Chapter One.
On the Trail.
Michael McCrane had bolted!
There was not a shadow of a doubt about it. The moment I reached the bank that eventful morning and saw the manager’s desk open, and the tin cash-box lying empty on the floor, I said at once to myself, “This is McCrane’s doing.”
And as I and the messenger stood there, with dropped jaws, gaping at the dismal scene, I hurriedly called up in my mind the incidents of the past week, and, reading them in the light of this discovery, I was ready to stake my reputation as a paying cashier that my fellow-clerk was a robber and a fugitive.
McCrane had not been at our bank long; he had come to us from one of the country branches, and, much to the disgust of some of us juniors, had been placed over our heads as second paying cashier. I was third paying cashier, and from the moment I set eyes on my new colleague and superior I felt that mischief was in the wind.
A mysterious, silent man of twenty-six was Michael McCrane; so silent was he, indeed, that were it not for an occasional “How will you take it?”
“Not endorsed.”
“Next desk,” ejaculated in the course of his daily duties, any one might have supposed him dumb. He held himself gloomily aloof from his fellow-clerks. None of us knew where he lived, or how he lived. It was an event to get a word out of him; wherever it was possible he answered by signs or grimaces. He glided into his place in the morning like a ghost, and like a ghost he glided out at night and vanished.
More than that, his personal appearance was unsatisfactory. He was slovenly in figure and habits, with a stubbly beard and unkempt hair; and although he had £150 a year his clothes were threadbare and shabby. He seemed always hard up for money. He did not go out, as most of us did, in the middle of the day to get lunch, but fortified himself with bread and cheese, which he brought in his pocket, and partook of mysteriously behind the lid of his desk.
Now and then I had come upon him while he was deeply engaged in writing what appeared to be private letters, and I could not help noticing that on each occasion when thus interrupted he coloured up guiltily and hid his letter hastily away in his blotting-paper. And once or twice lately mysterious parcels had been handed to him over the counter, which he had received with a conscious air, hiding them away in his desk and carrying them home under his coat at night.
I did not at all like these oddities, and, holding the position I did, I had often debated with myself whether it was not my duty to take the manager or head cashier into my confidence on the subject. And yet there had never till now occurred anything definite to take hold of, nor was it till this October morning, when I saw the manager’s desk broken and the empty cash-box on the floor, that it came over me that McCrane was even a worse fellow than I had taken him for.
He had been most mysterious about his holidays this year. He was to have taken them in May, among the first batch, but suddenly altered his arrangements, giving no reason, and requesting to be allowed to go in September. September came, and still he clung to his desk. Finally another change was announced: McCrane would start for his fortnight’s holiday on the second Thursday of October.
These changes were all arranged so mysteriously, and with such an unusual show of eagerness on McCrane’s part, and as the time itself drew near he exhibited such a mixture of self-satisfaction, concealment, and uneasiness, that no one could fail to observe it. Add to this that during the last day or two he had made more than one mistake in his addition, and had once received a reprimand from the manager for inattention, at which he vaguely smiled—and you will hardly wonder that my first words on that eventful morning—the first of his long-expected holiday—were—
“Michael McCrane has bolted!”
The manager when he arrived took the same view as I did.
“I don’t like this, Samuels,” said he; “not at all, Samuels.”
When Mr Trong called any one by his name twice in one sentence it was a certain sign that he meant what he said.
“How much was there in the box?” I inquired.
“£23 5 shillings 6 pence,” said the manager, referring to his petty cash account. “There was one five-pound note, but I do not know the number; the rest was cash.”
The messenger was called in and deposed that Mr McCrane had stayed the previous evening half an hour after every one else, to wind up, as he said. The witness stated that he heard him counting over some money, and that when he left he had put out the gas in the office and given him—the deponent—the key of his—the suspect’s—own desk.
“Bring his book,” said the manager.
I did so, and we examined it together. The last page had not been added up, and two of the lines had not been filled out with the amounts in the money column. Oddly enough, when the two cancelled cheques were looked at they were found to amount to £21.
“We must go thoroughly into this,” said the manager. “It looks worse and worse. What’s this?”
It was a torn piece of paper between two of the leaves of the book, part of a memorandum in McCrane’s handwriting. It read thus:
(A scrap of paper is illustrated here.)
“What do you make of that?” asked the manager. A light dawned on me.
“I wonder if it means Euston, 1:30? Perhaps he’s going by that train.”
The manager looked at me, then at the clock, and then went to his desk and took up a Bradshaw.
“1:30 is the train for Rugby, Lancaster, Fleetwood. Samuels!”
