CHAPTER III. AN INCIDENT AND AN ACCIDENT
Smoothly the huge engine came gliding into the station—a dumb, silent creature now, drawing slowly to a standstill as though exhausted after its great effort. Through the windows of the saloon the station-master could see the train attendant bending over this mysterious passenger, who did not seem, as yet, to have made any preparations for leaving his place. Mr. Hamilton Fynes was seated at a table covered with papers, but he was leaning back as though he had been or was still asleep. The station-master stepped forward, and as he did so the attendant came hurrying out to the platform, and, pushing back the porters, called to him by name.
“Mr. Rice,” he said, “If you please, sir, will you come this way?”
The station-master acceded at once to the man’s request and entered the saloon. The attendant clutched at his arm nervously. He was a pale, anaemic-looking little person at any time, but his face just now was positively ghastly.
“What on earth is the matter with you?” the station-master asked brusquely.
“There’s something wrong with my passenger, sir,” the man declared in a shaking voice. “I can’t make him answer me. He won’t look up, and I don’t—I don’t think he’s asleep. An hour ago I took him some whiskey. He told me not to disturb him again—he had some papers to go through.”
The station-master leaned over the table. The eyes of the man who sat there were perfectly wide-open, but there was something unnatural in their fixed stare,—something unnatural, too, in the drawn grayness of his face.
“This is Euston, sir,” the station-master began,—“the terminus—”
Then he broke off in the middle of his sentence. A cold shiver was creeping through his veins. He, too, began to stare; he felt the color leaving his own cheeks. With an effort he turned to the attendant.