"So what is written here in cipher is perfectly correct?" asked Pollock.
"Perfectly. The missing lady has actively assisted Mr Ashton and
myself in our experiments."
"And apparently the lady wrote down this message giving you away,"
remarked Barton.
"Somebody wrote it--but it certainly is not her handwriting."
"Quite so. Spies frequently get other persons to copy their messages in
order that they can disclaim them," replied the Intelligence officer.
"We've had several such cases before us of late."
His words aroused my anger bitterly. That Roseye had held any
communication with the enemy I absolutely refused to believe. Such
suggestion was perfectly monstrous!
Yet how was it possible that anyone should know of the success of our
experiments at Gunnersbury?
Recollection of that well-remembered night when Teddy had declared there
had been strangers prowling about, flashed across my mind.
I knew, too well, that the evil that had befallen me, as well as the
disappearance of my well-beloved, had been the work of the Invisible
Hand--that dastardly, baneful influence that had wrecked my machine and
nearly hurled me to the grave.
"Well," I said at last, "I would much like a copy of this remarkable
document."
"I fear that I cannot give it to you, Mr Munro," was the captain's slow
reply. "At present it is a confidential matter, concerning only the
Department, and the person in whose possession it was."
"We must find that person," I said resolutely.
"What is your theory regarding Miss Lethmere?" I asked, turning to
Barton.
"Well, Mr Munro, it would appear that either the lady herself, or some
thief, threw the chatelaine from a train passing north through the
tunnel."
"There may have been a struggle," I remarked, "and in trying to raise
the alarm it might have dropped from her hand."
"That certainly might have been the case," the inspector admitted.
An hour later, accompanied by Teddy and Barton, I set out from King's
Cross station and, on arrival at Welwyn--a journey a little over twenty
miles--we spent the evening in searching inquiry.
The station-master knew nothing, except that both tunnels had been
searched without result.
The story told by the platelayer who found the chatelaine was to the
effect that he noticed a paper bag lying in the centre of the up-express
line and, on picking it up, found the jingling bunch of gold
impedimenta. The paper bag had probably been blown along there by a
passing train and had somehow become entangled among the short lengths
of chain composing the chatelaine.
"Of course it might ha' been there a couple o' days," the stout,
sooty-faced man replied to a question of Barton's. "I work in the
tunnels all the time, but I didn't see it before to-day. We often finds
things thrown out o' trains--things people want to get rid of. They
must 'ave quite a fine collection o' things up at King's Cross--things
what I and my mates have found while we've been a goin' along with our
flares."
"You can form no idea when it might have been thrown out?" I asked.
"Probably late last night, or early this mornin'," was the man's reply.
"I started to examine all the rails just after eleven o'clock last
night, and had not quite finished when the 11:30 express out o' King's
Cross for Edinburgh came through."
"It might have been thrown from that," I remarked. "Where was the first
stop made by that express?"
"Grantham, sir--at 1:33 in the morning--then York," he replied, in a
hard, rough voice. His face was deeply furrowed, and his eyes were
screwed up, for he spent more than half his life in the darkness,
choking smoke and wild racket of those two cavernous tunnels through
which trains roared constantly, both night and day. "Of course, sir,"
he added, "there were lots o' trains a passing on the up-line during the
night, mails, goods, and passengers. Therefore it's quite impossible to
say from which the gold stuff was thrown. My idea is that a thief
wanted to get rid of it."
"No," I replied. "If that were so he'd most certainly have taken the
money from the purse. The Treasury-notes and silver could not have been
identified."
"Then your theory is that it was dropped out by accident?" asked Teddy,
who had been listening to the man's story with keenest interest.
"Well--it certainly was not got rid of purposely by any thief," was my
answer, and with this Barton agreed.
Of other railwaymen we made inquiry. To each I showed Roseye's
photograph, but none of the porters had any recollection of seeing her.
The signalman who was on night duty in the box north of the second
tunnel was somewhat dubious. When I showed him the photograph he said:
"Well, sir, Saturday night was a bright calm night--and when the Scotch
express was put through to me from Welwyn box I was wondering if there
were any Zeppelins about, for it was just such another night as that on
which they recently attacked London. They always seem to look for the
railway lines for guidance up to town. After I had attended to my
signals, and accepted the express, I went to the window of my cabin to
look out. As I was standing there the express came out of the tunnel
and flew by. The driver was a little late and was, I saw, making up
time. As it went past nearly all the windows had drawn blinds--all but
about three, I think. At one of them I caught a glimpse of two women
who, standing up near the door, seemed to be struggling with each
other."
"You saw them distinctly?" I asked eagerly. "Two women?"
"Yes. I saw them quite plainly," he replied, and I realised that he was
a man of some intelligence. "When trains go by, especially the
expresses, the glimpse we get is only for a fraction of a second. But
in that we can often see inside the carriages at night, if the
regulations are broken and the blinds are up. A good many people
disregard the danger--even in these days of Zeppelins."
"They do," I said. "But please describe, as far as you are able,
exactly what you saw."
"Well, sir, the Scotch express tore past just as I was standing at the
window star-gazing. My mate at Stevenage had just put through an
up-goods, and all was clear, so I stood wondering if the Zepps would
dare to venture out. Then I heard the low roar of the Edinburgh
night-express approaching up the tunnel, and a moment later it ran past
me. As it did so I saw in one of the carriages the two women standing
there. Both had their hats off. One, a fine big strong person I should
take her to be, seized the other, whose hair had fallen about her
shoulders, and she seemed to be helplessly in her grip."
"Did you report it?" Barton asked quickly.
"I rang up Stevenage and told my mate that something was going on in the
express. But he replied later on to say that he had watched, and seen
nothing. Later on in the night he spoke to me again, and said that the
man in the Hitchin box, who had kept a look out, had reported back that
all blinds of the express had then been drawn."
"So the assumption seems to be that Roseye was attacked by some strange
woman," I said, turning to Teddy. "She struggled at the door, and in
the struggle the chatelaine which she had in her hand fell out upon the
line."
Barton drew a long breath.
"It's all a profound mystery, Mr Munro," he said.
"If your theory is correct, then we must go a step further and assume
that the stout woman overpowered Miss Lethmere, and afterwards drew down
the blinds before the express reached Hitchin, where there is a junction
and the train would, I suppose, slow down."
"Yes, sir," exclaimed the signalman. "Drivers have orders to go slow
through Hitchin because of the points there."
"But why should Miss Lethmere be attacked by a woman?" I queried in
dismay.
"Why should she have disappeared from home at all, Mr Munro?" asked
Barton. "Yes. I quite agree with you, sir, the more we probe this
mystery, the more and more complicated it becomes."
"Well, Mr Barton?" I exclaimed. "Now, tell me frankly, what's your
theory. Why has Miss Lethmere disappeared?"
The inspector, one of the best and shrewdest officials attached to the
Criminal Investigation Department, paused for a few moments and, looking
me full in the face, replied:
"To tell you the truth, Mr Munro, I'm still absolutely puzzled. The
whole affair seems to grow more involved, and more astounding."