IT WAS A WILD NOVEMBER night, as black as it was boisterous. The West of England mail was half an hour behind her time, and, as she thundered down the line between Reading and London, she experienced the fullest fury of the storm. What with the roaring of the engines, the clatter of the carriage-wheels, the bellowing of the wind, and the rattle of the frozen snow as it was hurled against the windows, her passengers found themselves surrounded by such a pandemonium of noise, that even the most sociable amongst them gave up attempting to carry on conversation, and relapsed into a moody silence. A few, it is true, endeavoured to while away the tedium of the journey by means of books, but the majority wrapped their rugs around them, drew their travelling-caps over their eyes, and curled themselves up in the corners of the carriages. It was only here and there that a hardened traveller found it possible to sleep, and to one of these his slumber proved the sleep of death.
He was an elderly man, with crisp grey hair, and the ruddy complexion of one who had spent his life in the open air. He was reclining fast asleep in the corner of a third-class carriage, with his feet and legs enveloped in a travelling-rug, his hands enclosed in woollen gloves, and only his bronzed and sunburnt cheeks exposed to view. The only other occupant of the compartment was a young and beautiful girl, who was sitting at the other end of the same seat as the sleeper. An open book lay on her lap, but, if one might judge by her drooping head, she too, was fast asleep.
Whilst the mail was still some thirty miles from London, the door of a first-class carriage flew open, and a tall, thin, military-looking man, with tanned face and evil-looking eyes, stepped out upon the footboard. So great was the force of the wind that it was only after a struggle that he succeeded in closing the door again, and, when this was done, he cautiously made his way along the outside of the train, crouching down so as to avoid the carriage-windows, and counting the compartments as he passed along. When he reached the seventh from his own, he muttered, “This should be the carriage,” at the same time raising his head to the level of the window, and peering into the dimly-lighted compartment.
It was the carriage in which the man and the girl were sleeping, and a chuckle of satisfaction from the man outside testified to the fact that this was the carriage he sought.
Whilst one hand grasped the handle of the door, he dived into his pocket with the other, and produced—strange weapon of assassination—a blowpipe. In shape and size it resembled an ordinary lead-pencil, but inside that innocent looking tube was a tiny dart, something like a short sharp thorn, whose point was tipped with poison. Placing one end of the tube between his lips, the assassin cautiously opened the door of the carriage sufficiently wide to admit of the other end passing through, and, as the air was filled with the roar and rattle of the train, the howling of the elements, and the clatter of the driven snow, the slight noise made by the opening of the door was drowned, and those within the carriage slumbered on.
The sleeping man was sitting with his back to the engine, and his uncovered face, therefore, presented an easy target to the man outside. In obedience to a vigorous puff, the poisoned dart flew on its errand of death, and buried its murderous point in the sleeper’s cheek. A sudden spasm shook his frame; he half-rose from his seat, and then, with a sigh that was half a groan, he fell back into the corner again, with such a sudden shock that the dart was shaken from his cheek, and fell between the cushion and the back of the carriage. He appeared to be sleeping still, but it was the sleep that knows no waking here below. With a smile upon her pretty lips—for she was dreaming of the lover who would meet her at the journey’s end—the girl slept on, whilst the author of this dastardly crime crept back to his first-class carriage.
When the mail drew up at Paddington Station, he sprang out upon the platform; and, after a hurried glance around, hastened towards a red-haired coachman, who was standing, whip, in hand, beneath a lighted lamp.
“Did you manage it?” asked the coachman eagerly.
Before his companion could reply, the station rang with a woman’s anguished scream, and, as a crowd of passengers flocked to the door of the carriage in which the dead man lay, the tall individual spoke again.
“You may take that scream as your answer,” he said grimly. “My task, however, is only half completed. I must secure his luggage before his daughter claims it,” and, calling a porter to his side, he hastened to the luggage-van, and asked for “Mr. Thomson’s luggage.”
The porter, not doubting, of course, that this was the owner of the luggage, procured it for him, and, assisted by the red-haired coachman, conveyed it to a carriage, which was waiting outside the station.
“King’s Cross, as quickly as you can,” said the tall, thin man, after bestowing a gratuity upon the porter; and, stepping into the carriage, he drove away.
