The Third Mystery

by James Holding

“Not particularly, Why?”

  “One winterly day, about the year when you and I were concerned in being born, the engine-driver of a Scotch express received the ‘clear’ from a signal near a little Huntingdon station called Abbots Ripton. He went on and crashed into a goods train and into the thick of the smash a down express mowed its way. Thirteen killed and the usual tale of injured. He was positive that the signal gave him a ‘clear’; the signalman was equally confident that he had never pulled it off the ‘danger.’ Both were right, and yet the signal was in working order. As I said, it was a winterly day; it had been snowing hard and the snow froze and accumulated on the upper edge of the signal arm until its weight bore it down. That is a fact that no fiction writer dare have invented, but to this day every signal on the Great Northern pivots from the centre of the arm instead of from the end, in memory of that snowstorm.”

  “That came out at the inquest, I presume?” said Mr. Carlyle. “We have had the Board of Trade inquiry and the inquest here and no explanation is forthcoming. Everything was in perfect order. It rests between the word of the signalman and the word of the engine-driver—not a jot of direct evidence either way. Which is right?”

  “That is what you are going to find out, Louis?” suggested Carrados.

  “It is what I am being paid for finding out,” admitted Mr. Carlyle frankly. “But so far we are just where the inquest left it, and, between ourselves, I candidly can’t see an inch in front of my face in the matter.”

  “Nor can I,” said the blind man, with a rather wry smile. “Never mind. The engine-driver is your client, of course?”

  “Yes,” admitted Carlyle. “But how the deuce did you know?”

  “Let us say that your sympathies are enlisted on his behalf. The jury were inclined to exonerate the signalman, weren’t they? What has the company done with your man?”

  “Both are suspended. Hutchins, the driver, hears that he may probably be given charge of a lavatory at one of the stations. He is a decent, bluff, short-spoken old chap, with his heart in his work. Just now you’ll find him at his worst—bitter and suspicious. The thought of swabbing down a lavatory and taking pennies all day is poisoning him.”

  “Naturally. Well, there we have honest Hutchins: taciturn, a little touchy perhaps, grown grey in the service of the company, and manifesting quite a bulldog-like devotion to his favourite 538.”

  “Why, that actually was the number of his engine—how do you know it?” demanded Carlyle sharply.

  “It was mentioned two or three times at the inquest, Louis,” replied Carrados mildly.

  “And you remembered—with no reason to?”

  “You can generally trust a blind man’s memory, especially if he has taken the trouble to develop it.”

  “Then you will remember that Hutchins did not make a very good impression at the time. He was surly and irritable under the ordeal. I want you to see the case from all sides.”

  “He called the signalman—Mead—a ‘lying young dog,’ across the room, I believe. Now, Mead, what is he like? You have seen him, of course?”

  “Yes. He does not impress me favourably. He is glib, ingratiating, and distinctly ‘greasy.’ He has a ready answer for everything almost before the question is out of your mouth. He has thought of everything.”

  “And now you are going to tell me something, Louis,” said Carrados encouragingly.

  Mr. Carlyle laughed a little to cover an involuntary movement of surprise.

  “There is a suggestive line that was not touched at the inquiries,” he admitted. “Hutchins has been a saving man all his life, and he has received good wages. Among his class he is regarded as wealthy. I daresay that he has five hundred pounds in the bank. He is a widower with one daughter, a very nice-mannered girl of about twenty. Mead is a young man, and he and the girl are sweethearts—have been informally engaged for some time. But old Hutchins would not hear of it; he seems to have taken a dislike to the signalman from the first, and latterly he had forbidden him to come to his house or his daughter to speak to him.”

  “Excellent, Louis,” cried Carrados in great delight. “We shall clear your man in a blaze of red and green lights yet and hang the glib, ‘greasy’ signalman from his own signal-post.”

  “It is a significant fact, seriously?”

  “It is absolutely convincing.”

