"Unless"--his manner suddenly changed to one of pitiable
anxiety--"unless you're from the Company sir, to--to--"
"No; I have come on Mr. Carlyle's behalf," replied Carrados, walking
to a chair as though he moved by a kind of instinct.
Hutchins laughed his wry contempt.
"Mr. Carlyle!" he reiterated; "Mr. Carlyle! Fat lot of good he's been.
Why don't he _do_ something for his money?"
"He has," replied Carrados, with imperturbable good-humour; "he has
sent me. Now, I want to ask you a few questions."
"A few questions!" roared the irate man. "Why, blast it, I have done
nothing else but answer questions for a month. I didn't pay Mr.
Carlyle to ask me questions; I can get enough of that for nixes. Why
don't you go and ask Mr. Herbert Ananias Mead your few questions--then
you might find out something."
There was a slight movement by the door and Carrados knew that the
girl had quietly left the room.
"You saw that, sir?" demanded the father, diverted to a new line of
bitterness. "You saw that girl--my own daughter, that I've worked for
all her life?"
"No," replied Carrados.
"The girl that's just gone out--she's my daughter," explained
Hutchins.
"I know, but I did not see her. I see nothing. I am blind."
"Blind!" exclaimed the old fellow, sitting up in startled wonderment.
"You mean it, sir? You walk all right and you look at me as if you saw
me. You're kidding surely."
"No," smiled Carrados. "It's quite right."
"Then it's a funny business, sir--you what are blind expecting to find
something that those with their eyes couldn't," ruminated Hutchins
sagely.
"There are things that you can't see with your eyes, Hutchins."
"Perhaps you are right, sir. Well, what is it you want to know?"
"Light a cigar first," said the blind man, holding out his case and
waiting until the various sounds told him that his host was smoking
contentedly. "The train you were driving at the time of the accident
was the six-twenty-seven from Notcliff. It stopped everywhere until it
reached Lambeth Bridge, the chief London station on your line. There
it became something of an express, and leaving Lambeth Bridge at
seven-eleven, should not stop again until it fetched Swanstead on
Thames, eleven miles out, at seven-thirty-four. Then it stopped on and
off from Swanstead to Ingerfield, the terminus of that branch, which
it reached at eight-five."
Hutchins nodded, and then, remembering, said: "That's right, sir."
"That was your business all day--running between Notcliff and
Ingerfield?"
"Yes, sir. Three journeys up and three down mostly."
"With the same stops on all the down journeys?"
"No. The seven-eleven is the only one that does a run from the Bridge
to Swanstead. You see, it is just on the close of the evening rush, as
they call it. A good many late business gentlemen living at Swanstead
use the seven-eleven regular. The other journeys we stop at every
station to Lambeth Bridge, and then here and there beyond."
"There are, of course, other trains doing exactly the same journey--a
service, in fact?"
"Yes, sir. About six."
"And do any of those--say, during the rush--do any of those run
non-stop from Lambeth to Swanstead?"
Hutchins reflected a moment. All the choler and restlessness had
melted out of the man's face. He was again the excellent artisan, slow
but capable and self-reliant.
"That I couldn't definitely say, sir. Very few short-distance trains
pass the junction, but some of those may. A guide would show us in a
minute but I haven't got one."
"Never mind. You said at the inquest that it was no uncommon thing for
you to be pulled up at the 'stop' signal east of Knight's Cross
Station. How often would that happen--only with the seven-eleven,
mind."
"Perhaps three times a week; perhaps twice."
"The accident was on a Thursday. Have you noticed that you were pulled
up oftener on a Thursday than on any other day?"
A smile crossed the driver's face at the question.
"You don't happen to live at Swanstead yourself, sir?" he asked in
reply.
"No," admitted Carrados. "Why?"
"Well, sir, we were _always_ pulled up on Thursday; practically
always, you may say. It got to be quite a saying among those who used
the train regular; they used to look out for it."
Carrados's sightless eyes had the one quality of concealing emotion
supremely. "Oh," he commented softly, "always; and it was quite a
saying, was it? And _why_ was it always so on Thursday?"
"It had to do with the early closing, I'm told. The suburban traffic
was a bit different. By rights we ought to have been set back two
minutes for that day, but I suppose it wasn't thought worth while to
alter us in the time-table so we most always had to wait outside Three
Deep tunnel for a west-bound electric to make good."
"You were prepared for it then?"
