The Vanished Messenger | Page 6

made any pretence at
reading. The older man, with his feet upon the opposite seat and his
arms folded, was looking pensively through the rain-splashed
window-pane into the impenetrable darkness. The young man, although
he could not ignore his companion's unsociable instincts, was fidgety.
"There will be some floods out to-morrow," he remarked.
Mr. Dunster turned his head and looked across the saloon. There was
something in the deliberate manner of his doing so, and his hesitation
before he spoke, which seemed intended to further impress upon the
young man the fact that he was not disposed for conversation.
"Very likely," was his sole reply.
Gerald Fentolin sighed as though he regretted his companion's
taciturnity and a few minutes later strolled to the farther end of the
saloon. He spent some time trying to peer through the streaming
window into the darkness. He chatted for a few minutes with the guard,
who was, however, in a bad temper at having had to turn out and who
found little to say. Then he took one of his golf clubs from the bag and
indulged in several half swings. Finally he stretched himself out upon
one of the seats and closed his eyes.
"May as well try to get a nap," he yawned. "There won't be much
chance on the steamer, if it blows like this."
Mr. Dunster said nothing. His face was set, his eyes were looking
somewhere beyond the confines of the saloon in which he was seated.
So they travelled for over an hour. The young man seemed to be dozing
in earnest when, with a succession of jerks, the train rapidly slackened
speed. Mr. Dunster let down the window. The interior of the carriage
was at once thrown into confusion. A couple of newspapers were
caught up and whirled around, a torrent of rain beat in. Mr. Dunster
rapidly closed the window and rang the bell. The guard came in after a
moment or two. His clothes were shiny from the wet; raindrops hung

from his beard.
"What is the matter?" Mr. Dunster demanded. "Why are we waiting
here?"
"There's a block on the line somewhere," the man replied. "Can't tell
where exactly. The signals are against us; that's all we know at
present."
They crawled on again in about ten minutes, stopped, and resumed
their progress at an even slower rate. Mr. Dunster once more
summoned the guard.
"Why are we travelling like this?" he asked impatiently. "We shall
never catch the boat."
"We shall catch the boat all right if it runs, sir," the man assured him.
"The mail is only a mile or two ahead of us; that's one reason why we
have to go so slowly. Then the water is right over the line where we are
now, and we can't get any news at all from the other side of Ipswich. If
it goes on like this, some of the bridges will be down; that's what I'm
afraid of."
Mr. Dunster frowned. For the first time he showed some signs of
uneasiness.
"Perhaps," he muttered, half to himself, "a motor-car would have been
better."
"Not on your life," his young companion intervened. "All the roads to
the coast here cross no end of small bridges - much weaker affairs than
the railway bridges. I bet there are some of those down already. Besides,
you wouldn't be able to see where you were going, on a night like this."
"There appears to be a chance," Mr. Dunster remarked drily, "that you
will have to scratch for your competition to-morrow."
"Also," the young man observed, "that you will have taken this special

train for nothing. I can't fancy the Harwich boat going out a night like
this."
Mr. Dunster relapsed into stony but anxious silence. The train
continued its erratic progress, sometimes stopping altogether for a time,
with whistle blowing repeatedly; sometimes creeping along the metals
as though feeling its way to safety. At last, after a somewhat prolonged
wait, the guard, whose hoarse voice they had heard on the platform of
the small station in which they were standing, entered the carriage.
With him came a gust of wind, once more sending the papers flying
around the compartment. The rain dripped from his clothes on to the
carpet. He had lost his hat, his hair was tossed with the wind, his face
was bleeding from a slight wound on the temple.
"The boat train's just ahead of us, sir," he announced. "She can't get on
any better than we can. We've just heard that there's a bridge down on
the line between Ipswich and Harwich."
"What are we going to do, then?" Mr. Dunster demanded.
"That's just what I've come to ask you, sir," the guard replied. "The
mail's going slowly on as far as Ipswich.