A Christmas Mystery: The Story of Three Wise Men | Page 4

Professor.
"What is there in it of interest compared with the mighty civilizations
that have gone before?"
McCurdie took a pull from his flask.
"I'm glad I thought of having a refill at Plymouth," said he.
At last, after many stops at little lonely stations they arrived at
Trehenna. The guard opened the door and they stepped out on to the
snow-covered platform. An oil lamp hung from the tiny pent-house
roof that, structurally, was Trehenna Station. They looked around at the
silent gloom of white undulating moorland, and it seemed a place
where no man lived and only ghosts could have a bleak and unsheltered
being. A porter came up and helped the guard with the luggage. Then
they realized that the station was built on a small embankment, for,
looking over the railing, they saw below the two great lamps of a motor
car. A fur-clad chauffeur met them at the bottom of the stairs. He
clapped his hands together and informed them cheerily that he had been
waiting for four hours. It was the bitterest winter in these parts within
the memory of man, said he, and he himself had not seen snow there
for five years. Then he settled the three travellers in the great roomy
touring car covered with a Cape-cart hood, wrapped them up in many
rugs and started.
After a few moments, the huddling together of their bodies--for, the
Professor being a spare man, there was room for them all on the back

seat--the pile of rugs, the serviceable and all but air-tight hood, induced
a pleasant warmth and a pleasant drowsiness. Where they were being
driven they knew not. The perfectly upholstered seat eased their limbs,
the easy swinging motion of the car soothed their spirits. They felt that
already they had reached the luxuriously appointed home which, after
all, they knew awaited them. McCurdie no longer railed, Professor
Biggleswade forgot the dangers of bronchitis, and Lord Doyne twisted
the stump of a black cigar between his lips without any desire to relight
it. A tiny electric lamp inside the hood made the darkness of the world
to right and left and in front of the talc windows still darker. McCurdie
and Biggleswade fell into a doze. Lord Doyne chewed the end of his
cigar. The car sped on through an unseen wilderness.
Suddenly there was a horrid jolt and a lurch and a leap and a rebound,
and then the car stood still, quivering like a ship that has been struck by
a heavy sea. The three men were pitched and tossed and thrown
sprawling over one another onto the bottom of the car. Biggleswade
screamed. McCurdie cursed. Doyne scrambled from the confusion of
rugs and limbs and, tearing open the side of the Cape-cart hood,
jumped out. The chauffeur had also just leaped from his seat. It was
pitch dark save for the great shaft of light down the snowy road cast by
the acetylene lamps. The snow had ceased falling.
"What's gone wrong?"
"It sounds like the axle," said the chauffeur ruefully.
He unshipped a lamp and examined the car, which had wedged itself
against a great drift of snow on the off side. Meanwhile McCurdie and
Biggleswade had alighted.
"Yes, it's the axle," said the chauffeur.
"Then we're done," remarked Doyne.
"I'm afraid so, my lord."
"What's the matter? Can't we get on?" asked Biggleswade in his

querulous voice.
McCurdie laughed. "How can we get on with a broken axle? The
thing's as useless as a man with a broken back. Gad, I was right. I said
it was going to be an infernal journey."
The little Professor wrung his hands. "But what's to be done?" he cried.
"Tramp it," said Lord Doyne, lighting a fresh cigar.
"It's ten miles," said the chauffeur.
"It would be the death of me," the Professor wailed.
"I utterly refuse to walk ten miles through a Polar waste with a gouty
foot," McCurdie declared wrathfully.
The chauffeur offered a solution of the difficulty. He would set out
alone for Foullis Castle--five miles farther on was an inn where he
could obtain a horse and trap--and would return for the three gentlemen
with another car. In the meanwhile they could take shelter in a little
house which they had just passed, some half mile up the road. This was
agreed to. The chauffeur went on cheerily enough with a lamp, and the
three travellers with another lamp started off in the opposite direction.
As far as they could see they were in a long, desolate valley, a sort of
No Man's Land, deathly silent. The eastern sky had cleared somewhat,
and they faced a loose rack through which one pale star was dimly
visible.
* * * * *
"I'm a man of science," said