"Yes, sir, I was," said Hutchins, reddening at some recollection, "and
very down about it was one of the jury over that. But, mayhap once in
three months, I did get through even on a Thursday, and it's not for
me to question whether things are right or wrong just because they are
not what I may expect. The signals are my orders, sir--stop! go on!
and it's for me to obey, as you would a general on the field of
battle. What would happen otherwise! It was nonsense what they said
about going cautious; and the man who stated it was a barber who
didn't know the difference between a 'distance' and a 'stop' signal
down to the minute they gave their verdict. My orders, sir, given me
by that signal, was 'Go right ahead and keep to your running time!'"
Carrados nodded a soothing assent. "That is all, I think," he
remarked.
"All!" exclaimed Hutchins in surprise. "Why, sir, you can't have got
much idea of it yet."
"Quite enough. And I know it isn't pleasant for you to be taken along
the same ground over and over again."
The man moved awkwardly in his chair and pulled nervously at his
grizzled beard.
"You mustn't take any notice of what I said just now, sir," he
apologized. "You somehow make me feel that something may come of it;
but I've been badgered about and accused and cross-examined from one
to another of them these weeks till it's fairly made me bitter against
everything. And now they talk of putting me in a lavatory--me that has
been with the company for five and forty years and on the foot-plate
thirty-two--a man suspected of running past a danger signal."
"You have had a rough time, Hutchins; you will have to exercise your
patience a little longer yet," said Carrados sympathetically.
"You think something may come of it, sir? You think you will be able
to clear me? Believe me, sir, if you could give me something to look
forward to it might save me from--" He pulled himself up and shook his
head sorrowfully. "I've been near it," he added simply.
Carrados reflected and took his resolution.
"To-day is Wednesday. I think you may hope to hear something from your
general manager towards the middle of next week."
"Good God, sir! You really mean that?"
"In the interval show your good sense by behaving reasonably. Keep
civilly to yourself and don't talk. Above all"--he nodded towards a
quart jug that stood on the table between them, an incident that
filled the simple-minded engineer with boundless wonder when he
recalled it afterwards--"above all, leave that alone."
Hutchins snatched up the vessel and brought it crashing down on the
hearthstone, his face shining with a set resolution.
"I've done with it, sir. It was the bitterness and despair that drove
me to that. Now I can do without it."
The door was hastily opened and Miss Hutchins looked anxiously from
her father to the visitors and back again.
"Oh, whatever is the matter?" she exclaimed. "I heard a great crash."
"This gentleman is going to clear me, Meg, my dear," blurted out the
old man irrepressibly. "And I've done with the drink for ever."
"Hutchins! Hutchins!" said Carrados warningly.
"My daughter, sir; you wouldn't have her not know?" pleaded Hutchins,
rather crest-fallen. "It won't go any further."
Carrados laughed quietly to himself as he felt Margaret Hutchins's
startled and questioning eyes attempting to read his mind. He shook
hands with the engine-driver without further comment, however, and
walked out into the commonplace little street under Parkinson's
unobtrusive guidance.
"Very nice of Miss Hutchins to go into half-mourning, Parkinson," he
remarked as they went along. "Thoughtful, and yet not ostentatious."
"Yes, sir," agreed Parkinson, who had long ceased to wonder at his
master's perceptions.
"The Romans, Parkinson, had a saying to the effect that gold carries
no smell. That is a pity sometimes. What jewellery did Miss Hutchins
wear?"
"Very little, sir. A plain gold brooch representing a
merry-thought--the merry-thought of a sparrow, I should say, sir. The
only other article was a smooth-backed gun-metal watch, suspended from
a gun-metal bow."
"Nothing showy or expensive, eh?"
"Oh dear no, sir. Quite appropriate for a young person of her
position."
"Just what I should have expected." He slackened his pace. "We are
passing a hoarding, are we not?"
"Yes, sir."
"We will stand here a moment. Read me the letterpress of the poster
before us."
"This 'Oxo' one, sir?"
"Yes."
"'Oxo,' sir."
Carrados was convulsed with silent laughter. Parkinson had infinitely
more dignity and conceded merely a tolerant recognition of the
ludicrous.
"That was a bad shot, Parkinson," remarked his master when he could
speak. "We will try another."
For three minutes, with scrupulous conscientiousness on the part of
the reader and every appearance of keen interest on the part of the
hearer, there were set forth the particulars of a sale by auction of
superfluous timber and builders' material.
