The Lost Million

Presently, on the opposite platform, the express from Plymouth to Bristol came in; and suspecting that he might arrive by it, I dashed up the stairs, two steps at a time, and across the footbridge. When halfway down the stairs I halted, for I could see all over the up-platform.

Few passengers had alighted, but among them I instantly discerned a man wearing a cravat of scarlet satin. He was smartly dressed in a grey lounge-suit, and in his coat he wore a pink carnation. In his hand was an old-fashioned black ebony cane with silver knob.

He was standing looking up and down the platform, as though in search of somebody. Therefore I sped down the remaining stairs and quickly approached him, though I had not seen his face distinctly.

Suddenly, as I was within six yards of him, I recollected the dead man’s written words, and halted short.

He was still wearing grey suède gloves. He had not removed them; therefore he was suspicious of being watched!

I lit another cigarette, and with careless air sauntered past him in order to gain a good view of his features.

He was, I saw, of middle height, and aged about fifty. His clean-shaven face, with heavy, square jaws, was pimply and rather bloated – a face which somehow filled me with repugnance, for it was the countenance of one who was a fast liver and who indulged a little too freely in alcohol. His grey suit, grey soft felt hat, and grey gloves gave to him a certain air of smartness and distinction; yet those small brown eyes, with a peculiar, indescribable expression searching up and down the platform, were the eyes of a man full of craft and double cunning.

From the first moment I turned my gaze upon him I held him in distinct suspicion; while he, it appeared, in turn held somebody else in suspicion. I looked around, but could not discern anybody who might arouse his misgivings. About us were all honest Devon folk.

The fact that he had not taken off his gloves still remained. My injunctions were not to approach him if he failed to remove them. He had the air of a bon vivant, even to the manner in which he tucked his ebony cane beneath his arm in order to light a choice cigar.

Most of the passengers crossed the bridge on their way out, while others made their exit by the little wicket, some of them entering the dusty motor-’bus which plies to Paignton.

Once, only once, his small narrow brown eyes met mine, and I saw in them a look of quick inquiry and shrewd cunning.

Then, still wearing his gloves as sign to me to hold aloof, he leisurely crossed the bridge to the down-platform, and strolled along the hot, dusty road into the town.

As far as I could discern, nobody was watching his movements at all; nevertheless, I could only suppose that he had great cause for precaution, otherwise he would have allowed me to approach and speak to him.

True, there was a queer, insignificant-looking old lady in rusty black, who had been on the platform when I had arrived, who had crossed the bridge and waited for the train from Plymouth, and who was now making her way back into Totnes in the direction we were walking.

Could it be possible that he feared her?

It struck me that he might have recognised that I had travelled there to meet him in place of the man now deceased; therefore I hurried on and got in front so that he might, if he so wished, follow me to the Seymour Hotel.

But judge my chagrin when at last we entered the main street, and while I turned down towards the bridge, he turned in the opposite direction, thus showing that he had not detected my anxiety to speak with him. And the old lady had followed in his footsteps.

Suddenly a thought occurred to me. It was surely more than probable that Mr Dawnay was there to meet the man Arnold, in ignorance of his death. Therefore, having allowed him to get on some distance, I turned upon my heel and followed him.

His movements were certainly curious. He was undoubtedly avoiding the unwelcome attentions of the old lady, who now seemed to be acting in conjunction with a dark-haired, middle-aged man with beetling brows, who wore a shabby brown suit and a last year’s straw hat.

The man with the red cravat entered an inn in Fore Street, and remained there a full hour, the other man watching in the vicinity. Then, on emerging, he went to a chemist’s, and afterwards turned his footsteps back towards the station.

I saw that his intention was to leave Totnes. Therefore, in preference to following on foot, I drove to the station in a fly.

He had never once removed those grey suède gloves, though the day was so hot, for on the up-platform the man in the straw hat was still idling behind him. A number of people were waiting for the train, and I, discerning Mr Dawnay’s intention of travelling, entered the booking-office and bought a ticket for Exeter.

At last the London express came roaring into the station, when the man whom I was there to meet quickly entered a first-class corridor compartment, and while I remained vigilant, I saw the mysterious watcher enter a carriage a little way behind. Then, just as the train was leaving, I sprang into the compartment next that of Mr Dawnay.

I allowed the train to travel for about ten minutes, and as we slowly ascended the steep incline to Stony Coombe, between Totnes and Newton Abbot, I passed along the corridor and entered the compartment of the fugitive.

His quick, wary eyes were upon me in an instant, and I saw him start visibly in alarm, as I shut the door behind me leading to the corridor.

“I believe,” I exclaimed next moment, “that you are Mr Arthur Dawnay?”

In an instant – before, indeed, I was aware of it – I found myself looking down the big barrel of a heavy Browning pistol.

“Well?” asked the man with the red tie, without moving from his seat, yet covering me with his weapon. “And what if I am, eh?”

Upon his face was a hard, evil grin, and I saw that he certainly was not a man to be trifled with.

“You think you’ve cornered me this time, eh?” he said in a hard, dry voice. “But raise a finger, and, by Gad! I’ll put a bullet through you. So you’d best own yourself beaten, and let me slip out at Newton Abbot. Understand?”

Then, next moment, the train unfortunately entered the tunnel, and we were plunged in complete darkness.

Chapter Five

The Sign of the Gloves

Those moments of security seemed hours as I sat there with the pistol turned upon me.

Truly his was a strange greeting.

At length, however, daylight showed again as we commenced to descend the incline towards Newton Abbot, yet I saw that his hand – practised, no doubt, with a weapon by the manner he had whipped it forth – was still uplifted against me.

“Really, sir, you have no cause for alarm,” I assured him, with a laugh. “I could not approach; you openly, so I adopted the ruse of travelling with you in order to speak. You came to Totnes to-day in order to meet me, did you not?”

“No, I certainly did not,” he said, the expression upon his countenance showing him to be much puzzled by my words.

“Then perhaps you came to meet Mr Melvill Arnold?” I suggested.

“And why do you wish to know that, pray?” he asked, in the refined voice of a gentleman, still regarding me with antagonism. His small, closely set eyes peered forth at me with a ferret-like expression, while about his clean-shaven mouth was a curious hardness as his hand still held the weapon pointed in my direction.

“Because you are wearing the signs – the scarlet tie, the carnation, and I see that you carry the ebony walking-stick,” was my cool reply. I was trying to prevent myself from flinching before that grim, business-like weapon of his.

“And what if I am? What business is it of yours?” he asked resentfully, and in evident alarm.

“My business is with you if your name is Alfred Dawnay,” I said. “Mr Melvill Arnold is, I regret to say, dead, and – ”

“Dead!” he gasped, lowering his weapon and staring at me, the colour dying from his face. “Arnold dead! Is this the truth – are you quite certain?”

“The unfortunate gentleman died in my presence.”

“Where? Abroad, I suppose?”

“No; in a small hotel off the Strand,” was my reply.

The news I had imparted to him seemed to hold him amazed and stupefied.

“Poor Arnold! Dead!” he repeated blankly to himself, sitting with both hands upon his knees – for he had flung the pistol upon the cushion. “Ah!” he exclaimed suddenly, raising his eyes to mine.

“Forgive me for receiving you in this antagonistic manner, sir, but – but you don’t know what Mr Arnold’s death means to me. It means everything to me – all that – ” But his lips closed with a snap without concluding his sentence.