by Mike Ashley
The authority laid upon the words ‘get it done’ made it seem that the speaker was accustomed to be obeyed, and would be this time. For once the lunatic sat quiet, watching the lamp and for the light that was to be dropped into it from the top; and so did I, and so did the lady. We were all deceived, however, and the train went puffing on. The lunatic shrieked, the lord put his head out of the carriage and shouted for Wilkins.
No good. Shouting after a train is off never is much good. The lord sat down on his seat again, an angry frown crossing his face, and the lunatic got up and danced with rage.
‘I do not know where the blame lies,’ observed the lord. ‘Not with my servant, I think. He is attentive and has been with me some years.’
‘I’ll know where it lies,’ retorted the lunatic. ‘I am a director on the line, though I don’t often travel on it. This is management, this is! A few minutes more and we shall be in the dark tunnel.’
‘Of course it would have been satisfactory to have a light, but it is not of so much consequence,’ said the nobleman, wishing to soothe him. ‘There’s no danger in the dark.’
‘No danger! No danger, sir! I think there is danger. Who’s to know that dog won’t spring out and bite us? Who’s to know there won’t be an accident in the tunnel? A light is a protection against having our pockets picked, if it’s a protection against nothing else.’
‘I fancy our pockets are pretty safe today,’ said the lord, glancing around at us with a good-natured smile, as much as to say that none of us looked like thieves. ‘And I certainly trust we shall get through the tunnel safely.’
‘And I’ll take care the dog does not bite you in the dark,’ spoke up the lady, pushing her head forward to give the lunatic a nod or two that you’d hardly have matched for defying impudence.
‘You’ll be good, won’t you, Wasp? But I should like the lamp lighted myself. You will perhaps be so kind, my lord, as to see that there’s no mistake made about it at the next station!’
He slightly raised his hat to her and bowed in answer but did not speak. The lunatic buttoned up his coat with fingers that were either nervous or angry and then disturbed the little gentleman next him – who had read his big book throughout the whole commotion without once lifting his eyes – by hunting everywhere for his pocket handkerchief.
‘Here’s the tunnel!’ he cried out resentfully, as we dashed with a shriek into pitch darkness.
It was all very well for her to say she would take care of the dog, but the first thing the young beast did was to make a spring at me and then at the Squire, barking and yelping frightfully. The Squire pushed it away in a commotion. Though well accustomed to dogs, he always fought shy of strange ones. The lady chattered and laughed and did not seem to try to get hold of him, but we couldn’t see, you know. The Squire hissed at him, the dog snarled and growled. Altogether there was noise enough to deafen anything but a tunnel.
‘Pitch him out of the window,’ cried the lunatic.
‘Pitch yourself out,’ answered the lady. And whether she propelled the dog or whether he went of his own accord, the beast sprang to the other end of the carriage and was seized upon by the nobleman.
‘I think, madam, you had better put him under your mantle and keep him there,’ said he, bringing the dog back to her and speaking quite civilly but in the same tone of authority he had used to his servant about the lamp. ‘I have not the slightest objection to dogs myself, but many people have, and it is not altogether pleasant to have them loose in a railway carriage. I beg your pardon. I cannot see. Is this your hand?’
It was her hand, I suppose, for the dog was left with her, and he went back to his seat again. When we emerged out of the tunnel into daylight, the lunatic’s face was blue.
‘Ma’am, if that miserable brute had laid hold of me by so much as the corner of my greatcoat tail I’d have had the law on you. It is perfectly monstrous that anyone, putting themselves into a first-class carriage, should attempt to outrage railway laws and upset the comfort of travellers with impunity. I shall complain to the guard.’
‘He does not bite, sir. He never bites,’ she answered softly, as if sorry for the escapade and wishing to conciliate him. ‘The poor little bijou is frightened of the darkness and leaped from my arms unawares. There! I’ll promise that you shall neither see nor hear him again.’
