CHAPTER II.

THE "FLYING SCOTSMAN."

With daylight, or such drear apology for it as a London November morning allows, I arose, prepared for my journey to the north, and wrote certain letters before starting for the city. The monotonous labours of a clerk's life were nearly ended now; the metropolis--a place both my wife and I detested--would soon see the last of us; already I framed in my mind the letter which should shortly be received by the bank manager announcing my resignation. It may perhaps have been gathered that I am a weak man in some ways, and I confess these little preliminaries to my altered state gave me a sort of pleasure. The ladies argued throughout breakfast as to the locality of our new home, and paid me such increased attentions as befit the head of a house who, from being but an unimportant atom in the machinery of a vast money-making establishment, suddenly himself blossoms into a man of wealth. Thus had two successive fortunes accrued to me through my mother's second marriage; and no calls of justice or honour could quarrel with my right to administer this second property as I thought fit. For Joshua Beakbane had left no family, and, concerning others bearing his name, I did not so much as know if any existed. To town I went, and taking no pains to conceal my prosperity, was besieged with hearty congratulations and desires to drink, at my expense, to continued good fortune. How brief was that half-hour of triumph, and what a number of friends I found among my colleagues in men whom I had always suspected of quite a contrary disposition towards me!

I had scarcely settled to a clear mastery of the business that would shortly take me towards Scotland, when a messenger reached me from Mr. Plenderleath. The solicitor desired to see me without delay, and obtaining leave, I drove to his chambers in Chancery Lane.

Never shall I forget the sorry sight my smug, sententious friend presented; never before have I seen any fellow-creature so nearly reduced to the level of a jelly-fish. He was sitting in his private room, his letters unopened, his overcoat and scarf still upon him. A telegram lay at his feet, after reading which he had evidently sank into his chair and not moved again. He pointed to the message as I entered, shutting the door behind me. It came from Petersham, and ran as follows--

"_Window drawing-room open this morning. Gentleman gone, bag gone._"

A man by nature infirm of purpose, will sometimes show unexpected determination when the reverse might be feared from him; and now, finding Mr. Plenderleath utterly crushed by intelligence that must be more terrible to me than any other, I rose to the occasion in a manner very surprising and gratifying to myself.

"Quick! Up, man! This is no time for delay," I exclaimed. "For God's sake stir yourself. We should be half way to Petersham by now. There has been foul play here. Mr. Sorrell's life may be in danger, if not already sacrificed. Rouse yourself, sir, I beg."

He looked at me wonderingly, shook his head, and murmured something about my being upon the wrong tack altogether. He then braced himself to face the situation, and prepared to accompany me to Petersham. Upon the way to Waterloo, we wired for a detective from Scotland Yard to follow us, and in less than another hour were driving from Richmond to Oak Lodge. Then, but not till then, did Mr. Plenderleath explain to me his views and fears, which came like a thunderclap.

"Your ardour and generous eagerness, dear sir, to succour those in peril, almost moves me to tears," he began; "but these intentions are futile, or I am no man of law. It is my clerk, Walter Sorrell, we must seek, truly; but not where you would seek him. _He_ is the thief, Mr. Lott--I am convinced of that. I saw no reason last night to fear any danger from without, and I hinted as much. My only care at any time was the man of questionable morals, who has recently gone to his rest. No; Sorrell has succumbed to the temptation, and it is upon my head that the punishment falls."

He was terribly prostrated, talked somewhat wildly of such recompense as lay within his powers, and appeared to have relinquished all hopes of my ever coming by my property again. This plain solution of the theft had honestly never occurred to me, until advanced with such certainty by my companion. The affair, in truth, appeared palpable enough to the meanest comprehension, and I said nothing further about violence or possible loss of life.

Even more unquestionable seemed the solicitor's explanation when we reached Petersham, and heard what the Prescotts had to tell us. The local Inspector of Police and two subordinates were already upon the scene, but had done nothing much beyond walk up and down on a flower-bed outside the drawing-room window, and then re-enter the house.

