This was so much of a relief that I flopped down on the grey upholstery and sat for a moment pleasurably getting my breath. All the same, it would not do to stay here. Somebody might look in at any minute. A lavatory was indicated, to get rid of the Compleat Policeman. Also, I was fiery with curiosity to look into the bag and see what the devil it was that Serpos had stolen. That will-o'-the-wisp had danced in front of me all night, and I meant to settle its hash now.
I opened the corridor-door and peered out. It was deserted. The train moved now with a dancing sway, jerking and whirling above a clackety-roar of the wheels, and a long blast from the whistle was torn behind as we gathered speed. She was a flyer. Bristol, so far as I could remember, must be something less than eighty miles away. Less than an hour and a half should get us there — for another spot of burglary.
Nil desperandum. The Compleat Policeman tiptoed the few remaining feet which separated this compartment from the lavatory, and got safely inside with the door latched. Then I set to work on the valise. It was an ordinary black-leather one, new and shining, and it was not locked. I opened it, and in a minute more I was frantically throwing things aside, digging into it, turning it upside down, without result.
Serpos had done me. That weedy, weepy, blue-chinned young man in spectacles, with the odd gleam in his eye, had somehow hoaxed us all at last. For there was no loot of any kind in the bag. Except for some spare clothing, a few toilet necessities, a book, a passport and a steamship ticket, it was as empty as a real clergyman's.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Six Feet of Earth
Outside the blast of the whistle rose mockingly, and through the half-open window you could hear a deeper clackety-roar of the wheels. I balanced myself against the wall, attempting to read sense into Mr. Joseph Serpos's conduct.
What most struck me was the realization of how consummate an artist this young man had been. There was another clerical outfit in the bag: naturally, since he had a steamship ticket and would have to stand a customs inspection somewhere: there was no other sort of garb at all. Even the book was a devotional work called Sermons from a Sussex Parish. Now, all the clergymen I have ever known have been thoroughly good fellows, the sort who were as much interested in sport as in anything else, and with whom you could sit up all night yarning over a pipe and glass without thinking of them as parsons. But Serpos had chosen to get himself up like a comic-opera vicar, and he had got himself up well. The passport was made out in the name of the Rev. Mr. Thomas Caulderon, The Vicarage, Grayling Dene, Somerset, and "missionary work" was noted on it. His ticket was taken by the cargo-and-passenger-boat Northern Sultan, sailing on Wednesday, June 17th, from Tilbury Docks to Odessa.
This man was not as young, either in age or in experience, as he looked. The photograph on the passport was his own, showing him with lank black hair cut straight across his forehead, and an expression of piety which seemed to be mocking me: even the government-seal looked genuine. If he was such a thorough-paced artist as this, why had he burst out in fear and blubbering when he was accosted at the station? — and then, afterwards, why had he slipped into that amazing change of cunning behind the sallow face? This man was as big a puzzle as Hogenauer himself. Somehow, I felt, there was one little fact which in about half a dozen words could explain all the vast incongruities of this case, if we could find it; but that fact had slipped round the corner as neatly as Mr. Serpos.
Again this theorizing would not do. I must hurry up and get into the black coat so that I could go to find Evelyn. Whereupon, after examining each of the articles of clothing to make sure nothing was hidden, I discovered the next item of cussedness. There was a black coat, all right. But it was a damned long thin morning-coat, with a tail.