“Sir,” said I.
“You had better take a cab to Euston, you have just time. If he is there stop him, or else follow him, and bring him back. If necessary, get the police to help you, but if you can bring him back without, so much the better. I’m afraid the £23 is not all; it may turn out to be a big robbery when we go through his book. I must trust to your judgment. Take some money with you, £20, in case of emergency. Be quick or you will be late. Telegraph to me how you succeed.”
It was a word and a blow. A quarter of an hour later my hansom dashed into the yard at Euston just as the warning bell for the 1:30 train was sounding.
“Where for, sir?” asked a porter. “Any luggage?”
I did not know where I was for, and I had no luggage.
I rushed on to the platform and looked anxiously up and down. It was a scene of confusion. Groups of non-travellers round the carriage doors were beginning to say a last good-bye to their friends inside. Porters were hurling their last truck-loads of luggage into the vans; the guard was a quarter of the way down the train looking at the tickets; the newspaper boys were flitting about shouting noisily and inarticulately; and the usual crowd of “just-in-times” were rushing headlong out of the booking-office and hurling themselves at the crowded train.
I was at a loss what to do. It was impossible to say who was there and who was not. McCrane might be there or he might not. What was the use of my—
“Step inside if you’re going,” shouted a guard.
I saw a porter near the booking-office door advance towards the bell.
At the same moment I saw, or fancied I saw, at the window of a third-class carriage a certain pale face appear momentarily, and, with an anxious glance up at the clock, vanish again inside.
“Wait a second,” I cried to the guard, “till I get a ticket.”
“Not time now,” I heard him say, as I dashed into the booking-office.
The clerk was shutting the window.
“Third single—anywhere—Fleetwood!” I shouted, flinging down a couple of sovereigns.
I was vaguely aware of seizing the ticket, of hearing some one call after me something about “change,” of a whistle, the waving of a flag, and a shout, “Stand away from the train.” Next moment I was sprawling on all fours on the knees of a carriage full of passengers; and before I had time to look up the 1:30 train was outside Euston station.
It took me some time to recover from the perturbation of the start, and still longer to overcome the bad impression which my entry had made on my fellow-passengers.
Indeed I was made distinctly uncomfortable by the attitude which two, at any rate, of these persons took up. One was a young man of the type which I usually connect with detectives. The other was a rollicking commercial traveller.
“You managed to do it, then?” said the latter to me when finally I had shaken myself together and found a seat.
“Yes, just,” said I.
The other man looked hard at me from behind a newspaper.
“Best to cut your sort of job fine,” continued the commercial, knowingly. “Awkward to meet a friend just when you’re starting, wouldn’t it?” with a wink that he evidently meant to be funny.
I coloured up violently, and was aware that the other man had his eye on me. I was being taken for a runaway!
“Worth my while to keep chummy with you,” said the heartless man of the road. “Start a little flush, don’t you?”
I ignored this pointed inquiry.
“Not bank-notes, I hope—because they’ve an unkind way of stopping them. Not but what you might get rid of one or two if you make haste. But they’re ugly things to track a chap out by, you know. Why, I knew a young fellow, much your age and build, borrowed a whole sheaf of ’em and went up north, and made up his mind he’d have a high old time. He did slip through a fiver; but—would you believe it?—the next he tried on, they were down on him like shooting stars, and he’s another two years to do on the mill before he can come another trip by the 1:30. They all fancy this train.”
This style of talk, much as it amused my fellow-passengers and interested the man in the corner, made me feel in a most painful position. My looks and blushes, I am aware, were most compromising; and my condition generally, without luggage, without rug, without even a newspaper, enveloped me in such an atmosphere of mystery and suspicion that I half began to wonder whether I was not an absconding forger myself.
Fortunately the train stopped at Willesden and I took advantage of the halt to change my carriage, explaining clumsily that I should prefer a carriage where I could sit with my face to the engine, whereat every one smiled except myself and the man in the corner.
I tried hard to find an empty carriage; but the train was full and there was no such luxury to be had. Besides, guards, porters, and station-masters were all shouting to me to get inside somewhere, and a score of heads attracted by the commotion appeared at the windows and added to my discomfort. Finally I took refuge in a carriage which seemed less crowded than the rest—having but two occupants.
Alas! to my horror and dismay I discovered when the train had started that I had intruded myself on a palpably honeymoon couple, who glared at me in such an unfriendly manner that for the next hour and a half, without respite, I was constrained to stand with my head out of the window. Even in the tunnels I had no encouragement to turn my head round.
