THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS.

BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS.

I.

The events which I am about to relate took place between nine and
ten years ago. Sebastopol had fallen in the early spring; the peace
of Paris had been concluded since March; our commercial relations with
the Russian Empire were but recently renewed; and I, returning home
after my first northward journey since the war, was well pleased with
the prospect of spending the month of December under the hospitable
and thoroughly English roof of my excellent friend Jonathan Jelf,
Esquire, of Dumbleton Manor, Clayborough, East Anglia. Travelling
in the interests of the well-known firm in which it is my lot to
be a junior partner, I had been called upon to visit not only the
capitals of Russia and Poland, but had found it also necessary
to pass some weeks among the trading-ports of the Baltic; whence
it came that the year was already far spent before I again set
foot on English soil, and that, instead of shooting pheasants with
him, as I had hoped, in October, I came to be my friend's guest
during the more genial Christmastide.

My voyage over, and a few days given up to business in Liverpool
and London, I hastened down to Clayborough with all the delight of
a school-boy whose holidays are at hand. My way lay by the Great
East Anglian line as far as Clayborough station, where I was to
be met by one of the Dumbleton carriages and conveyed across the
remaining nine miles of country. It was a foggy afternoon, singularly
warm for the 4th of December, and I had arranged to leave London by
the 4.15 express. The early darkness of winter had already closed
in; the lamps were lighted in the carriages; a clinging damp dimmed
the windows, adhered to the door-handles, and pervaded all the
atmosphere; while the gas-jets at the neighboring bookstand diffused
a luminous haze that only served to make the gloom of the terminus
more visible. Having arrived some seven minutes before the starting of
the train, and, by the connivance of the guard, taken sole possession
of an empty compartment, I lighted my travelling-lamp, made myself
particularly snug, and settled down to the undisturbed enjoyment of
a book and a cigar. Great, therefore, was my disappointment when,
at the last moment, a gentleman came hurrying along the platform,
glanced into my carriage, opened the locked door with a private
key, and stepped in.

It struck me at the first glance that I had seen him before,--a
tall, spare man, thin-lipped, light-eyed, with an ungraceful stoop
in the shoulders, and scant gray hair worn somewhat long upon the
collar. He carried a light water-proof coat, an umbrella, and a
large brown japanned deed-box, which last he placed under the seat.

This done, he felt carefully in his breast-pocket, as if to make
certain of the safety of his purse or pocket-book; laid his umbrella
in the netting overhead; spread the water-proof across his knees;
and exchanged his hat for a travelling-cap of some Scotch material.

By this time the train was moving out of the station, and into
the faint gray of the wintry twilight beyond.

I now recognized my companion. I recognized him from the moment when
he removed his hat and uncovered the lofty, furrowed, and somewhat
narrow brow beneath. I had met him, as I distinctly remembered,
some three years before, at the very house for which, in all
probability, he was now bound, like myself. His name was Dwerrihouse;
he was a lawyer by profession; and, if I was not greatly mistaken,
was first-cousin to the wife of my host. I knew also that he was
a man eminently "well to do," both as regarded his professional
and private means. The Jelfs entertained him with that sort of
observant courtesy which falls to the lot of the rich relation;
the children made much of him; and the old butler, albeit somewhat
surly "to the general," treated him with deference. I thought,
observing him by the vague mixture of lamplight and twilight, that
Mrs. Jelf's cousin looked all the worse for the three years' wear
and tear which had gone over his head since our last meeting. He
was very pale, and had a restless light in his eye that I did not
remember to have observed before. The anxious lines, too, about
his mouth were deepened, and there was a cavernous, hollow look
about his cheeks and temples which seemed to speak of sickness or
sorrow. He had glanced at me as he came in, but without any gleam
of recognition in his face. Now he glanced again, as I fancied,
somewhat doubtfully. When he did so for the third or fourth time,
I ventured to address him.

"Mr. John Dwerrihouse, I think?"

"That is my name," he replied.

"I had the pleasure of meeting you at Dumbleton about three years
ago."

Mr. Dwerrihouse bowed.

"I thought I knew your face," he said. "But your name, I regret
to say--"

"Langford,--William Langford. I have known Jonathan Jelf since
we were boys together at Merchant Taylor's, and I generally spend
a few weeks at Dumbleton in the shooting-season. I suppose we are
bound for the same destination?"

