I should have known that she wouldn’t talk over others’ affairs. She’d said a good deal, all things considered. So Christina had escaped Keeban and he was back in New York, whence he had come. Probably, therefore, Jerry was in New York, too.
I asked myself what Doris’s move to the east might have to do with them; how might she be mixed in?
Likely she was not mixed with them at all except when, more or less by chance, her group encountered one of their group in business. I could not possibly connect her with any scheme for murder. Christina, herself, had refused such a scheme; how much more surely would Doris have kept free from anything like that!
With her key in my hand, I stood in the vestibule of the next car, daydreaming about her. The train was bounding along too beautifully, rushing us right into Cleveland. I wanted to see Doris again but she’d dismissed me; I could only endanger her now by hanging around.
When we stopped at Cleveland, at eight-thirty, old “Iron Age” again was on the platform; and this time I tumbled off with him. I didn’t plan anything quite so subtle as the succeeding event; really, I wasn’t up to that at all. You see, what happened was this.
I’d reported to him, on parting from Doris after dinner, that I was sure they were leaving the train at Cleveland because she’d mentioned the matter, quite definitely, again. Of course Dibley only regarded me more in sorrow than otherwise; he was certain they were only playing me. So when I was on the platform with him, for my benefit he was a bit over-ostentatious in acting out his conviction that they were staying on the train. He had a new sheaf of messages to clutter up the telegraph office and Western Union had a boy burdened down with replies for him; so Doris and George, with Felice, were off and started away almost before “Iron Age” guessed it.
They were all without baggage, of course. After he saw them, Dibley got into action quickly. He yelled for guards to close in; he had out his gun. But they were down the stairs and I didn’t need to grab that gun; so I didn’t. Shots sounded below, however. I couldn’t tell who fired them. I went down the stairs with Dibley and the rest of the drift from the platform; but my three friends had doubled, dodged and were away.
I waited as long as I dared; then I climbed and caught the train. Dibley didn’t; but his orders overtook us. At Ashtabula, an hour or so east, they stopped us and officers came aboard to take off all baggage from compartment E, car No. 424, and also to capture George’s large, piggy portmanteau. A special engine was about to start with all that for Cleveland.
During the stop, I rather expected a word or two might be said to me; but it became plain that Dibley’s opinion of me continued true to form. Nobody bothered me; the train went on; my berth was made and I took that new suit case of Doris Janvier’s behind the curtains.