CHAPTER XI
[THE STRANGER]
The train went slowly rumbling by; who looked out of the windows Rodney neither knew nor cared. He was conscious of the guard's van passing, then the train had gone. He could see the tail lights moving quicker and quicker through the darkness. He himself continued motionless. He had realised by now that it was not his uncle who had alighted; that it was the door of the next compartment which had been opened. He could not believe that his own movements had been observed. He doubted if they could have been seen by a person who had not actually got his head out at the moment--even by his next door neighbour. He was certain that no head had been out. The thing had been a coincidence--a strange one, but nothing more. Someone also had reasons for wishing to quit the train in an unusual manner; someone who was unaware that he was out already. The chances were that he had not been noticed; that, if he kept quite still, he would not be noticed. The stranger would blunder along without ever becoming cognisant of his near neighbourhood; whichever way the stranger went, he would go the other.
Now that the train had left, it was very still in the tunnel; the air was close, full of smoke, which was bad both for the throat and the eyes. Something had dropped once or twice on Rodney's shoulder. He had heard that it was sometimes damp in tunnels; possibly it was moisture dropping from the brickwork overhead. He would have liked to move so as to avoid it, but was reluctant to make a sound--till the stranger had moved. He wondered what the stranger was doing; silence continued for what seemed to him to be a preternatural length of time. Possibly, less fortunate than himself, the stranger had been hurt in alighting, which explained the stillness. If that were so, his own position might be difficult. If he moved first the stranger might claim his help, might make a fuss if he refused it--such a fuss that the fact that he had left the train would be discovered.
Still not a sound. Momentarily the situation was becoming more delicate. He could not remain crouched down like that for ever, with big drops of something falling on to his shoulder. What should he do? The question was answered for him.
"Caught you!"
The words were whispered close to his ear. He stood straight up suddenly, startled half out of his wits. His impulse was to fly--anywhere, anyhow. Then that wonderful presence of mind of his, which never left him long, came back; he realised that haste on his part might involve disaster. He stood bolt upright, quite still, with fists clenched, prepared for anything.
Something came; fingers were laid upon his coat-sleeve. He showed no sign of resenting their coming, their touch was so soft that it hardly suggested danger. A voice came to him through the darkness, the one which had so startled him by whispering in his ear.
"That was a capital idea of yours--capital."
To Rodney's acute sense of hearing there seemed to be a curious quality in the voice; he was not sure if it belonged to a man or a woman. It came again.
"Have you ever been in a tunnel before? I haven't."
The last two words were spoken with a snigger which was certainly a man's, though he still felt that the voice itself might be either masculine or feminine. He had a fastidious taste in voices; apart from the circumstances under which he heard it, that one affected him unpleasantly. It continued, and his distaste grew.
"Do you know that our getting out here in the tunnel has proved something which I have always held as an article of faith; that I have cat's eyes--positively? Isn't it droll? I can see you--not plainly, but sufficiently well. Now I dare say you can't see me at all!"
Rodney could not; he did not believe that the stranger could see him. Darkness was about them like a wall.
"Come!"
He felt the fingers which had rested on his sleeve slipped under his arm.
"I will guide you; let me turn you round. We will go this way, towards the signal. You see?--it is set at danger. Some people would say that we are in rather a dangerous position."
Again that unpleasantly sounding snigger.
"I hope you're not feeling nervous; you needn't. That signal is not far off, and when we reach it we are out in the open. I know exactly where we are; this is Redhill tunnel. Not only can I see in the dark, dimly, but still see, but I also have, in a curious degree, the bump of locality. With me it amounts almost to an additional sense. I always know where I am, even when I am in a strange place; in a place in which I have been before I have an incredible perception of my surroundings. For three years I lived quite close to this--in Earlswood Asylum, as a patient."
Earlswood Asylum! Then the creature was a lunatic. That explained the singularity of his voice, of his manner, his proceedings. An idea came into Rodney's head. The creature was small; he felt, as he moved beside him with his hand under his arm, that he probably did not reach to his shoulder. It would be easy to leave him in the tunnel. Who cares what happens to a lunatic?
"I shouldn't if I were you; it wouldn't pay."
The words were so apposite that, despite himself, Rodney started. He had not spoken. Could the creature read what was passing through his brain?
"There are times when I can read people's thoughts just as plainly as if they had spoken them out loud, even when I can't see their faces--really! Isn't it odd? Oh, I am quite gifted. My argument always has been that, in a general way, a lunatic is merely abnormal, nothing more. At intervals a cloud settles on my brain; I can see, I can feel it coming; then, for an indefinite period, I am on the lap of the gods. When it passes my senses are more acute than other people's--abnormally acute, I know it as a fact. Now you see, as I told you, we are out in the open--look! the stars are shining. Look back at the tunnel; isn't it a horror of blackness? Like the horror I know. If we scramble up that bank we shall probably find a gap in the hedge at the top; platelayers often do leave a gap in a hedge close to the wall of a tunnel that they may descend to the line. As I told you, here's our gap; now, over the fence, and the rest is easy sailing."