"Not if you are on your way to the Manor," he replied. "I am travelling
upon business,--rather troublesome business, too,--whilst you,
doubtless, have only pleasure in view."

"Just so. I am in the habit of looking forward to this visit as
to the brightest three weeks in all the year."

"It is a pleasant house," said Mr. Dwerrihouse.

"The pleasantest I know."

"And Jelf is thoroughly hospitable."

"The best and kindest fellow in the world!"

"They have invited me to spend Christmas week with them," pursued
Mr. Dwerrihouse, after a moment's pause.

"And you are coming?"

"I cannot tell. It must depend on the issue of this business which I
have in hand. You have heard, perhaps, that we are about to construct
a branch line from Blackwater to Stockbridge."

I explained that I had been for some months away from England,
and had therefore heard nothing of the contemplated improvement.

Mr. Dwerrihouse smiled complacently.

"It _will_ be an improvement," he said; "a great improvement.

Stockbridge is a flourishing town, and needs but a more direct
railway communication with the metropolis to become an important
centre of commerce. This branch was my own idea. I brought the
project before the board, and have myself superintended the execution
of it up to the present time."

"You are an East Anglian director, I presume?"

"My interest in the company," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse, "is threefold.

I am a director; I am a considerable shareholder; and, as head of
the firm of Dwerrihouse, Dwerrihouse, and Craik, I am the company's
principal solicitor."

Loquacious, self-important, full of his pet project, and apparently
unable to talk on any other subject, Mr. Dwerrihouse then went on
to tell of the opposition he had encountered and the obstacles he
had overcome in the cause of the Stockbridge branch. I was entertained
with a multitude of local details and local grievances. The rapacity
of one squire; the impracticability of another; the indignation of
the rector whose glebe was threatened; the culpable indifference
of the Stockbridge townspeople, who could _not_ be brought to see
that their most vital interests hinged upon a junction with the
Great East Anglian line; the spite of the local newspaper; and the
unheard-of difficulties attending the Common question,--were each
and all laid before me with a circumstantiality that possessed
the deepest interest for my excellent fellow-traveller, but none
whatever for myself. From these, to my despair, he went on to more
intricate matters: to the approximate expenses of construction
per mile; to the estimates sent in by different contractors; to
the probable traffic returns of the new line; to the provisional
clauses of the new Act as enumerated in Schedule D of the company's
last half-yearly report; and so on, and on, and on, till my head
ached, and my attention flagged, and my eyes kept closing in spite
of every effort that I made to keep them open. At length I was
roused by these words:--

"Seventy-five thousand pounds, cash down."

"Seventy-five thousand pounds, cash down," I repeated, in the liveliest
tone I could assume. "That is a heavy sum."

"A heavy sum to carry here," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse, pointing
significantly to his breast-pocket; "but a mere fraction of what
we shall ultimately have to pay."

"You do not mean to say that you have seventy-five thousand pounds
at this moment upon your person?" I exclaimed.

"My good sir, have I not been telling you so for the last half-hour?"
said Mr. Dwerrihouse, testily.

"That money has to be paid over at half past eight o'clock this
evening, at the office of Sir Thomas's solicitors, on completion
of the deed of sale."

"But how will you get across by night from Blackwater to Stockbridge
with seventy-five thousand pounds in your pocket?"

"To Stockbridge!" echoed the lawyer. "I find I have made myself
very imperfectly understood. I thought I had explained how this
sum only carries us as far as Mallingford,--the first stage, as
it were, of our journey,--and how our route from Blackwater to
Mallingford lies entirely through Sir Thomas Liddell's property."

"I beg your pardon," I stammered. "I fear my thoughts were wandering.

So you only go as far as Mallingford to-night?"

"Precisely. I shall get a conveyance from the 'Blackwater Arms.'
And you?"

"O, Jelf sends a trap to meet me at Clayborough! Can I be the bearer
of any message from you?"

"You may say, if you please, Mr. Langford, that I wished I could
have been your companion all the way, and that I will come over,
if possible, before Christmas."

"Nothing more?"