She had tucked the dog so completely out of sight that no one could have suspected one was there, just as it had been on first entering. The train was drawn up to the next station. When it stopped the servant came and opened the carriage door for his master to get out.
‘Did you understand me, Wilkins, when I told you to get this lamp lighted?’
‘My lord, I’m very sorry. I understood your lordship perfectly, but I couldn’t see the guard,’ answered Wilkins. ‘I caught sight of him running up to his van door at the last moment, but the train began to move off and I had to jump in myself or else be left behind.’
The guard passed as he was explaining this, and the nobleman drew his attention to the lamp, curtly ordering him to ‘light it instantly’. Lifting his hat to us by way of farewell, he disappeared, and the lunatic began upon the guard as if he were commencing a lecture to a deaf audience. The guard seemed not to hear it, so lost was he in astonishment at there being no light.
‘Why, what can have douted it?’ he cried aloud, staring up at the lamp. And the Squire smiled at the familiar word, so common in our ears at home, and had a great mind to ask the guard where he came from.
‘I lighted all these here lamps myself afore we started, and I see ’em all burning,’ said he. There was no mistaking the home accent now, and the Squire looked down the carriage with a beaming face.
‘You are from Worcestershire, my man.’
‘From Worcester itself, sir. Leastways from St John’s, which is the same thing.’
‘Whether you are from Worcester or whether you are from Jericho, I’ll let you know that you can’t put empty lamps into first-class carriages on this line without being made to answer for it!’ roared the lunatic. ‘What’s your name? I am a director.’
‘My name is Thomas Brooks, sir,’ replied the man, respectfully touching his cap. ‘But I declare to you, sir, that I’ve told the truth in saying the lamps were all right when we started. How this one can have got douted, I can’t think. There’s not a guard on the line, sir, more particular in seeing to the lamps than I am.’
‘Well, light it now. Don’t waste time excusing yourself,’ growled the lunatic. But he said nothing about the dog, which was surprising.
In a twinkling the lamp was lighted, and we were off again. The lady and her dog were quiet now. He was out of sight; she leaned back to go to sleep. The Squire lodged his head against the curtain, and shut his eyes to do the same; the little man, as before, never looked off his book; and the lunatic frantically shifted himself every two minutes between his own seat and that of the opposite corner. There were no more tunnels, and we went smoothly on to the next station. Five minutes allowed there.
The little man, putting his book in his pocket, took down a black leather bag from above his head and got out; the lady, her dog hidden still, prepared to follow him, wishing the Squire and me, and even the lunatic, with a forgiving smile, a polite good-morning. I had moved to that end and was watching the lady’s wonderful back hair as she stepped out when all in a moment the Squire sprang up with a shout and, jumping out nearly upon her, called out that he had been robbed. She dropped the dog, and I thought he must have caught the lunatic’s disorder and become frantic.
It is of no use attempting to describe exactly what followed. The lady, snatching up her dog, shrieked out that perhaps she had been robbed, too; she laid hold of the Squire’s arm and went with him into the station-master’s room. And there we were, us three and the guard and the station-master and the lunatic, who had come pouncing out, too, at the Squire’s cry. The man in spectacles had disappeared for good.
The Squire’s pocket-book was go
ne. He gave his name and address at once to the station-master, and the guard’s face lighted with intelligence when he heard it, for he knew Squire Todhetley by reputation. The pocket-book had been safe just before we entered the tunnel; the Squire was certain of that, having felt it. He had sat in the carriage with his coat unbuttoned, rather thrown back, and nothing could have been easier than for a clever thief to draw it out under cover of the darkness.
‘I had fifty pounds in it,’ he said. ‘Fifty pounds in five-pound notes. And some memoranda besides.’
‘Fifty pounds!’ cried the lady quickly. ‘And you could travel with all that about you and not button up your coat! You ought to be rich!’
‘Have you been in the habit of meeting thieves, madam, when travelling?’ suddenly demanded the lunatic, turning upon her without warning, his coat whirling about on all sides with the rapidity of his movements.
