Tales of Terror and Mystery
a fanciful explanation if it will only be consistent with known events.
We can then test this explanation by any fresh facts which may arise.
If they all fit into their places, the probability is that we are upon
the right track, and with each fresh fact this probability increases in
a geometrical progression until the evidence becomes final and
convincing.
"Now, there is one most remarkable and suggestive fact which has not
met with the attention which it deserves. There is a local train
running through Harrow and King's Langley, which is timed in such a way
that the express must have overtaken it at or about the period when it
eased down its speed to eight miles an hour on account of the repairs
of the line. The two trains would at that time be travelling in the
same direction at a similar rate of speed and upon parallel lines. It
is within every one's experience how, under such circumstances, the
occupant of each carriage can see very plainly the passengers in the
other carriages opposite to him. The lamps of the express had been lit
at Willesden, so that each compartment was brightly illuminated, and
most visible to an observer from outside.
"Now, the sequence of events as I reconstruct them would be after this
fashion. This young man with the abnormal number of watches was alone
in the carriage of the slow train. His ticket, with his papers and
gloves and other things, was, we will suppose, on the seat beside him.
He was probably an American, and also probably a man of weak intellect.
The excessive wearing of jewellery is an early symptom in some forms of
mania.
"As he sat watching the carriages of the express which were (on account
of the state of the line) going at the same pace as himself, he
suddenly saw some people in it whom he knew. We will suppose for the
sake of our theory that these people were a woman whom he loved and a
man whom he hated--and who in return hated him. The young man was
excitable and impulsive. He opened the door of his carriage, stepped
from the footboard of the local train to the footboard of the express,
opened the other door, and made his way into the presence of these two
people. The feat (on the supposition that the trains were going at the
same pace) is by no means so perilous as it might appear.
"Having now got our young man, without his ticket, into the carriage in
which the elder man and the young woman are travelling, it is not
difficult to imagine that a violent scene ensued. It is possible that
the pair were also Americans, which is the more probable as the man
carried a weapon--an unusual thing in England. If our supposition of
incipient mania is correct, the young man is likely to have assaulted
the other. As the upshot of the quarrel the elder man shot the
intruder, and then made his escape from the carriage, taking the young
lady with him. We will suppose that all this happened very rapidly,
and that the train was still going at so slow a pace that it was not
difficult for them to leave it. A woman might leave a train going at
eight miles an hour. As a matter of fact, we know that this woman DID
do so.
"And now we have to fit in the man in the smoking carriage. Presuming
that we have, up to this point, reconstructed the tragedy correctly, we
shall find nothing in this other man to cause us to reconsider our
conclusions. According to my theory, this man saw the young fellow
cross from one train to the other, saw him open the door, heard the
pistol-shot, saw the two fugitives spring out on to the line, realized
that murder had been done, and sprang out himself in pursuit. Why he
has never been heard of since--whether he met his own death in the
pursuit, or whether, as is more likely, he was made to realize that it
was not a case for his interference--is a detail which we have at
present no means of explaining. I acknowledge that there are some
difficulties in the way. At first sight, it might seem improbable that
at such a moment a murderer would burden himself in his flight with a
brown leather bag. My answer is that he was well aware that if the bag
were found his identity would be established. It was absolutely
necessary for him to take it with him. My theory stands or falls upon
one point, and I call upon the railway company to make strict inquiry
as to whether a ticket was found unclaimed in the local train through
Harrow and King's Langley upon the 18th of March. If such a ticket
were found my case is proved. If not, my theory may still be the
correct one, for it is conceivable either that he travelled without a
ticket or that his ticket was lost."
To this elaborate and plausible hypothesis the answer of the police and
of the company was, first, that no such ticket was found; secondly,
that the slow train would never run parallel to the express; and,
thirdly, that the local train had been stationary in King's Langley
Station when the express, going at fifty miles an hour, had flashed
past it. So perished the only satisfying explanation, and five years
have elapsed without supplying a new one. Now, at last, there comes a
statement which covers all the facts, and which must be regarded as
authentic. It took the shape of a letter dated from New York, and
addressed to the same criminal investigator whose theory I have quoted.
It is given here in extenso, with the exception of the two opening
paragraphs, which are personal in their nature:
"You'll excuse me if I'm not very free with names. There's less reason
now than there was five years ago when mother was still living. But
for all that, I had rather cover up our tracks all I can. But I owe
you an explanation, for if your idea of it was wrong, it was a mighty
ingenious one all the same. I'll have to go back a little so as you
may understand all about it.