Mr. Dwerrihouse smiled grimly. "Well," he said, "you may tell my
cousin that she need not burn the hall down in my honor _this_
time, and that I shall be obliged if she will order the blue-room
chimney to be swept before I arrive."

"That sounds tragic. Had you a conflagration on the occasion of
your last visit to Dumbleton?"

"Something like it. There had been no fire lighted in my bedroom
since the spring, the flue was foul, and the rooks had built in
it; so when I went up to dress for dinner, I found the room full
of smoke, and the chimney on fire. Are we already at Blackwater?"

The train had gradually come to a pause while Mr. Dwerrihouse was
speaking, and, on putting my head out of the window, I could see
the station some few hundred yards ahead. There was another train
before us blocking the way, and the guard was making use of the
delay to collect the Blackwater tickets. I had scarcely ascertained
our position, when the ruddy-faced official appeared at our
carriage-door.

"Tickets, sir!" said he.

"I am for Clayborough," I replied, holding out the tiny pink card.

He took it; glanced at it by the light of his little lantern; gave it
back; looked, as I fancied, somewhat sharply at my fellow-traveller,
and disappeared.

"He did not ask for yours," I said with some surprise.

"They never do," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse. "They all know me; and,
of course, I travel free."

"Blackwater! Blackwater!" cried the porter, running along the platform
beside us, as we glided into the station.

Mr. Dwerrihouse pulled out his deed-box, put his travelling-cap in
his pocket, resumed his hat, took down his umbrella, and prepared
to be gone.

"Many thanks, Mr. Langford, for your society," he said, with
old-fashioned courtesy. "I wish you a good evening."

"Good evening," I replied, putting out my hand.

But he either did not see it, or did not choose to see it, and,
slightly lifting his hat, stepped out upon the platform. Having
done this, he moved slowly away, and mingled with the departing
crowd.

Leaning forward to watch him out of sight, I trod upon something
which proved to be a cigar-case. It had fallen, no doubt, from
the pocket of his water-proof coat, and was made of dark morocco
leather, with a silver monogram upon the side. I sprang out of
the carriage just as the guard came up to lock me in.

"Is there one minute to spare?" I asked eagerly. "The gentleman
who travelled down with me from town has dropped his cigar-case;
he is not yet out of the station!"

"Just a minute and a half, sir," replied the guard. "You must be
quick."

I dashed along the platform as fast as my feet could carry me.

It was a large station, and Mr. Dwerrihouse had by this time got
more than half-way to the farther end.

I, however, saw him distinctly, moving slowly with the stream.

Then, as I drew nearer, I saw that he had met some friend,--that
they were talking as they walked,--that they presently fell back
somewhat from the crowd, and stood aside in earnest conversation.

I made straight for the spot where they were waiting. There was a
vivid gas-jet just above their heads, and the light fell full upon
their faces. I saw both distinctly,--the face of Mr. Dwerrihouse
and the face of his companion. Running, breathless, eager as I
was, getting in the way of porters and passengers, and fearful
every instant lest I should see the train going on without me,
I yet observed that the new-comer was considerably younger and
shorter than the director, that he was sandy-haired, mustachioed,
small-featured, and dressed in a close-cut suit of Scotch tweed.

I was now within a few yards of them. I ran against a stout
gentleman,--I was nearly knocked down by a luggage-truck,--I stumbled
over a carpet-bag,--I gained the spot just as the driver's whistle
warned me to return.

To my utter stupefaction they were no longer there. I had seen
them but two seconds before,--and they were gone! I stood still. I
looked to right and left. I saw no sign of them in any direction.

It was as if the platform had gaped and swallowed them.

"There were two gentlemen standing here a moment ago," I said to
a porter at my elbow; "which way can they have gone?"

"I saw no gentlemen, sir," replied the man.

The whistle shrilled out again. The guard, far up the platform,
held up his arm, and shouted to me to "Come on!"

"If you're going on by this train, sir," said the porter, "you must
run for it."

I did run for it, just gained the carriage as the train began to
move, was shoved in by the guard, and left breathless and bewildered,
with Mr. Dwerrihouse's cigar-case still in my hand.

