"Payable to 'order' or 'bearer'?"
"To 'bearer.' It was for two investments which Mr. Dowsett recommended. That was the reason for the cheque being made payable to 'bearer,' to enable my guardian to pay it to two different firms. He said both the investments would turn out splendidly, but it matters very little to me now whether they do or not. All the money in the world will not bring happiness to me now that my poor Lizzie is dead."
"Do you know whether your guardian cashed the cheque?"
"I do not; I haven't asked him anything about it. I could think only of one thing."
"I can well imagine it. Thank you for answering my questions so clearly. By and by you may know why I asked them."
These words had hardly passed my lips before Devlin, Carton, and I were thrown violently against each other. The shock was great, but fortunately we were not hurt. Screams of pain from adjoining carriages proclaimed that this was not the case with other passengers. The train was dragged with erratic force for a considerable distance, and then came to a sudden standstill.
"We had best get out," said Devlin, who was the first to recover.
We followed the sensible advice, and, upon emerging from the carriage, discovered that other carriages were overturned, and that the line was blocked. Happily, despite the screams of the frightened passengers, the injuries they had met with were slight, and when all were safely got out we stood along the line, gazing helplessly at each other. Devlin, however, was an exception; he was the only perfectly composed person amongst us.
"It is unfortunate," he said, with a certain maliciousness in his voice; "we are not half-way to Margate. The best laid schemes are liable to come to grief. If Mr. Kenneth Dowsett knew of this, he would rejoice."
It was with intense anxiety that I made inquiries of the guard whether the accident would delay us long. The guard answered that he could not say yet, but that to all appearance we should be delayed two or three hours. I received this information with dismay. It would upon that calculation be midnight before we reached our destination. I considered time so precious that I would have given every shilling in my pocket to have been at that moment in Margate.