Sarah Prescott's elaboration of the telegram was briefly this:--

She had lighted a fire in a comfortable bedroom on the upper floor, and, upon asking the young man to come and see it, was surprised to learn he proposed sitting up through the night. "My husband," said Mrs. Prescott, "did not like the hearing of this, and was for watching the gentleman from the garden just to see that he meant no harm; but I over-persuaded him from such foolishness, as I thought it. The last thing before going to my bed, I brought the gent a scuttle of coals and some spirits and hot water. He was then reading a book he had fetched down from that book-case, and said that he should do well now, what with his pipe and the things I'd got for him. He gave me 'good-night' as nice as ever I heard a gentleman say it; then I heard him lock the door on the inside as I went away. This morning, at seven o'clock, I fetched him a cup of tea and some toast I'd made. The door was wide open, so was the window, and the bag that stood on the table last night had gone. The gent wasn't there either, of course."

Long we talked after this statement, waiting for the detective from London to come. Continually some one or other of the men assembled let his voice rise with the interest of the conversation. Then Mrs. Prescott would murmur 'hush,' and point upwards to where the silent dead was lying.

A careful scrutiny of the drawing-room showed that Sorrell's vigil had been a short one. The fire had not been made up after Mrs. Prescott left the watcher; a novel, open at page five, lay face downwards upon the table; a pipe of tobacco, which had only just been lighted and then suffered to go out, was beside it, together with a tumbler of spirit-and-water, quite full, and evidently not so much as sipped from. The defaulter's hat and coat were gone from their place in the hall, as also his stick. Mrs. Prescott had picked up a silk neckerchief in the passage that led to the drawing-room from the hall. A chair was overturned in the middle of the room; but beyond this no sign of anything untoward could be found. A small seedy-looking man from London soon afterwards arrived, and quickly and quietly made himself master of the situation so far as it was at present developed. The Prescotts and their information interested him chiefly. After hearing all they could tell him he examined the room for himself, attaching enormous importance to a trifle that had escaped our attention. This was a candle by the light of which Walter Sorrell read his book. It had evidently burned for some time after the room was deserted, but not down to the socket. The grease had guttered all upon one side, and a simple experiment showed the cause. Lighting another candle and placing it on the same spot, it burned steadily until both window and door were opened. Then, however, the flame flickered in the draught thus set up; the grease began to gutter, and the candle threatened to go out at any moment.

"What do you gather from that?" I inquired of the detective.

"This," he answered; "taking account of the open window and door, the overturned chair and the candle left burning, it's clear enough that when the gent did go out, he went in the devil of a hurry, made a bolt, in fact, as though some one was on his track at the very start. There's no one else in the house, you say?"

"Only the blessed dead," said Mr. Plenderleath.

But I thought involuntarily of what I had seen the preceding evening. Could it be that some horrid vision had appeared in the still hours of night, and that, eager for his employer's welfare, even in such a terrible moment, the young man had seized my wealth and leapt out into the dark night rather than face the dire and monstrous phantom?

If so, what had become of him?

The detective made no further remarks, and refused to answer any questions, though he asked several. Then, after a long and fruitless search in the grounds and meadowland adjacent, he returned to town, his pocket-book well filled with information. A discovery of possible importance was made soon afterwards. The robbery and all its known circumstances had got wind in the neighbourhood, and now a labourer, working by the Thames (which is distant from Petersham about five hundred yards) appeared, bearing the identical leathern bag which had been stolen. He had found it empty, stranded in some sedges by the river's brim. Fired by the astuteness of him who had just returned to town, I inquired which way the tide was running last evening. But, upon learning, no idea of any brilliance presented itself to me.

There was nothing to be done at Petersham; the scamp and his ill-gotten possessions must be far enough away by this time; at least Mr. Plenderleath said so, and I now returned to London with him. All for the present then was over. All my suddenly acquired wealth had vanished, and I was a poor clerk again. Yet how infinitely happier might I consider myself now than in the past. "It may please God," I said to myself, "of His mercy to yet return perhaps as much as half of this good money; but it will not please Him to restore my terrible relation--that I am convinced about."