It was the strangest disappearance in the world. It was like a
transformation trick in a pantomime. They were there one
moment,--palpably there, talking, with the gaslight full upon their
faces; and the next moment they were gone. There was no door near,--no
window,--no staircase. It was a mere slip of barren platform, tapestried
with big advertisements. Could anything be more mysterious?

It was not worth thinking about; and yet, for my life, I could
not help pondering upon it,--pondering, wondering, conjecturing,
turning it over and over in my mind, and beating my brains for a
solution of the enigma. I thought of it all the way from Blackwater
to Clayborough. I thought of it all the way from Clayborough to
Dumbleton, as I rattled along the smooth highway in a trim dog-cart
drawn by a splendid black mare, and driven by the silentest and
dapperest of East Anglian grooms.

We did the nine miles in something less than an hour, and pulled
up before the lodge-gates just as the church-clock was striking
half past seven. A couple of minutes more, and the warm glow of
the lighted hall was flooding out upon the gravel, a hearty grasp
was on my hand, and a clear jovial voice was bidding me "Welcome
to Dumbleton."

"And now, my dear fellow," said my host, when the first greeting
was over, "you have no time to spare. We dine at eight, and there
are people coming to meet you; so you must just get the dressing
business over as quickly as may be. By the way, you will meet some
acquaintances. The Biddulphs are coming, and Prendergast (Prendergast,
of the Skirmishers) is staying in the house. Adieu! Mrs. Jelf will
be expecting you in the drawing-room."

I was ushered to my room,--not the blue room, of which Mr. Dwerrihouse
had made disagreeable experience, but a pretty little bachelor's
chamber, hung with a delicate chintz, and made cheerful by a blazing
fire. I unlocked my portmanteau. I tried to be expeditious; but
the memory of my railway adventure haunted me. I could not get
free of it. I could not shake it off. It impeded me,--it worried
me,--it tripped me up,--it caused me to mislay my studs,--to mistie
my cravat,--to wrench the buttons off my gloves. Worst of all, it
made me so late that the party had all assembled before I reached
the drawing-room. I had scarcely paid my respects to Mrs. Jelf
when dinner was announced, and we paired off, some eight or ten
couples strong, into the dining-room.

I am not going to describe either the guests or the dinner. All
provincial parties bear the strictest family resemblance, and I
am not aware that an East Anglian banquet offers any exception
to the rule. There was the usual country baronet and his wife;
there were the usual country parsons and their wives; there was
the sempiternal turkey and haunch of venison. _Vanitas vanitatum._
There is nothing new under the sun.

I was placed about midway down the table. I had taken one rector's
wife down to dinner, and I had another at my left hand. They talked
across me, and their talk was about babies. It was dreadfully dull.

At length there came a pause. The entrées had just been removed,
and the turkey had come upon the scene. The conversation had all
along been of the languidest, but at this moment it happened to
have stagnated altogether. Jelf was carving the turkey. Mrs. Jelf
looked as if she was trying to think of something to say. Everybody
else was silent. Moved by an unlucky impulse, I thought I would
relate my adventure.

"By the way, Jelf," I began, "I came down part of the way to-day
with a friend of yours."

"Indeed!" said the master of the feast, slicing scientifically into
the breast of the turkey. "With whom, pray?"

"With one who bade me tell you that he should, if possible, pay
you a visit before Christmas."

"I cannot think who that could be," said my friend, smiling.

"It must be Major Thorp," suggested Mrs. Jelf.

I shook my head.

"It was not Major Thorp," I replied. "It was a near relation of
your own, Mrs. Jelf."

"Then I am more puzzled than ever," replied 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 honor 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 favor. 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._"

II.

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 take 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, business-like
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 station-master.

"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 a 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
twenty-fifth 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 at 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 recognized
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 also 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 the 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 by which you
took the tickets, could you have failed to see and recognize 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 gentleman 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 dreamt 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."

III.

A week had not gone by when I received a letter from the Secretary
of the East Anglian Railway Company, requesting the favor 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 fourth of this present month, December, eighteen hundred
and fifty-six." 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 recognized 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 than 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 Mr. Dwerrihouse was neither in that carriage with me,
nor in any compartment of that train. He remembered distinctly to
have examined my ticket at 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 at 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 mustache 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 aside 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 each other. 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 hand-bell, 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 mustache.

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 fourth 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 fourth 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 fourth 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_."

