a hurried
conference between Catesby and the stationmaster; after that the
electric lamps in the dead man's carriage were unshipped, and the
blinds pulled down. The matter would be fully investigated when
Edinburgh was reached, meanwhile the stationmaster at Lydmouth
would telephone the Scotch capital and let them know there what they
had to expect. Catesby crept into his van again, very queer and dizzy,
and with a sensation in his legs suggestive of creeping paralysis.
* * * * *
Naturally, the mystery of the night express caused a great sensation.
Nothing like it had been known since the great crime on the South
Coast, which is connected with the name of Lefroy. But that was not so
much a mystery as a man hunt. There the criminal had been identified.
But here there was no trace and no clue whatever. It was in vain that
the Scotland Yard authorities tried to shake the evidence of the guard,
Catesby. He refused to make any admissions that would permit the
police even to build up a theory. He was absolutely certain that Mr.
Skidmore had been alone in the carriage at the moment that the express
left London; he was absolutely certain that he had locked the door of
the compartment, and the engine driver could testify that the train had
never traveled at a less speed than sixty miles an hour until the bridge
over the river leading into Lydmouth station was reached; even then
nobody could have dropped off the train without the risk of certain
death. Inspector Merrick was bound to admit this himself when he went
over the spot. And the problem of the missing bullion boxes was quite
as puzzling in its way as the mysterious way in which Mr. Skidmore
had met his death.
There was no clue to this either. Certainly there had been a struggle, or
there would not have been blood marks all over the place, and the
window would have remained intact. Skidmore had probably been
forced back into his seat, or he had collapsed there after the fatal shot
was fired. The unfortunate man had been shot through the brain with an
ordinary revolver of common pattern, so that for the purpose of proof
the bullet was useless. There were no finger marks on the carriage door,
a proof that the murderer had either worn gloves or that he had
carefully removed all traces with a cloth of some kind. It was obvious,
too, that a criminal of this class would take no risks, especially as there
was no chance of his being hurried, seeing that he had had three clear
hours for his work. The more the police went into the matter, the more
puzzled they were. It was not a difficult matter to establish the bona
fides of the passengers who traveled in the next coach with Skidmore,
and as to the rest it did not matter. Nobody could possibly have left any
of the corridor coaches without attracting notice; indeed, the very
suggestion was absurd. And there the matter rested for three days.
It must not be supposed that the authorities had been altogether idle.
Inspector Merrick spent most of his time traveling up and down the line
by slow local trains on the off-chance of hearing some significant
incident that might lead to a clue. There was one thing obvious--the
bullion boxes must have been thrown off the train at some spot
arranged between the active thief and his confederates. For this was too
big a thing to be entirely the work of one man. Some of the gang must
have been waiting along the line in readiness to receive the boxes and
carry them to a place of safety. By this time, no doubt, the boxes
themselves had been destroyed; but eight thousand pounds in gold
takes some moving, and probably a conveyance, a motor for choice,
had been employed for this purpose. But nobody appeared to have seen
or heard anything suspicious on the night of the murder; no prowling
gamekeeper or watcher had noticed anything out of the common. Along
the Essex and Norfolk marshes, where the Grand Coast Railway wound
along like a steel snake, they had taken their desolate and dreary way.
True, the dead body of a man had been found in the fowling nets up in
the mouth of the Little Ouse, and nobody seemed to know who he was;
but there could be no connection between this unhappy individual and
the express criminal. Merrick shook his head as he listened to this from
a laborer in a roadside public house where he was making a frugal
lunch on bread and cheese.
"What do you call fowling nets?" Merrick asked.
"Why, what they catches the birds in," the rustic explained.
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