My antagonist went the colour of an oak-leaf in autumn.
"This is really intolerable," he said breathlessly. "For sheer matchless impudence, this is beyond any contingency I could ever have suspected or conceived of. I shall be happy to prove my identity and my good character by the testimony of any of those who travelled with me in the liner. I–I " He was so furious that he gibbered. "I have been for twenty-two years rector of St. Josephus's Church of Toronto-"
"So he's escaping," said Evelyn, folding her own arms and nodding in an ominous way. "He's running away. If you examine that black bag of his, I'll just bet you find a forged passport, or disguises and things, and maybe a steamship ticket to somewhere in the wilds "
The ticket-collector reached up and yanked down the black bag. And that was how we came at last to discover what Mr. Joseph Serpos had really stolen.
The bag was resting in the hollow of the cloth netting, well down against the bar which prevents luggage from sliding out. It is conceivable that the lower part of the bag, with the metal studs along the edgings at the bottom, caught against the bar when the valise was pulled out. I am not certain precisely what happened. But, as the ticket-collector jumped back, about two inches of the bottom of the bag flew loose on a hinge: and in the next instant the whole compartment was showered with paper money.
To my dazed wits it seemed that, outside a bank, I had never seen so much money in my life. Through the partly open window of the compartment a strong breeze was blowing, and the cloud of currency whirled and circled round our heads. Some of it was loose, some of it in packets. There were batches of five-pound, ten-pound and even fifty-pound notes; including some packets of pound and ten-shilling notes. We did not stop to think. We pounced after it instinctively, to gather it up before it should be blown wide out of the window or into the corridor. Stone dived to pull up the strap and shut the window, losing his hat outside in the confusion. But even in the confusion, I am glad to say, I remembered my impoverished state well enough to thrust a packet of ten-shilling notes into my pocket. We gathered it up as well as we could. The ticket-collector stood back, breathing hard, and eyed the rector of St. Josephus's with malevolence.
"Hauld the skellum," he said briefly, "while I get help. Bristol in five minutes."
We seemed to be flying even faster now, the train swaying and plunging. In pale dignity the rector sat down and gibbered. His eloquence in his own defence so choked him that no coherent word slipped out. I tried to talk to him, explaining that things would be all right presently; but he called me thief and swindler in such blood-curdling if unprofane fashion, and threatened with such firmness to consecrate his life to putting all of us behind bars, that I presently left off. After all, he had only done his duty in denouncing me; but I did not mean to fall foul of the police after all the events of that night.
The ticket-collector returned with two other officials just as we were rolling into Temple Meads station at Bristol. There were not many people, except porters, on the big platform at that hour of the morning. But one of the ticket-collector's companions, after grimly surveying the heap of money, put his face against the window and pointed. He was indicating a stocky man in a bowler hat, whose figure swept past as the man in the bowler hat tried to hurry towards the front of the train.
"I know that chap," was the comfortless news. "He's from the police department — Inspector Somebody. By George, they've tumbled to it! They probably know this fellow's on the train, and they're here to arrest — "