Nothing came, however, of the temptation. Mr. Dunn replaced the letters; his companion reinterposed the barrier; and the train glided smoothly on but another quarter of an hour, during which Mr. Dunn subsided from his restless into his depressed alternative, and occasionally took out a photographic likeness of a woman, at which he gazed moodily.
Just as the train was running into Lime-street station its speed slackened, it stopped in an instant, and a man stepped with wonderful swiftness into the compartment hitherto occupied only by Mr. Dunn and the persistent reader.
Mr. Dunn slipped the photograph at which he was looking into his breast-pocket, and glanced round surprised, but the elderly gentleman, with a satisfied wink at the new arrival, stuffed his newspaper under the back of the cushion, and bending over and approaching Mr. Dunn, laid his hand on his shoulder.
Mr. Dunn started up, or rather attempted to do so, but found himself held firmly in his seat by a grasp apparently gentle, but wholly irresistible, while his companion informed him, in the briefest of phrases, that he was arrested on the charge of murder, and had better not say anything lest it should be used to his disadvantage. Pale, speechless, and bewildered, the trapped criminal stared at the police-officer, who made a sign to his assistant, who, with businesslike imperturbability and the deftness of long practice, slipped a pair of handcuffs on Mr. Dunn's wrists.
In another minute the train had stopped, and the police-officer, considerately arranging Mr. Dunn's wraps so as to disguise the fact that he was a prisoner, stepped out with his charge upon the platform, closely followed by his assistant.
Thornton Carey and Mrs. Jenkins retained their seats until the three, whose movements they were watching, had passed the door of the compartment in which they were. Then they immediately left the carriage and followed.
Among the persons assembled on the arrival platform at Lime-street was a respectable-looking woman, who carried a large basket, with that air of inseparability habitual to females of her class. She was probably there by appointment with somebody, for she had taken her seat on a bench and waited with the inevitable basket on her knees for the arrival of the train.
As Mr. Dunn passed down the platform in the custody of his two travelling companions, the elderly gentleman slackened his pace for a moment when they came alongside the bench where this woman sat, and laid his hand, as if accidentally and in passing, upon the cover of her basket. She gave him a quick look; but on the prisoner she conferred a prolonged stare, of which, however, the wretched man was wholly unconscious. A few persons only came between Mr. Dunn and his companions and Thornton Carey and Mrs. Jenkins, who walked up to the woman arm-in-arm. Thornton Carey addressed her:
'Have you seen him?'
'I have, sir.'