"My people came from Bucks, England, and emigrated to the States in the
early fifties. They settled in Rochester, in the State of New York,
where my father ran a large dry goods store. There were only two sons:
myself, James, and my brother, Edward. I was ten years older than my
brother, and after my father died I sort of took the place of a father
to him, as an elder brother would. He was a bright, spirited boy, and
just one of the most beautiful creatures that ever lived. But there
was always a soft spot in him, and it was like mould in cheese, for it
spread and spread, and nothing that you could do would stop it. Mother
saw it just as clearly as I did, but she went on spoiling him all the
same, for he had such a way with him that you could refuse him nothing.
I did all I could to hold him in, and he hated me for my pains.
"At last he fairly got his head, and nothing that we could do would
stop him. He got off into New York, and went rapidly from bad to
worse. At first he was only fast, and then he was criminal; and then,
at the end of a year or two, he was one of the most notorious young
crooks in the city. He had formed a friendship with Sparrow MacCoy,
who was at the head of his profession as a bunco-steerer, green
goodsman and general rascal. They took to card-sharping, and frequented
some of the best hotels in New York. My brother was an excellent actor
(he might have made an honest name for himself if he had chosen), and
he would take the parts of a young Englishman of title, of a simple lad
from the West, or of a college undergraduate, whichever suited Sparrow
MacCoy's purpose. And then one day he dressed himself as a girl, and
he carried it off so well, and made himself such a valuable decoy, that
it was their favourite game afterwards. They had made it right with
Tammany and with the police, so it seemed as if nothing could ever stop
them, for those were in the days before the Lexow Commission, and if
you only had a pull, you could do pretty nearly everything you wanted.
"And nothing would have stopped them if they had only stuck to cards
and New York, but they must needs come up Rochester way, and forge a
name upon a cheque. It was my brother that did it, though everyone
knew that it was under the influence of Sparrow MacCoy. I bought up
that cheque, and a pretty sum it cost me. Then I went to my brother,
laid it before him on the table, and swore to him that I would
prosecute if he did not clear out of the country. At first he simply
laughed. I could not prosecute, he said, without breaking our mother's
heart, and he knew that I would not do that. I made him understand,
however, that our mother's heart was being broken in any case, and that
I had set firm on the point that I would rather see him in Rochester
gaol than in a New York hotel. So at last he gave in, and he made me a
solemn promise that he would see Sparrow MacCoy no more, that he would
go to Europe, and that he would turn his hand to any honest trade that
I helped him to get. I took him down right away to an old family
friend, Joe Willson, who is an exporter of American watches and clocks,
and I got him to give Edward an agency in London, with a small salary
and a 15 per cent commission on all business. His manner and
appearance were so good that he won the old man over at once, and
within a week he was sent off to London with a case full of samples.
"It seemed to me that this business of the cheque had really given my
brother a fright, and that there was some chance of his settling down
into an honest line of life. My mother had spoken with him, and what
she said had touched him, for she had always been the best of mothers
to him and he had been the great sorrow of her life. But I knew that
this man Sparrow MacCoy had a great influence over Edward and my chance
of keeping the lad straight lay in breaking the connection between
them. I had a friend in the New York detective force, and through him
I kept a watch upon MacCoy. When, within a fortnight of my brother's
sailing, I heard that MacCoy had taken a berth in the Etruria, I was as
certain as if he had told me that he was going over to England for the
purpose of coaxing Edward back again into the ways that he had left.
In an instant I had resolved to go also, and to pit my influence
against MacCoy's. I knew it was a losing fight, but I thought, and my
mother thought, that it was my duty. We passed the last night together
in prayer for my success, and she gave me her own Testament that my
father had given her on the day of their marriage in the Old Country,
so that I might always wear it next my heart.
"I was a fellow-traveller, on the steamship, with Sparrow MacCoy, and
at least I had the satisfaction of spoiling his little game for the
voyage. The very first night I went into the smoking-room, and found
him at the head of a card-table, with a half a dozen young fellows who
were carrying their full purses and their empty skulls over to Europe.
He was settling down for his harvest, and a rich one it would have
been. But I soon changed all that.
"'Gentlemen,' said I, 'are you aware whom you are playing with?'
"'What's that to you? You mind your own business!' said he, with an
oath.
"'Who is it, anyway?' asked one of the dudes.
"'He's Sparrow MacCoy, the most notorious card-sharper in the States.'
"Up he jumped with a bottle in his hand, but he remembered that he was
under the flag of the effete Old Country, where law and order run, and
Tammany has no pull. Gaol and the gallows wait for violence and
murder, and there's no slipping out by the back door on board an ocean
liner.
"'Prove your words, you----!' said he.
"'I will!' said I. 'If you will turn up your right shirt-sleeve to the
shoulder, I will either prove my words or I will eat them.'
"He turned white and said not a word. You see, I knew something of his
ways, and I was aware of that part of the mechanism which he and all