Golden Stories | Page 2

That's why we always give the railway
authorities a few days' notice. One can't be too careful, Catesby."
The guard supposed not. He was slightly, yet discreetly, amused to see
Mr. Skidmore glance under the seats of the first-class carriage.
Certainly there was nobody either there or on the racks. The carriage at
the far side was locked, and so, now, was the door next the platform.
The great glass dome was brilliantly lighted so that anything suspicious
would have been detected instantly. The guard's whistle rang out shrill
and clear, and Catesby had a glimpse of Mr. Skidmore making himself
comfortable as he swung himself into his van. The great green and gold
serpent with the brilliant electric eyes fought its way sinuously into the
throat of the wet and riotous night on its first stage of over two hundred
miles. Lydmouth would be the first stop.
So far Mr. Skidmore had nothing to worry him, nothing, that is, except
the outside chance of a bad accident. He did not anticipate, however,
that some miscreant might deliberately wreck the train on the off
chance of looting those plain deal boxes. The class of thief that banks
have to fear is not guilty of such clumsiness. Unquestionably nothing
could happen on this side of Lydmouth. The train was roaring along
now through the fierce gale at sixty odd miles an hour, Skidmore had
the carriage to himself, and was not the snug, brilliantly lighted
compartment made of steel? On one side was the carriage with the

coffin; on the other side another compartment filled with a party of
sportsmen going North. Skidmore had noticed the four of them playing
bridge just before he slipped into his own carriage. Really, he had
nothing to fear. He lay back comfortably wondering how Poe or
Gaboriau would have handled such a situation with a successful
robbery behind it. There are limits, of course, both to a novelist's
imagination and a clever thief's process of invention. So, therefore....
Three hours and twenty minutes later the express pulled up at
Lydmouth. The station clock indicated the hour to be 11.23. Catesby
swung himself out of his van on to the shining wet platform. Only one
passenger was waiting there, but nobody alighted. Catesby was sure of
this, because he was on the flags before a door could be opened. He
came forward to give a hand with the coffin in the compartment next to
Skidmore's. Then he noticed, to his surprise, that the glass in the
carriage window was smashed; he could see that the little cashier was
huddled up strangely in one corner. And Catesby could see also that the
two boxes of bullion were gone!
Catesby's heart was thumping against his ribs as he fumbled with his
key. He laid his hand upon Skidmore's shoulder, but the latter did not
move. The fair hair hung in a mass on the side of his forehead, and here
it was fair no longer. There was a hole with something horribly red and
slimy oozing from it. The carpet on the floor was piled up in a heap;
there were red smears on the cushions. It was quite evident that a
struggle had taken place here. The shattered glass in the window
testified to that. And the boxes were gone, and Skidmore had been
murdered by some assailant who had shot him through the brain. And
this mysterious antagonist had got off with the bullion, too.
A thing incredible, amazing, impossible; but there it was. By some
extraordinary method or another the audacious criminal had boarded an
express train traveling at sixty miles an hour in the teeth of a gale. He
had contrived to enter the cashier's carriage and remove specie to the
amount of eight thousand pounds! It was impossible that only one man
could have carried it. But all the same it was gone.
Catesby pulled himself together. He was perfectly certain that nobody

at present on the train had been guilty of this thing. He was perfectly
certain that nobody had left the train. Nobody could have done so after
entering the station without the guard's knowledge, and to have
attempted such a thing on the far side of the river bridge would have
been certain death to anybody. There was a long viaduct here--posts
and pillars and chains, with tragedy lurking anywhere for the madman
who attempted such a thing. And until the viaduct was reached the
express had not slackened speed. Besides, the thief who had the
courage and intelligence and daring to carry out a robbery like this was
not the man to leave an express train traveling at a speed of upwards of
sixty miles an hour.
The train had to proceed, there was no help for it. There was