It seemed to Rodney that since he had quitted the train something must have happened to him mentally; it was as if, all at once, he were playing a part in a dream. In silence, without offering the least remonstrance, he had suffered the stranger to pilot him out of the tunnel, up the steep bank beyond--to dominate him wholly. Now, except that they seemed to be standing in an open space of considerable size, he had not the dimmest notion of their whereabouts; but to the stranger it all seemed plain.
"That big building on our right's an orphanage--St. Anne's; I believe we're on their ground. If we keep straight on to our left we shall come to the high road, from which it is only a few minutes to Redhill station, whence we shall continue our journey to town. Quite an interesting episode this has been, has it not? I am indebted to you for much entertainment. I have seldom had so much enjoyment in a train, Mr. Elmore."
The creature knew his name! How? Who was he? What did it mean? Again he was conscious of an impulse to take him by the throat and--resolve the question in his own fashion. How came the creature to know his name? Although he had uttered no articulate sound, he had his answer.
"The explanation is simple, explanations often are. I heard your uncle address you by your name in a most audible tone of voice just towards the close. Most people have no idea how thin the partition really is which divides one compartment from another. Do you know I have heard that in some instances it is made of papier-mâché--fancy! You can always hear if a conversation is taking place in an adjoining compartment--it is surprising how much you can hear if you try, especially if your hearing is as good as mine is--that's another of my gifts. I had my ear glued to the partition most of the time. Of course, I could not hear everything--and I should very much have liked to see, but I gathered enough to enable me to form a general idea, particularly when you began to use violence towards your uncle and to hurl him back into his seat--it amounted to hurling. You see, I was his side. And, of course, when you both raised your voices I could hear a very great deal. I was not in the least surprised at the silence which followed. I understood--oh, I understood! At least, I think I understood. It was perfectly plain that only one person was left in the compartment who counted, and, of course, I knew that was you. I said to myself: 'Now, I wonder how long he'll stay there all alone? He's sure to take advantage of the first opportunity of getting out if the train stops or slows, and if he gets out I'll get out too.' Wasn't it lucky that it stopped in a tunnel, and that, therefore, we were both of us able to get out without being observed? Quite a stroke of fortune! Here we are, right on the high road, with the station a little more than a stone's throw in front of us."
Rodney listened to what the stranger had to say as, side by side, they tramped across the uneven ground with feelings which he would not have found it easy to clothe with words. Beyond all doubt this was a lunatic; but of what an uncomfortable kind! He had been wiser to have acted on his first impulse and to have left him in the tunnel. Now it was too late; it would not be the same thing to--leave him there. Yet, if he continued in his company, how should he muzzle him? With what would he make him dumb? By what means could he keep him from blurting out the whole story to the first person they might meet? Once more, though he had uttered not a syllable, there came an answer.
"You run no risk of my blabbing, I am not that kind of person--at least, while the cloud is yet afar off. Afterwards, believe me, no one pays any heed to what I say. I play the part of audience only. I am not, like you, one of Nature's criminals; but I am indifferent, which is about the same. What A does to B is A's business and B's, not mine; that I always shall maintain. Here we are at the station. It's been altered since my time; they've given it a new front. When is the next train to town?"
He put the question quite naturally to a porter who was standing about.
"Ten-forty; nearly half an hour to wait--that is if she is punctual, which she's not always of a Sunday night."
The stranger addressed himself to Elmore.
"That, perhaps, is fortunate, since that will enable me to offer you a little refreshment, of which I dare say both of us stand in need."
Rodney, always speechless, walked beside the stranger to the refreshment bar. Now he could see him plainly. A notion which had been fluttering at the back of his head took flight; there was no suggestion of a detective police official about him. He was shorter even than he had imagined, probably scarcely over five feet high; a mean-looking, ill-shapen fellow, with one shoulder higher than the other, which gave him an appearance of being one-sided. Badly dressed in an ill-fitting suit of rusty dark-grey tweed, clumsily shod, tie disarranged, doubtful collar, old tweed hat shaped like a billycock, about him the air of one who was not over fond of soap and water. Probably between fifty and sixty, a round, hairless, wizened face, all wrinkles, flat, snub nose, curiously small mouth--Rodney wondered if the peculiarity of his voice was owing to its coming through so small an aperture; queer, big, oval, ugly eyes--small pupils floating in a sea of yellow. The young gentleman was conscious of what an ill-assorted couple they must appear. He would have liked very much to put a termination to the association then and there, but--he could not, it was too late.