Upon first recalling my coming trip to Scotland I was minded to get excused of it, but quickly came to the conclusion that nothing better could have happened to me just now than a long journey upon other affairs than my own. It would take me out of myself, and give my wife and child a chance of recovering from the grief they must certainly be in upon hearing the sad news.

I wrote therefore to them on returning to my office, dined in the city, and finally repaired to Euston. At ten minutes to nine o'clock the "Flying Scotsman" steamed from the station, bearing with it, among other matters, a first-class carriage of which I was the sole occupant after leaving Rugby. I had books and newspapers, bought from force of habit, but was not likely to read them, for my mind contained more than sufficient material to feed upon. Very much of a trying character occupied my brains as I sat and listened to my flying vehicle. Now it roared like thunder as we rushed over bridges, now screamed triumphantly as we whirled past silent, deserted stations. Anon we went with a crash through archways, and once, with gradually slackening speed and groaning breaks, shrieked with impatience at a danger signal that barred the way. I watched the oil in the bottom of the lamp above me dribble from side to side with every oscillation of the train, and the sight depressed me beyond measure. What irony of fate was this! Yesterday the London and North-Western Railway meant more than half my entire fortune; now the stoker who threw coals into the great fiery heart of the engine had more interest in the Company than I! Overcome with these gloomy thoughts, I drew around the lamp that lighted my carriage a sort of double silken shutter, and endeavoured to forget everything in sleep, if it were possible.

Sleep is as a rule not only possible but necessary to me after ten o'clock in the evening, and I soon slumbered soundly in spite of my tribulation.

Upon waking with a start I found I was no longer alone. The train was going at a tremendous pace; one of the circular curtains I had drawn about the lamp had been pulled up, leaving me in the shade, but lighting the other man who looked across from the further corner in which he was sitting, and smiled at my surprise.

It was Joshua Beakbane.

I never experienced greater agony than in that waking moment, and until the man spoke, thereby convincing me by the tones of his voice that he was no spirit my mental suffering passes possibility of description in words.

"A fellow-traveller need not surprise you, sir," he said. "I got in at Crewe, and you were sleeping so soundly that I did not wake you. I took the liberty of reading your evening paper, however, and also gave myself a little light."

He was alive, and had quite failed to recognize me. I thanked him in as gruff a voice as I could assume and looked at my watch. We had been gone from Crewe above half an hour, and should be due at Wigan, our next stopping-place, in about twenty minutes.

Joshua Beakbane was a tall, heavily-built man, with a flat, broad face, and a mouth that hardly suggested his great strength of purpose. His heavy moustache was inclined to reddishness, and his restless eyes had also something of red in them. He was clad in a loud tweed, with ulster and hat of the same material. The man had, moreover, aged much since I last saw him about five years ago. Finding me indisposed to talk, he took a portmanteau from the hat-rail above him, unstrapped a railway rug, wound it about his lower limbs, and then fell to arranging such brushes, linen, and garments as the portmanteau contained.

My benumbed senses were incapable of advancing any reason for what I saw. Why had this man seen fit to declare himself dead? What was his business in the North? Was it possible that he could be in league with the runaway clerk? Had I in reality seen him lurking in the house at Petersham?

An explanation to some of these difficulties was almost immediately forthcoming--as villainous and shameful an explanation as ever unfortunate man stumbled upon. My enemy suddenly started violently, and glancing up, I found him staring with amazement and discomfort in his face at a paper that he held. Seeing me looking at him, he smothered his expression of astonishment and laughed.

"An infernal clerk of mine," he said, "has been using my business documents as he does my blotting-paper. He'll pay for this to-morrow."

For a brief moment Joshua Beakbane held the paper to the light, and what had startled him immediately did no less for me: it was a certain pencil portrait of the man himself on the back of a London and North-Western railway share certificate.