"That will do," said Carrados, when the last detail had been reached.
"We can be seen from the door of No. 107 still?"
"Yes, sir."
"No indication of anyone coming to us from there?"
"No, sir."
Carrados walked thoughtfully on again. In the Holloway Road they
rejoined the waiting motor-car.
"Lambeth Bridge Station" was the order the driver received.
From the station the car was sent on home and Parkinson was instructed
to take two first-class singles for Richmond, which could be reached
by changing at Stafford Road. The "evening rush" had not yet commenced
and they had no difficulty in finding an empty carriage when the train
came in.
Parkinson was kept busy that journey describing what he saw at various
points between Lambeth Bridge and Knight's Cross. For a quarter of a
mile Carrados's demands on the eyes and the memory of his remarkable
servant were wide and incessant. Then his questions ceased. They had
passed the "stop" signal, east of Knight's Cross Station.
The following afternoon they made the return journey as far as
Knight's Cross. This time, however, the surroundings failed to
interest Carrados. "We are going to look at some rooms," was the
information he offered on the subject, and an imperturbable "Yes, sir"
had been the extent of Parkinson's comment on the unusual proceeding.
After leaving the station they turned sharply along a road that ran
parallel with the line, a dull thoroughfare of substantial, elderly
houses that were beginning to sink into decrepitude. Here and there a
corner residence displayed the brass plate of a professional occupant,
but for the most part they were given up to the various branches of
second-rate apartment letting.
"The third house after the one with the flagstaff," said Carrados.
Parkinson rang the bell, which was answered by a young servant, who
took an early opportunity of assuring them that she was not tidy as it
was rather early in the afternoon. She informed Carrados, in reply to
his inquiry, that Miss Chubb was at home, and showed them into a
melancholy little sitting-room to await her appearance.
"I shall be 'almost' blind here, Parkinson," remarked Carrados,
walking about the room. "It saves explanation."
"Very good, sir," replied Parkinson.
Five minutes later, an interval suggesting that Miss Chubb also found
it rather early in the afternoon, Carrados was arranging to take rooms
for his attendant and himself for the short time that he would be in
London, seeing an oculist.
"One bedroom, mine, must face north," he stipulated. "It has to do
with the light."
Miss Chubb replied that she quite understood. Some gentlemen, she
added, had their requirements, others their fancies. She endeavoured
to suit all. The bedroom she had in view from the first _did_ face
north. She would not have known, only the last gentleman, curiously
enough, had made the same request.
"A sufferer like myself?" inquired Carrados affably.
Miss Chubb did not think so. In his case she regarded it merely as a
fancy. He had said that he could not sleep on any other side. She had
had to turn out of her own room to accommodate him, but if one kept an
apartment-house one had to be adaptable; and Mr. Ghoosh was certainly
very liberal in his ideas.
"Ghoosh? An Indian gentleman, I presume?" hazarded Carrados.
It appeared that Mr. Ghoosh was an Indian. Miss Chubb confided that at
first she had been rather perturbed at the idea of taking in "a black
man," as she confessed to regarding him. She reiterated, however, that
Mr. Ghoosh proved to be "quite the gentleman." Five minutes of
affability put Carrados in full possession of Mr. Ghoosh's manner of
life and movements--the dates of his arrival and departure, his
solitariness and his daily habits.
"This would be the best bedroom," said Miss Chubb.
It was a fair-sized room on the first floor. The window looked out on
to the roof of an outbuilding; beyond, the deep cutting of the railway
line. Opposite stood the dead wall that Mr. Carlyle had spoken of.
Carrados "looked" round the room with the discriminating glance that
sometimes proved so embarrassing to those who knew him.
"I have to take a little daily exercise," he remarked, walking to the
window and running his hand up the woodwork. "You will not mind my
fixing a 'developer' here, Miss Chubb--a few small screws?"
Miss Chubb thought not. Then she was sure not. Finally she ridiculed
the idea of minding with scorn.
"If there is width enough," mused Carrados, spanning the upright
critically. "Do you happen to have a wooden foot-rule convenient?"
"Well, to be sure!" exclaimed Miss Chubb, opening a rapid succession
of drawers until she produced the required article. "When we did out
this room after Mr. Ghoosh, there was this very ruler among the things
that he hadn't thought worth taking. This is what you require, sir?"
