The train did not stop at this station, and a man was there to receive the money, but his movements had, he thought, been noticed. He was cautious—perhaps needlessly timid. He thought that as the train approached two faces were peering at him from the station-master’s office. So he turned, went into the station, asked when the next down-train which stopped at that station would arrive, and sneaked away.
Wilson arrived at this station in due course, and saw what he took to be a man in waiting for him. Unluckily the wheels did not properly bite the rails, owing to the damp and their slipperyness, so that he had not sufficient time for observation, although the condition of the atmosphere rendered careful notice doubly requisite. Into the hands, as he supposed, of the official in waiting, the incautious (and I think I must, after all fair allowances, say very negligent) clerk dropped his packet, which lay there unnoticed until morning.
An old man and woman, passengers by the market train, then saw it, picked it up, took it home, said nothing, but inserted it in a hole up the cottage chimney for a long while; after which they informed the parson of the parish that an uncle of the husband’s mother had sent this money to them. It was the amount of a legacy. The clergyman thought it remarkable that this money should be received abruptly, without his knowing a word about any previous correspondence with lawyers; but the parson was not a suspicious man, and he made no inquiries.
The sum, although not large (only about 53l.), was very much more than the usual weekly apportionment to the station where it was dropped. The wages there were not more than 8l. per week. There was, however, a sum due from the company to a cattle-dealer, as compensation for the unpublished destruction of a part of his freight; and this was forwarded along with the wages to the station-master, with strict directions about the form of the receipt he was to take for it.
The clergyman advised that the money should be laid out under the guidance of Messrs. Seal and Delivery, highly respectable solicitors in the neighbouring town of H——. He gave an introduction to those gentlemen by a letter, which explained the matter as it had been explained to him; and this introduction, and his explanation, saved all inquiries as to the source of the funds, which they profitably invested for the childless couple, who will never enjoy a penny of it.
The two miscarriages I have mentioned were the only failures of the plan of the gang to capture one whole week’s wages throughout the line of the Great —— Railway Company.
Next day (Friday) Mr. Wilson went on his holiday trip to Paris. The company’s servants were expecting him, as usual—except at the one station to which a misadventure had taken the money intended for its use. It is needless to say that no Mr. Wilson and no money reached either of these places from London, as expected. Until rather late in the afternoon, when the chief cashier’s office was closed, and that exalted functionary and all his clerks had gone home, nothing was said about the affair. It had not indeed until then become very remarkable; but as soon as the fact became the subject of particular notice, it rose to the magnitude of a grievance, and threatened to become a scandal.
“We’ve had no money, and ain’t likely to get none till to-morrow,” said a porter at one of the extremest stations to the guard of an up-train.
“Oh, bosh; don’t come that, you know. I sha’n’t lend you another shilling in a hurry,” retorted the guard, who had two days before lent that small amount to the friendly porter.
“’Pon my soul, we ain’t,” rejoined the porter; and he appealed to his fellow-servants for a corroboration, which they supplied.