“It is very bad, I know,” admitted Mrs. Walford, “but I have been in tighter places myself and endured more discomfort, too. I don’t say that I should not be glad of a little more fresh air, for this bedding does smell horribly fusty.”
“I wonder if I could work the door unfastened. We should get air then, and if we have got to starve, there is no reason why we should suffer from poisoning by bad air also,” said Bertha, getting on to her feet with some difficulty and beginning to grope for the fastening of the doors.
“Why, they are locked, of course. Don’t you remember hearing the brakeman lock them before we left Rownton?” asked Mrs. Walford, wincing, as Bertha inadvertently trod on her foot.
“That is so much the better! If they had been fastened by a bar dropped into a socket, I could not have hoped to get them open. As it is, I may succeed if I try hard enough,” Bertha replied, as she groped and fumbled with her naked fingers round the doors. “Ah, here is the lock! Now, I wonder if I can work it back with a hairpin. I have no pocket knife with me. Have you one that I can have?”
“Yes, I have a knife, and a bradawl too; or you can have a small nail. What are you going to do? Work the lock back?”
“Very likely; but if I cannot do that easily, I may be able to unscrew the lock and take it off, as you have a bradawl, which is just about as useful as a chisel, if only one knows how to use it,” answered Bertha.
“A screwdriver you mean, I guess,” laughed Mrs. Walford. “Well, this is an adventure for two lone women at dead of night on a skeleton railway! But it will do well to put in your next story, my dear,” and the stout woman laughed in a cheerful fashion, which showed her in no way daunted by the situation.
“How did you know that I wrote stories?” demanded Bertha, in a tone of amazement, as she worked away at the lock with that very useful hairpin, prodding her fingers badly in the darkness, but caring very little about the pain, because she felt that the lock was giving, which meant that if only she were patient enough she would get it unfastened.
“Why, because I have read them, to be sure,” replied the other, with a complacent chuckle. “That one which came out in last week’s Banner of Liberty was fine; but I should not have known it was you that I’d got the pleasure of travelling with, if it had not been that Inspector Grant hadn’t told me to take special care of you, because you were the young lady that wrote the stories about the prairies.”
“I wonder how he knew?” said Bertha musingly; for although her work was all signed with her own name, it had never occurred to her that perhaps the people of the district would ever find out that they had an author living among them. Moreover, the papers for which she wrote would scarcely be likely to have much circulation through that impoverished district.