Some there are who would have tackled this situation with ease and perhaps come well out of it; but to me, that am a small and shiftless being at my best, the position I now found myself in was quite intolerable. I would have given half my slender annual salary for a stiff glass of brandy-and-water. The recent discovery paralyzed me. I made no question that Joshua Beakbane had at least his share of the plunder with him in the portmanteau; but how to take advantage of the fact I could not imagine. Silence and pretended sleep were the first moves that suggested themselves. A look or word or hint that could suggest to the robber I remotely fathomed his secret, would doubtless mean for me a cut throat and no further interest in "The Flying Scotsman."

Wigan was passed and Preston not far distant when I bethought me of a plan that would, like enough, have occurred to any other in my position an hour earlier. I might possibly get a message on to the telegraph wires and have Joshua Beakbane stopped when he least expected such a thing. I wrote therefore on a leaf of my pocket-book, but did so in trembling, for should the man I was working to overthrow catch sight of the words, even though he might not guess who I really was, he would at least take me for a detective in disguise, and all must then be over.

Thus I worded my telegram:--

"_Prepare to make big arrest at Carlisle. Small man will wave hand from first-class compartment. Flying Scotsman._"

For me this was not bad. I doubled it up, put a sovereign in it, wrote on the outside--"Send this at all hazards," and prepared to dispose of it as best I might at Preston.

Then fresh terrors held me on every side. Would the robber by any unlucky chance be getting out at the next station? I made bold to ask him. He answered that Carlisle was his destination, and much relieved, I trusted that it might be so for some time.

At Preston I scarcely waited for the train to stop before leaping to the platform--as luck would have it on the foot of a sleepy porter. He swore in the Lancashire dialect, and I pressed my message into his hand. I was already back in the carriage again when the fool--I can call him nothing less strong--came up to the window, held my communication under Joshua Beakbane's eye, and inquired what he was to do with it.

"It is a telegram to Glasgow," I told him, with my knees knocking together. "It _must_ go. There's a sovereign inside for the man who sends it."

The dunder-headed fellow now grasped my meaning and withdrew, tolerably wide awake. Joshua Beakbane showed himself deeply interested in this business, and knowing what I did, it was clear to me from the searching questions he put that his suspicions were violently aroused.

The lie to the railway-porter was, so far as my memory serves me, the only one I ever told in my life. Whether it was justified by circumstances I will not presume to decide. But to Joshua Beakbane I spoke the unvarnished truth concerning my trip northward. The pending trial at Glasgow had some element of interest in it; and my half-brother slowly lost the air of mistrust with which he had regarded me as I laid before him the documents relating to my mission.

The journey between Preston and Carlisle occupied a trifle more than two hours, though to me it appeared unending. A thousand times I wondered if my message had yet flashed past us in the darkness, and reflected how, on reaching Carlisle, I might best preserve my own safety and yet advance the ends of justice.

As we at last began to near the station Joshua Beakbane strapped his rug to his portmanteau, unlocked the carriage-door with a private key he now for the first time produced, and made other preparations for a speedy exit.

Upon my side of the train he would have to alight, and now, on looking eagerly from the carriage-window, though still some distance outside the station, I believed I could see a group of dark-coated men under the gas-lamps we were approaching. Leaning out of the train I waved my hand frantically to them. The next moment I was dragged back from inside.

"What are you doing?" my companion demanded.

"Signalling to friends," I answered boldly, and there must have been some chord in my voice that awoke old memories and new suspicions, for Beakbane immediately looked out of the window, saw the police, and turned upon me like a tiger.

"My God! I know you now," he yelled. "So you venture it at last?--then you shall have it." He hurled himself at me; his big white hands closed like an iron collar round my neck; his thumbs pressed into my throat. A red mist filled my eyes, my brains seemed bursting through my skull; I believed the train must have rushed right through the station, and that he and I were flying into the lonely night once more. Then I became dimly conscious of a great wilderness of faces from the past staring at me, and all was blank. What followed I afterwards learned when slowly coming back to life again in the waiting-room at Carlisle.