‘No, sir, I have not,’ she answered in indignant tones. ‘Have you?’
‘I have not, madam. But then, you perceive I see no risk in travelling with a coat unbuttoned, though it may have bank notes in the pockets.’
She made no reply: was too much occupied in turning out her own pockets and purse to ascertain that they had not been rifled. Reassured on the point, she sat down on a low box against the wall, nursing her dog, which had begun its snarling again.
‘It must have been taken from me in the dark as we went through the tunnel,’ affirmed the Squire to the room in general and perhaps the station-master in particular. ‘I am a magistrate and have some experience in these things. I sat completely off my guard, a prey for anybody, my hands stretched out before me, grappling with that dog, that seemed – why, goodness me! yes he did, now that I think of it – that seemed to be held about fifteen inches off my nose on purpose to attack me. That’s when the thing must have been done. But now – which of them could it have been?’
He meant which of the passengers. As he looked hard at us in rotation, especially at the guard and station-master who had not been in the carriage, the lady gave a shriek and threw the dog into the middle of the room.
‘I see it all,’ she said faintly. ‘He has a habit of snatching at things with his mouth. He must have snatched the case out of your pocket, sir, and dropped it from the window. You will find it in the tunnel.’
‘Who has?’ asked the lunatic, while the Squire stared in wonder.
‘My poor little Wasp. Ah, villain! beast! it is he that has done all this mischief.’
‘He might have taken the pocket-book,’ I said, thinking it time to speak, ‘but he could not have dropped it out, for I put the window up as we went into the tunnel.’
It seemed a nonplus, and her face fell again. ‘There was the other window,’ she said in a minute. ‘He might have dropped it there. I heard his bark quite close to it.’
‘I pulled up that window, madam,’ said the lunatic. ‘If the dog did take it out of the pocket it may be in the carriage now.’
The guard rushed out to search it. The Squire followed, but the station-master remained where he was and closed the door after them. A thought came over me that he was stopping to keep the two passengers in view.
No, the pocket-book could not be found in the carriage. As they came back, the Squire was asking the guard if he knew who the nobleman was who had got out at the last station with his servant. But the guard did not know.
‘He said they knew him on the line.’
‘Very likely, sir. I have not been on this line above a month or two.’
‘Well, this is an unpleasant affair,’ said the lunatic impatiently. ‘And the question is, what’s to be done? It appears pretty evident that your pocket-book was taken in the carriage, sir. Of the four passengers, I suppose the one who left us at the last station must be held exempt from suspicion, being a nobleman. Another got out here and has disappeared; the other two are present. I propose that we should both be searched.’
‘I’m sure I am quite willing,’ said the lady, and she got up at once.
I think the Squire was about to disclaim any wish so to act, but the lunatic was resolute, and the station-master agreed with him. There was no time to be lost, for the train was ready to start again, her time being up, and the lunatic was turned out. The lady went into another room with two women called by the station-master, and she was turned out. Neither of them had the pocket-book.
‘Here’s my card, sir,’ said the lunatic, handing one to Mr Todhetley. ‘You know my name, I dare say. If I can be of any future assistance to you in this matter, you may command me.’
‘Bless my heart!’ cried the Squire as he read the name on the card. ‘How could you allow yourself to be searched, sir?’
‘Because, in such a case as this, I think it only right and fair that everyone who has the misfortune to be mixed up in it should be searched,’ replied the lunatic, as they went out together. ‘It is a satisfaction to both parties. Unless you offered to search me, you could not have offered to search that woman, and I suspected her.’
‘Suspected her!’ cried the Squire, opening his eyes.
‘If I didn’t suspect, I doubted. Why on earth did she cause her dog to make all that row the moment we got into the tunnel? It must have been done then. I should not be startled out of my senses if I heard that that silent man by my side and hers was in league with her.’
The Squire stood in a kind of amazement, trying to recall what he could of the little man in spectacles and see if things would fit into one another.
‘Don’t you like her look?’ he asked suddenly.