"Yes," replied Carrados, accepting it, "I think this is exactly what I
require." It was a common new white-wood rule, such as one might buy
at any small stationer's for a penny. He carelessly took off the width
of the upright, reading the figures with a touch; and then continued
to run a finger-tip delicately up and down the edges of the
instrument.
"Four and seven-eighths," was his unspoken conclusion.
"I hope it will do sir."
"Admirably," replied Carrados. "But I haven't reached the end of my
requirements yet, Miss Chubb."
"No, sir?" said the landlady, feeling that it would be a pleasure to
oblige so agreeable a gentleman, "what else might there be?"
"Although I can see very little I like to have a light, but not any
kind of light. Gas I cannot do with. Do you think that you would be
able to find me an oil lamp?"
"Certainly, sir. I got out a very nice brass lamp that I have
specially for Mr. Ghoosh. He read a good deal of an evening and he
preferred a lamp."
"That is very convenient. I suppose it is large enough to burn for a
whole evening?"
"Yes, indeed. And very particular he was always to have it filled
every day."
"A lamp without oil is not very useful," smiled Carrados, following
her towards another room, and absent-mindedly slipping the foot-rule
into his pocket.
Whatever Parkinson thought of the arrangement of going into
second-rate apartments in an obscure street it is to be inferred that
his devotion to his master was sufficient to overcome his private
emotions as a self-respecting "man." At all events, as they were
approaching the station he asked, and without a trace of feeling,
whether there were any orders for him with reference to the proposed
migration.
"None, Parkinson," replied his master. "We must be satisfied with our
present quarters."
"I beg your pardon, sir," said Parkinson, with some constraint. "I
understand that you had taken the rooms for a week certain."
"I am afraid that Miss Chubb will be under the same impression.
Unforeseen circumstances will prevent our going, however. Mr.
Greatorex must write to-morrow, enclosing a cheque, with my regrets,
and adding a penny for this ruler which I seem to have brought away
with me. It, at least, is something for the money."
Parkinson may be excused for not attempting to understand the course
of events.
"Here is your train coming in, sir," he merely said.
"We will let it go and wait for another. Is there a signal at either
end of the platform?"
"Yes, sir; at the further end."
"Let us walk towards it. Are there any of the porters or officials
about here?"
"No, sir; none."
"Take this ruler. I want you to go up the steps--there are steps up
the signal, by the way?"
"Yes, sir."
"I want you to measure the glass of the lamp. Do not go up any higher
than is necessary, but if you have to stretch be careful not to mark
off the measurement with your nail, although the impulse is a natural
one. That has been done already."
Parkinson looked apprehensively round and about. Fortunately the part
was a dark and unfrequented spot and everyone else was moving towards
the exit at the other end of the platform. Fortunately, also, the
signal was not a high one.
"As near as I can judge on the rounded surface, the glass is four and
seven-eighths across," reported Parkinson.
"Thank you," replied Carrados, returning the measure to his pocket,
"four and seven-eighths is quite near enough. Now we will take the
next train back."
Sunday evening came, and with it Mr. Carlyle to The Turrets at the
appointed hour. He brought to the situation a mind poised for any
eventuality and a trenchant eye. As the time went on and the
impenetrable Carrados made no allusion to the case, Carlyle's manner
inclined to a waggish commiseration of his host's position. Actually,
he said little, but the crisp precision of his voice when the path lay
open to a remark of any significance left little to be said.
It was not until they had finished dinner and returned to the library
that Carrados gave the slightest hint of anything unusual being in the
air. His first indication of coming events was to remove the key from
the outside to the inside of the door.
"What are you doing, Max?" demanded Mr. Carlyle, his curiosity
overcoming the indirect attitude.
"You have been very entertaining, Louis," replied his friend, "but
Parkinson should be back very soon now and it is as well to be
prepared. Do you happen to carry a revolver?"
"Not when I come to dine with you, Max," replied Carlyle, with all the
aplomb he could muster. "Is it usual?"
Carrados smiled affectionately at his guest's agile recovery and
touched the secret spring of a drawer in an antique bureau by his
side. The little hidden receptacle shot smoothly out, disclosing a
pair of dull-blued pistols.
"To-night, at all events, it might be prudent," he replied, handing
one to Carlyle and putting the other into his own pocket. "Our man may
be here at any minute, and we do not know in what temper he will
come."