  “It may have been a slip, a mental lapse on Mead’s part which he discovered the moment it was too late, and then, being too cowardly to admit his fault, and having so much at stake, he took care to make detection impossible. It may have been that, but my idea is rather that probably it was neither quite pure accident nor pure design. I can imagine Mead meanly pluming himself over the fact that the life of this man who stands in his way, and whom he must cordially dislike, lies in his power. I can imagine the idea becoming an obsession as he dwells on it. A dozen times with his hand on the lever he lets his mind explore the possibilities of a moment’s defection. Then one day he pulls the signal off in sheer bravado—and hastily puts it at danger again. He may have done it once or he may have done it oftener before he was caught in a fatal moment of irresolution. The chances are about even that the engine-driver would be killed. In any case he would be disgraced, for it is easier on the face of it to believe that a man might run past a danger signal in absentmindedness, without noticing it, than that a man should pull off a signal and replace it without being conscious of his actions.”

  “The fireman was killed. Does your theory involve the certainty of the fireman being killed, Louis?”

  “No,” said Carlyle. “The fireman is a difficulty, but looking at it from Mead’s point of view—whether he has been guilty of an error or a crime—it resolves itself into this: First, the fireman may be killed. Second, he may not notice the signal at all. Third, in any case he will loyally corroborate his driver and the good old jury will discount that.”

  Carrados smoked thoughtfully, his open, sightless eyes merely appearing to be set in a tranquil gaze across the room.

  “It would not be an improbable explanation,” he said presently. “Ninety-nine men out of a hundred would say: ‘People do not do these things.’ But you and I, who have in our different ways studied criminology, know that they sometimes do, or else there would be no curious crimes. What have you done on that line?”

  To anyone who could see, Mr. Carlyle’s expression conveyed an answer.

  “You are behind the scenes, Max. What was there for me to do? Still I must do something for my money. Well, I have had a very close inquiry made confidentially among the men. There might be a whisper of one of them knowing more than had come out—a man restrained by friendship, or enmity, or even grade jealousy. Nothing came of that. Then there was the remote chance that some private person had noticed the signal without attaching any importance to it then, one who would be able to identify it still by something associated with the time. I went over the line myself. Opposite the signal the line on one side is shut in by a high blank wall; on the other side are houses, but coming below the butt-end of a scullery the signal does not happen to be visible from any road or from any window.”

  “My poor Louis!” said Carrados, in friendly ridicule. “You were at the end of your tether?”

  “I was,” admitted Carlyle. “And now that you know the sort of job it is I don’t suppose that you are keen on wasting your time over it.”

  “That would hardly be fair, would it?” said Carrados reasonably. “No, Louis, I will take over your honest old driver and your greasy young signalman and your fatal signal that cannot be seen from anywhere.”

  “But it is an important point for you to remember, Max, that although the signal cannot be seen from the box, if the mechanism had gone wrong, or anyone tampered with the arm, the automatic indicator would at once have told Mead that the green light was showing. Oh, I have gone very thoroughly into the technical points, I assure you.”

  “I must do so too,” commented Mr. Carrados gravely.

  �
��For that matter, if there is anything you want to know, I dare say that I can tell you,” suggested his visitor. “It might save your time.”

  “True,” acquiesced Carrados. “I should like to know whether anyone belonging to the houses that bound the line there came of age or got married on the twenty-sixth of November.”

  Mr. Carlyle looked across curiously at his host.

  “I really do not know, Max,” he replied, in his crisp, precise way. “What on earth has that got to do with it, may I inquire?”

  “The only explanation of the Pont St. Lin swing-bridge disaster of ’75 was the reflection of a green bengal light on a cottage window.”

  Mr. Carlyle smiled his indulgence privately.

  “My dear chap, you mustn’t let your retentive memory of obscure happenings run away with you,” he remarked wisely. “In nine cases out of ten the obvious explanation is the true one. The difficulty, as here, lies in proving it. Now, you would like to see these men?”

  “I expect so; in any case, I will see Hutchins first.”

  “Both live in Holloway. Shall I ask Hutchins to come here to see you—say to-morrow? He is doing nothing.”

  “No,” replied Carrados. “Tomorrow I must call on my brokers and my time may be filled up.”

  “Quite right; you mustn’t neglect your own affairs for this—experiment,” assented Carlyle.

  “Besides, I should prefer to drop in on Hutchins at his own home. Now, Louis, enough of the honest old man for one night. I have a lovely thing by Eumenes that I want to show you. Today is—Tuesday. Come to dinner on Sunday and pour the vials of your ridicule on my want of success.”