I was about to reply, but he gave me no time.

"I think, gentlemen," he went on to say, addressing the board,
"that we should be wasting time to push this inquiry further. Mr.

Langford's evidence would seem to be of an equal value throughout.

The testimony of Benjamin Somers disproves his first statement, and
the testimony of the last witness disproves his second. I think
we may conclude that Mr. Langford fell asleep in the train on the
occasion of his journey to Clayborough, and dreamt an unusually
vivid and circumstantial dream,--of which, however, we have now
heard quite enough."

There are few things more annoying than to find one's positive
convictions met with incredulity. I could not help feeling impatience
at the turn that affairs had taken. I was not proof against the
civil sarcasm of the chairman's manner. Most intolerable of all,
however, was the quiet smile lurking about the corners of Benjamin
Somers's mouth, and the half-triumphant, half-malicious gleam in
the eyes of the under-secretary. The man was evidently puzzled,
and somewhat alarmed. His looks seemed furtively to interrogate
me. Who was I? What did I want? Why had I come there to do him
an ill turn with his employers? What was it to me whether or no
he was absent without leave?

Seeing all this, and perhaps more irritated by it than the thing
deserved, I begged leave to detain the attention of the board for
a moment longer. Jelf plucked me impatiently by the sleeve.

"Better let the thing drop," he whispered. "The chairman's right
enough. You dreamt it; and the less said now the better."

I was not to be silenced, however, in this fashion. I had yet something
to say, and I would say it. It was to this effect: that dreams were
not usually productive of tangible results, and that I requested
to know in what way the chairman conceived I had evolved from my
dream so substantial and well-made a delusion as the cigar-case
which I had had the honor to place before him at the commencement
of our interview.

"The cigar-case, I admit, Mr. Langford," the chairman replied,
"is a very strong point in your evidence. It is your _only_ strong
point, however, and there is just a possibility that we may all
be misled by a mere accidental resemblance. Will you permit me
to see the case again?"

"It is unlikely," I said, as I handed it to him, "that any other
should bear precisely this monogram, and yet be in all other particulars
exactly similar."

The chairman examined it for a moment in silence, and then passed
it to Mr. Hunter. Mr. Hunter turned it over and over, and shook
his head.

"This is no mere resemblance," he said. "It is John Dwerrihouse's
cigar-case to a certainty. I remember it perfectly. I have seen
it a hundred times."

"I believe I may say the same," added the chairman. "Yet how account
for the way in which Mr. Langford asserts that it came into his
possession?"

"I can only repeat," I replied, "that I found it on the floor of
the carriage after Mr. Dwerrihouse had alighted. It was in leaning
out to look after him that I trod upon it; and it was in running
after him for the purpose of restoring it that I saw--or believed
I saw--Mr. Raikes standing aside with him in earnest conversation."

Again I felt Jonathan Jelf plucking at my sleeve.

"Look at Raikes," he whispered,--"look at Raikes!"

I turned to where the under-secretary had been standing a moment
before, and saw him, white as death with lips trembling and livid,
stealing towards the door.

To conceive a sudden, strange, and indefinite suspicion; to fling
myself in his way; to take him by the shoulders as if he were a
child, and turn his craven face, perforce, towards the board, were
with me the work of an instant.

"Look at him!" I exclaimed. "Look at his face! I ask no better witness
to the truth of my words."

The chairman's brow darkened.

"Mr. Raikes," he said, sternly, "if you know anything, you had better
speak."

Vainly trying to wrench himself from my grasp, the under-secretary
stammered out an incoherent denial.

"Let me go," he said. "I know nothing,--you have no right to detain
me,--let me go!"

"Did you, or did you not, meet Mr. John Dwerrihouse at Blackwater
station? The charge brought against you is either true or false.

If true, you will do well to throw yourself upon the mercy of the
board, and make full confession of all that you know."

The under-secretary wrung his hands in an agony of helpless terror.

"I was away," he cried. "I was two hundred miles away at the time!

I know nothing about it--I have nothing to confess--I am innocent--I
call God to witness I am innocent!"

"Two hundred miles away!" echoed the chairman. "What do you mean?"

"I was in Devonshire. I had three weeks' leave of absence--I appeal
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.