"Our man!" exclaimed Carlyle, craning forward in excitement. "Max! you
don't mean to say that you have got Mead to admit it?"
"No one has admitted it," said Carrados. "And it is not Mead."
"Not Mead.... Do you mean that Hutchins--?"
"Neither Mead nor Hutchins. The man who tampered with the signal--for
Hutchins was right and a green light _was_ exhibited--is a young
Indian from Bengal. His name is Drishna and he lives at Swanstead."
Mr. Carlyle stared at his friend between sheer surprise and blank
incredulity.
"You really mean this, Carrados?" he said.
"My fatal reputation for humour!" smiled Carrados. "If I am wrong,
Louis, the next hour will expose it."
"But why--why--why? The colossal villainy, the unparalleled audacity!"
Mr. Carlyle lost himself among incredulous superlatives and could only
stare.
"Chiefly to get himself out of a disastrous speculation," replied
Carrados, answering the question. "If there was another motive--or at
least an incentive--which I suspect, doubtless we shall hear of it."
"All the same, Max, I don't think that you have treated me quite
fairly," protested Carlyle, getting over his first surprise and
passing to a sense of injury. "Here we are and I know nothing,
absolutely nothing, of the whole affair."
"We both have our ideas of pleasantry, Louis," replied Carrados
genially. "But I dare say you are right and perhaps there is still
time to atone." In the fewest possible words he outlined the course of
his investigations. "And now you know all that is to be known until
Drishna arrives."
"But will he come?" questioned Carlyle doubtfully. "He may be
suspicious."
"Yes, he will be suspicious."
"Then he will not come."
"On the contrary, Louis, he will come because my letter will make him
suspicious. He _is_ coming; otherwise Parkinson would have telephoned
me at once and we should have had to take other measures."
"What did you say, Max?" asked Carlyle curiously.
"I wrote that I was anxious to discuss an Indo-Scythian inscription
with him, and sent my car in the hope that he would be able to oblige
me."
"But is he interested in Indo-Scythian inscriptions?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," admitted Carrados, and Mr. Carlyle was
throwing up his hands in despair when the sound of a motor-car wheels
softly kissing the gravel surface of the drive outside brought him to
his feet.
"By Gad, you are right, Max!" he exclaimed, peeping through the
curtains. "There is a man inside."
"Mr. Drishna," announced Parkinson a minute later.
The visitor came into the room with leisurely self-possession that
might have been real or a desperate assumption. He was a slightly
built young man of about twenty-five, with black hair and eyes, a
small, carefully trained moustache, and a dark olive skin. His
physiognomy was not displeasing, but his expression had a harsh and
supercilious tinge. In attire he erred towards the immaculately
spruce.
"Mr. Carrados?" he said inquiringly.
Carrados, who had risen, bowed slightly without offering his hand.
"This gentleman," he said, indicating his friend, "is Mr. Carlyle, the
celebrated private detective."
The Indian shot a very sharp glance at the object of this description.
Then he sat down.
"You wrote me a letter, Mr. Carrados," he remarked, in English that
scarcely betrayed any foreign origin, "a rather curious letter, I may
say. You asked me about an ancient inscription. I know nothing of
antiquities; but I thought, as you had sent, that it would be more
courteous if I came and explained this to you."
"That was the object of my letter," replied Carrados.
"You wished to see me?" said Drishna, unable to stand the ordeal of
the silence that Carrados imposed after his remark.
"When you left Miss Chubb's house you left a ruler behind." One lay on
the desk by Carrados and he took it up as he spoke.
"I don't understand what you are talking about," said Drishna
guardedly. "You are making some mistake."
"The ruler was marked at four and seven-eighths inches--the measure of
the glass of the signal lamp outside."
The unfortunate young man was unable to repress a start. His face lost
its healthy tone. Then, with a sudden impulse, he made a step forward
and snatched the object from Carrados's hand.
"If it is mine I have a right to it," he exclaimed, snapping the ruler
in two and throwing it on to the back of the blazing fire. "It is
nothing."
"Pardon me, I did not say that the one you have so impetuously
disposed of was yours. As a matter of fact, it was mine. Yours
is--elsewhere."
"Wherever it is you have no right to it if it is mine," panted
Drishna, with rising excitement. "You are a thief, Mr. Carrados. I
will not stay any longer here."
He jumped up and turned towards the door. Carlyle made a step forward,
but the precaution was unnecessary.