The stranger on his part seemed sublimely unaware of there being anything odd in their companionship. He gave his order to the young lady on the other side of the counter.
"One brandy, two Scotch whiskies, and a small soda divided."
The young lady looked as if she was not quite sure that she had caught what he said.
"I beg your pardon."
"I said one brandy, two Scotch whiskies, and a small soda divided. You've quite right, there are only two of us; I take brandy and whisky together--I'm a lunatic."
Two young men at the other end, with whom the young lady had been talking, looked at each other and smiled. The young lady also smiled, under the apparent impression that, somewhere, there was a joke.
"It is rather unusual, isn't it?"
"Not at all--with lunatics."
It was not easy for standers-by to decide whether or not he was in earnest. Rodney was in doubt; indeed, the man's words and manner started him wondering to what extent, in all he had been saying, the fellow had been "pulling his leg."
The young lady passed three glasses to their side of the counter. The stranger, taking two, emptied one into the other. He held it up towards Rodney.
"Your very good health, and the next time we meet may you afford me as much entertainment."
Swallowing the contents of the glass at a single gulp, he replaced it on the counter.
"The same again, miss; one brandy, one Scotch whisky; lunatics don't take long over a drop like that."
She looked at him doubtfully for a moment; then gave him what he ordered, saying, as she passed him the glasses:
"Two shillings, please."
As again he emptied one into the other he nodded to Rodney.
"Pay her; I've no money--lunatics never have."
Rodney drank what was in his glass, placed a florin on the counter, and left the place without a word. Hardly had he reached the door when he found the little man again at his side. He commenced pacing up and down the dimly lit platform; the little man paced also, two of his short steps being the equivalent of one of Rodney's strides. He asked himself if he could do nothing to shake the fellow off; with his usual singular intuition the other replied to his unspoken thought.
"Not nice, being in the company of one who knows as much as I do? Perhaps not; yet I don't see why. I'm incapable of giving evidence; if I weren't I wouldn't say a word to spoil the fun; I am as good as a dead man. You'll have a dead man for constant companion--why not me?"
Again he gave vent to the snigger which so jarred on the young man's nerves. When the train entered the station they were still pacing to and fro; Rodney not having yet uttered a single word. The little man followed him into the empty first-class compartment which he had selected, saying as he drew the door to behind him:
"Isn't it confiding of me to trust myself alone in a carriage with you--after what has happened? But I am not in the least afraid. I am sure you won't care to repeat your experiment to-night. And I shall find it so amusing to sit and watch you, and see what is passing through your mind; because, do you know, it will all be just as plain to me as if you said everything aloud."
While crediting the stranger with unusual perceptive powers, Rodney doubted if in his assertion he did not go too far. If he had the dimmest insight into the tangled network of thought with which the young man's brain was filled, then he was a marvel indeed. Elmore, leaning back in his seat, remained perfectly still, with his face towards the window, to all outward seeming as oblivious of the other's presence and occasional remarks as if he were not there. When they reached Croydon a person approached the carriage window whom the stranger plainly recognised; a pleasant-faced, brown-skinned and brown-haired young man with a slight moustache, with something in his bearing and expression which suggested reserve. Coming into the carriage, he said to the stranger, as he sat beside him, half smilingly, half chidingly:
"So it is you, is it? I hope you've enjoyed your little trip."
The stranger seemed to regard his coming with an air of not altogether pleased surprise.
"You're a most extraordinary man."
The other replied:
"One has to be a little that way if one is responsible for you."
The new-comer's good-humoured curtness seemed to disturb the stranger's equilibrium.
"Responsible for me, indeed! Upon my word, you are the most extraordinary man."
In his own fashion the stranger introduced the new-comer to Rodney.
"This is Dr. Emmett, my medical attendant. I left him behind me in Brighton because I am sick and tired of his society; yet here he is at Croydon before I am. How he does these things I do not understand. He's a most extraordinary man."
Then, also after his own fashion, he made Rodney known to the new-comer.
"Emmett, this is a valued friend of mine, whom I have met for the first time to-night. I know all about him, except his voice; and, do you know, he's never spoken once."
Rodney, observing the new-comer, perceived, from something which was in the glance he gave him in exchange for his, that the position had altered. Rising, he moved out of the carriage, still without a word. The stranger made as if to follow him, but the doctor put out a detaining hand. The train started just as Rodney, having gained the platform, was closing the door. The last he saw of the interior of the compartment was that the stranger seemed to be warmly expostulating with his medical attendant. At Redhill Rodney had got into the front part of the train--which was for London Bridge--because he felt that between the City and Notting Hill he might have an opportunity of shaking the stranger off. Now, as the London Bridge coaches glided out of the station, he passed to the Victoria half of the train, which awaited an engine, lower down the platform. The doctor's fortuitous arrival on the scene had saved him, at least temporarily, from what might have been a serious predicament.