make provision for my wife and child. She is an uneducated
woman, and the boy is a cripple. They are two helpless creatures, and
they are absolutely innocent; they do not even know my real name. They
believe I am----"
"James Russell!"
"Yes! You know that! That is what I thought, else you would not have
been in St. Paul. Will you consent to make some provision for them, if I
declare everything without concealment or reserve? I do not know how
much you do know?" he added inquiringly.
"I know a good deal, but not all. I know you did not lose the money on
the Stock Exchange, as you told my father, but that you--appropriated it
to your own use, and still have it, I imagine. Is it not so?"
"Yes. That money shall be restored to you in trust for your father and
the firm, if you will accede to my suggestion about my wife and child.
What more do you know?"
"I know you led a double life, and that you entered into a conspiracy
with Ucelli, the Syndic of Camajore. But I do not know what passed
between you and Morris Thornton the night he died."
"I will tell you the whole story," said Silwood, "if you will agree to
see my wife and child suitably provided for."
"And if I refuse?"
"Refuse! You will not refuse. Consider! In forty-eight or fifty hours I
shall be dead. Nothing can alter that. I shall be where the hand of the
law cannot touch me. What can you do against a dead man? Personal
vengeance on me is impossible. On the other hand, if you will do what I
wish, then I will tell you where the money is, so that you will have no
difficulty in obtaining it. You have much to gain and nothing to lose by
falling in with my desire."
"But I shall be able to get at the money in any case."
"No, that you never shall unless you get my help."
Gilbert thought for a while. The coolness of Silwood's proposition
startled him; yet there was much to recommend it.
"Let me consider for a few moments what you have said," he remarked to
Silwood; "and I will tell you my decision."