Upon the police rushing to the carriage, Beakbane dashed me violently from him and jumped through that door of the compartment which was furthest from his pursuers. This he had just time to lock after him before he vanished into the darkness. But for the intervention of Providence, in the delay he thus caused the man might have escaped, at least, for that night. He successfully threaded his way through a wilderness of motionless trucks and other rolling-stock. He then made for an engine-house, and having once passed it, would have climbed down a bank and so gained temporary safety. But at the moment he ran across the mouth of this shed an engine was moving from it, and before he could alter his course the locomotive knocked him down, pinned him to the rails, and slowly crushed over him. It was done in a moment, and his cry brought the police, who, at the moment of the accident, were wandering through the station in fruitless search. A doctor was now with Joshua Beakbane, but no human skill could even prolong life for the unfortunate man, and he lay dying as I staggered to my feet and entered the adjacent room where they had arranged a couch for him on the ground. He was unconscious as I took the big white hand that but a few minutes before had been choking the life out of me; and soon afterwards, with an awful expression of pain, he expired.

As may be supposed I needed much care myself, after this frightful ordeal, and it was not until the following day at noon that my senses once more began to thoroughly define themselves. Then, upon an inquiry into the papers and property of the dead man, I found that all the missing sources of my fortune, with no exception, had been in his possession. Sorrell was thus to my mind proved innocent, and I shrewdly suspected that the unhappy young fellow had fallen a victim to this wretched soul, who was now himself dead.

I was fortunately able to proceed to Glasgow in the nick of time, to attend to my employer's business there. Upon returning to London, my arrival in Mr. Plenderleath's office with the missing fortune, created no less astonishment in his mind than that which filled my own, when I learned how young Sorrell had been found alive and was fast recovering from his injuries. Let me break off here one moment to say that if I appear to have treated my half-brother's appalling death with cynical brevity, it is through no lack of feeling in the matter, but rather through lack of space.

At six o'clock in the morning, and about an hour after the time that Joshua Beakbane breathed his last, he then having fasted about three-and-thirty hours, Walter Sorrell was found gagged and tied, hand and foot, to the wall of a mean building, situate in a meadow not far distant from Oak Lodge. With his most unpleasing experiences I conclude my narrative.

After Mrs. Prescott's departure on the night of the robbery, he had read for about ten minutes, when, suddenly glancing up from his book, he saw, standing staring in at the window, the identical man whose portrait I had drawn for him. Starting up, convinced that what he had seen was no spirit, he unfastened the window and leapt into the garden only to find nothing. Returning, he had hastily left the drawing-room to get his stick, hat, and coat. He was scarcely a moment gone, and, on coming back, found Joshua Beakbane already with the bag and its contents in his hands. Sorrell rushed across the room to stay the other's escape; but too late--he had already rushed through the window. Grasping his heavy stick, the young man followed, succeeded in keeping the robber in sight, and finally closed with him, both falling violently into a bush of rhododendrons. Here an accomplice came to Beakbane's aid, and between them they soon had Sorrell senseless and a prisoner. He remembered nothing further, till coming to himself in the fowl-house, where he was ultimately found. His antagonists evidently carried him between them to this obscure hiding-place; and there he had soon starved but for his fortunate discovery.

The said accomplice has never been found; it wants neither him, however, nor yet that other ally who sent the telegram from Newmarket, to tell us how Joshua Beakbane plotted to steal my fortune, three-fourths of which for the asking should have been his.

I regained my health more quickly than might be supposed, and young Sorrell was even a shorter time recovering from his starvation and bruises. I gave the worthy lad a thousand pounds, and much good may it do him.

The portrait of Joshua Beakbane, on the back of that London and North-Western railway share certificate, is still in my possession, and hangs where all may see it in the library of my new habitation. I now live far away on the coast of Cornwall where the great waves roll in, straight from the heart of the Atlantic, where the common folk of the district make some stir when I pass them by, and where echoes from mighty London reverberate but peacefully in newspapers that are often a week old before I see them.

THE END.

_R. Clay and Sons, London and Bungay._