  “That’s an amiable way of putting it,” replied Carlyle. “All right, I will.”

  Two hours later Carrados was again in his study, apparently, for a wonder, sitting idle. Sometimes he smiled to himself, and once or twice he laughed a little, but for the most part his pleasant, impassive face reflected no emotion and he sat with his useless eyes tranquilly fixed on an unseen distance. It was a fantastic caprice of the man to mock his sightlessness by a parade of light, and under the soft brilliance of a dozen electric brackets the room was as bright as day. At length he stood up and rang the bell.

  “I suppose Mr. Greatorex isn’t still here by any chance, Parkinson?” he asked, referring to his secretary.

  “I think not, sir, but I will ascertain,” replied the man.

  “Never mind. Go to his room and bring me the last two files of The Times. Now”—when he returned—“turn to the earliest you have there. The date?”

  “November the second.”

  “That will do. Find the Money Market; it will be in the Supplement. Now look down the columns until you come to British Railways.”

  “I have it, sir.”

  “Central and Suburban. Read the closing price and the change.”

  “Central and Suburban Ordinary, 66-1/2-67-1/2, fall 1/8. Preferred Ordinary, 81-81-1/2, no change. Deferred Ordinary, 27-1/2-27-3/4, fall 1/4. That is all, sir.”

  “Now take a paper about a week on. Read the Deferred only.”

  “27-27-1/4, no change.”

  “Another week.”

  “29-1/2-30, rise 5/8.”

  “Another.”

  “31-1/2-32-1/2, rise 1.”

  “Very good. Now on Tuesday the twenty-seventh November.”

  “31-7/8-32-3/4, rise 1/2.”

  “Yes. The next day.”

  “24-1/2-23-1/2, fall 9.”

  “Quite so, Parkinson. There had been an accident, you see.”

  “Yes, sir. Very unpleasant accident. Jane knows a person whose sister’s young man has a cousin who had his arm torn off in it—torn off at the socket, she says, sir. It seems to bring it home to one, sir.”

  “That is all. Stay—in the paper you have, look down the first money column and see if there is any reference to the Central and Suburban.”

  “Yes, sir. ‘City and Suburbans, which after their late depression on the projected extension of the motor bus service, had been steadily creeping up on the abandonment of the scheme, and as a result of their own excellent traffic returns, suffered a heavy slump through the lamentable accident of Thursday night. The Deferred in particular at one time fell eleven points as it was felt that the possible dividend, with which rumour has of late been busy, was now out of the question.’”

  “Yes; that is all. Now you can take the papers back. And let it be a warning to you, Parkinson, not to invest your savings in speculative railway deferreds.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir, I will endeavour to remember.” He lingered for a moment as he shook the file of papers level. “I may say, sir, that I have my eye on a small block of cottage property at Acton. But even cottage property scarcely seems safe from legislative depredation now, sir.”

  The next day Mr. Carrados called on his brokers in the city. It is to be presumed that he got through his private business quicker than he expected, for after leaving Austin Friars he continued his journey to Holloway, where he found Hutchins at home and sitting morosely before his kitchen fire. Rightly assuming that his luxuriant car would involve him in a certain amount of public attention in Klondyke Street, the blind man dismissed it some distance from the house, and walked the rest of the way, guided by the almost imperceptible touch of Parkinson’s arm.

  “Here is a gentleman to see you, father,” explained Miss Hutchins, who had come to the door. She divined the relative positions of the two visitors at a glance.

  “Then why don’t you take him into the parlour?” grumbled the ex-driver. His face was a testimonial of hard work and general sobriety but at the moment one might hazard from his voice and manner that he had been drinking earlier in the day.

  “I don’t think that the gentleman would be impressed by the difference between our parlour and our kitchen,” replied the girl quaintly, “and it is warmer here.”

  “What’s the matter with the parlour now?” demanded her father sourly. “It was good enough for your mother and me. It used to be good enough for you.”

  “There is nothing the matter with it, nor with the kitchen either.” She turned impassively to the two who had followed her along the narrow passage. “Will you go in, sir?”

  “I don’t want to see no gentleman,” cried Hutchins noisily. “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,” rumina
ted 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.”