"I hurried back to St. Pancras, and, just missing the fast train which afterwards picked up the 8.45 passengers at the scene of the accident, had to kick my heels until the last train started. But it was no accident, Uncle Jem. A big baulk of timber had been placed across the rails, they told me at Harpenden."
The General knitted his brows and pondered the problem, presently suggesting tentatively that there was no proof that the Duke had after all gone in the 8.45. He might, on finding himself suddenly deprived of his companion, have got out before it started. But this theory was at once knocked on the head by Forsyth's assertion that the train had begun to move before he left the platform, and that Beaumanoir, still seated in the "engaged" compartment, had waved him farewell. If the Duke had not got out at an intermediate station, he must have disappeared at the place of derailment, the latter contingency being the more probable. Also the most alarming, because the stranded passengers had had to wait for three-quarters of an hour at the side of the line in the dark, at a remote spot surrounded by woods.
"Humph! It looks very much as if they'd got him this time," was the General's final comment. And he straightway walked over to the sideboard and poured himself out a glass of wine, motioning his nephew to join him. The action was significant of conclusiveness, and seemed to say that, doom having overtaken the Duke, there was nothing more to be done. The old gentleman drank his wine slowly, then turned to Forsyth with the fierce exclamation:
"First time Jem Sadgrove was ever beaten by a woman. Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, or whatever she may choose to call herself, has scored a record."
"Mrs. Talmage Eglinton! What on earth has she got to do with it?" was Forsyth's astounded rejoinder.
A good deal, it appeared, according to the view which the General had contrived to piece together, and which, leaning against the sideboard, he proceeded to propound in spasmodic jerks. Beginning with a description of how he had witnessed Beaumanoir's narrow escape of being run down by Mrs. Talmage Eglinton's landau, he hinted at the dawn of suspicion in his own mind on finding her immediately afterwards calling at his house, yet strangely silent on having nearly killed a man in the streets. Then, when Forsyth had consulted him after the midnight episode at Beaumanoir House, and had told him of the Duke's visit on the day of his arrival from New York to someone occupying the next suite at the hotel to that of Mrs. Eglinton, he had been fairly certain of his clue. Having satisfied himself by personal observation that the ducal mansion in Piccadilly was closely watched, he had set himself the task of establishing a connection between the soi-disant widow and her neighbor at the hotel—a task which had been successful so far as convincing himself went.
Forsyth recognized that, for all the mischance of the evening, his uncle had put in some good detective work, and said so. "You must have been quick, too," he added. "Is it permitted to ask how you managed it?"
"It was very simple," the General replied, with a relish for the remembrance. "I carted all the women off to call on the lady, and while we were there Azimoolah, in the character of an Indian rajah, blundered into Mr. Clinton Ziegler's rooms, which I had in the meanwhile ascertained communicated with Mrs. Talmage Eglinton's. When the prearranged hubbub commenced she gave herself away by an unconscious movement to the communicating door, showing that she was in the habit of using it, unknown to the hotel people, who believe that they have divided one big suite into two smaller ones let separately. She's clever, and pulled herself together at once, but I had got what I wanted—the fact that she was anxious about the rumpus my good old Khan, tricked out in a suit from Nathan's and a stage diamond, was raising next door."
"That seems convincing, certainly," said Forsyth.
"Azimoolah's experiences were even more so. Mr. Clinton Ziegler has some associates with a very pretty way with them when Asiatic princes stumble by chance into his rooms. Of course, it was Azimoolah's cue to be a bit boisterous and persistent, but they needn't have roused the tiger in him by giving him the congenial task of disarming them of two uncommonly murderous knives. Funny thing is, that when I went in as an interpreting peace-maker, I saw no sign of Ziegler, who, I gathered at the hotel bureau, is an invalid and never goes out. The two men in the room were able-bodied fellows, fashionably dressed, but with that in their faces which there is no mistaking. The 'crime-look' is an open sign to those who know."