‘No, I don’t!’ said the lunatic, turning himself about. ‘I have a prejudice against painted women: they put me in mind of Jezebel. Look at her hair. It’s awful.’
He went out in a whirlwind and took his seat in the carriage not a moment before it puffed off.
‘Is he a lunatic?’ I whispered to the Squire.
‘He a lunatic!’ he roared. ‘You must be a lunatic for asking it, Johnny. Why, that’s … that’s …’
Instead of saying any more, he showed me the card, and the name nearly took my breath away. He is a well-known London man, of science, talent and position, and of worldwide fame.
‘Well, I thought him nothing better than an escaped maniac.’
‘Did you?’ said the Squire. ‘Perhaps he returned the compliment on you, sir. But now … Johnny, who has got my pocket-book?’
As if it was any use asking me? As we turned back to the station-master’s room, the lady came into it, evidently resenting the search, though she had seemed to acquiesce in it so readily.
‘They were rude, those women. It is the first time I ever had the misfortune to travel with men who carry pocket-books to lose them, and I hope it will be the last,’ she pursued in scornful passion meant for the Squire. ‘One generally meets with gentlemen in a first-class carriage.’
The emphasis came out with a shriek, and it told on him. Now that she was proved innocent, he was as vexed as she for having listened to the advice of the scientific man – but I can’t help calling him a lunatic still. The Squire’s apologies might have disarmed a cross-grained hyena, and she came around with a smile.
‘If anyone has got the pocket-book,’ she said, as she stroked her dog’s ears, ‘it must be that silent man with the gold spectacles. There was no one else, sir, who could have reached you without getting up to do it. And I declare on my honour that when that commotion first arose through my poor little dog, I felt for a moment something like a man’s arm stretched across me. It could only have been his. I hope you have the numbers of the notes.’
‘But I have not,’ said the Squire.
The room was being invaded by this time. Two stray passengers, a friend of the station-master’s and the porter who took the tickets had crept in. All thought the lady’s opinion must be correct and said the spectacled man had got clear off with the pocket-book. There was no one else to pitch upon. A nobleman travelling with his servant would not be likely to commit a robb
ery; the lunatic was really the man his card represented him to be, for the station-master’s friend had seen and recognized him; and the lady was proved innocent by search. Wasn’t the Squire in a passion!
‘That close reading of his was all a blind,’ he said in sudden conviction. ‘He kept his face down that we should not know him in future. He never looked at one of us! He never said a word! I shall go and find him.’
Away went the Squire, as fast as he could hurry, but came back in a moment to know which was the way out and where it led to. There was quite a small crowd of us by this time. Some fields lay beyond the station at the back, and a boy affirmed that he had seen a little gentleman in spectacles with a black bag in his hand making over the first stile.
‘Now look here, boy,’ said the Squire. ‘If you catch that same man, I’ll give you five shillings.’
Tod could not have flown faster than the boy did. He took the stile at a leap, and the Squire tumbled over it after him. Some boys and men joined in the chase, and a cow, grazing in the field, trotted after us and brought up the rear.
Such a shout from the boy! It came from behind the opposite hedge of the long field. I was over the gate first; the Squire came next. On the edge of the dry ditch sat the passenger, his legs dangling, his neck imprisoned in the boy’s arms. I knew him at once. His hat and gold spectacles had fallen off in the scuffle, the black bag was wide open and had a tall bunch of something green sticking up from it. Some tools lay on the ground.
‘Oh, you wicked hypocrite!’ spluttered the Squire, not in the least knowing what he said in his passion. ‘Are you not ashamed to have played upon me such a vile trick? How dare you go about to commit robberies!’
‘I have not robbed you, at any rate,’ said the man, his voice trembling a little and his face pale, while the boy loosed the neck but pinioned one of the arms.
‘Not robbed me!’ cried the Squire. ‘Good heavens! Who do you suppose you have robbed, if not me? Here, Johnny, lad, you are a witness. He says he has not robbed me.’