This was bad enough, but it would have been worse had it not happened that, in craning my head and neck out of the window, I caught sight, in the corner of the carriage—next to mine, of half of the back of a head which I felt sure I knew. It belonged, in fact, to Michael McCrane, and a partial turn of his face left no doubt on the matter. I had run my man down already! I smiled to myself as I contemplated the unconscious nape of that neck and recalled the gibes of the commercial traveller and the uncomfortable stare of the man in the corner.
What should I do? The train would stop for two minutes at Bletchley, and not again until we reached Rugby. Should I lay my hand on his shoulder at the first place or the second?
I wished I could have dared to retire into my carriage and consult my timetable about trains back. But the consciousness of the honeymoon glare at my back glued me to the window. I must inquire at Bletchley and act accordingly.
We were beginning to put on the break, and show other signs of coming to a halt, when I was startled by seeing McCrane stand up and put his head out of the window. I withdrew as hastily as I could; not daring, of course, to retreat fully into the carriage, but turning my face in an opposite direction, so as to conceal my identity. I could not guess whether he had seen me or not, it had all occurred so quickly. If he had, I might have need of all my strategy to run him to earth.
As the train pulled up I saw him lower his window, and, with anxious face, make a sudden bolt across the platform.
That was enough for me. I darted out too, much to the satisfaction of my fellow-travellers.
“When’s the next train back to Euston?”
“Take your seats!” bawled the guard, ignoring me.
“When does the next train go to Euston?”
“There’s a time-table there.”
I went; keeping one eye on the train, another on the spot where my man had vanished, and feeling a decided inconvenience from the lack of a third with which to consult the complicated document before me. In a rash moment I ventured to concentrate my whole attention on the timetable. I had found Bletchley; and my finger, painfully tracing down one of the long columns, was coming very near to the required latitude, when I became aware of a whistle; of a figure, bun in hand, darting from the refreshment-room to a carriage; of a loud puff from the engine.
I abandoned the time-table, and rushed in the same direction. Alas! the train was in full motion; a porter was standing forbiddingly between me and my carriage, and the honeymoon couple were blandly drawing down the blinds in my very face! Worst of all, I saw the half-profile of Michael McCrane, inflated with currant bun, vanish; and as the end carriage whirled past me I received a friendly cheer from the commercial traveller, and a particularly uncomfortable smile from his silent companion in the corner.
I was left behind! The bird had flown out of my very hand; and there was nothing now but to return in confusion and report my misfortunes at the bank.
Stay! I could telegraph to detain my man at Rugby. Let me see. “To Station Master, Rugby. Detain Michael McCrane—bank robbery—tall, dark—third-class—left Euston 1:30—I follow—Samuels.” How would that do? I was pleased with the look of it; and, in the fullness of my heart, consulted the station-master.
He eyed me unfavourably.
“Who are you?” he had the boldness to inquire.
“I’m from the bank.”
“Oh!” he said; and added, “your best plan is to follow him in the supplemental. It will be up in five minutes. He’s sure to be bound for Fleetwood, and you’ll catch him on the steamer. They won’t stop him on the road without a warrant. They don’t know you.”
I admitted the truth of this, and, after some inward debate—particularly as I had a ticket through—I decided to take advice, and avail myself of the “Supplemental.”
It was painfully supplemental, that train—a string of the most ramshackle carriages the line could muster, and the carriage in which I found myself smelt as if it had been in Billingsgate for a month. However, I could sit down this time. There was neither honeymoon, commercial traveller, nor man in the corner to disturb my peace; only a rollicking crowd of Irish harvest men on their way home, in spirits which were not all of air.
I was claimed as one of their noble fraternity before we were many stages on the road; and although I am happy to say I was not compelled to take part in their potations, for the simple reason that they had none left to offer me, I was constrained to sing songs, shout shouts, abjure allegiance to the Union Jack, and utter aspirations for the long life of Charlie Parnell and Father Mickey (I believe that was the reverend gentleman’s name), and otherwise abase myself, for the sake of peace, and to prevent my head making acquaintance with the shillalahs of the company. I got a little tired of it after a few hours’ incessant bawling, and was rather glad, by the assistance of a few half-crowns (which I fervently trusted the manager would allow me to charge to his account), to escape their company at Preston, and seek the shelter of a more secluded compartment for the rest of the way.
I found one occupied by two files of soldiers in charge of a couple of deserters, and in this genial company performed the remainder of the journey in what would have been something like comfort but for the ominous gusts of wind and rain which, as we neared the coast, buffeted the carriage window, and promised a particularly ugly night for any one contemplating a sea voyage.