The Weird Picture

by John R. Carling

She glanced at the door, as if desirous of quitting the compartment for another, but if such were her purpose it was baffled. The train was now fairly on the move, and we were steaming out of the station into the cold snow-dotted air of night. Willing or unwilling, the lady must submit to be my companion for the next two hours. Her obvious glances of distrust and alarm put me in a false position, and I at once determined to open a conversation for the purpose of showing what a good youth I was, and how little to be dreaded; but ere proceeding to this course I took, while pretending to read the newspaper, a steady view of my fair companion.

She was slender, graceful, lady-like, and tall, as a woman should be. With Byron, "I hate a dumpy woman." Her features seemed regular and handsome, but I could discern little of them through the thick veil she was wearing, save a pair of splendid dark eyes—the colour being a trifling deviation from my ideal of beauty, since Daphne's eyes were of a dark blue. A close-fitting bonnet covered her dark hair, and a fur boa was wrapped round her throat. A pair of little red leather shoes peeped out from beneath the skirts of a long fur-lined cloak. A muff contained her gloved hands.

"A handsome brunette," was my critique. "I shall be most happy to introduce myself. How shall I begin, and what shall I talk about? Ha! tell her I'm going to a wedding. Nothing unlocks a woman's tongue so easily as a wedding—barring, perhaps a sensational divorce."

Now, while I was casting about in my mind how to begin the conversation, my attention was suddenly attracted to something that she had thrust beneath the seat immediately on entering the compartment. Down from my hands dropped the newspaper at the sight I saw. That sight was nothing more than a valise partly hidden from view by her dress. But the portion that did display itself was marked by the letters "G.W.," thus corresponding exactly with the initials on the bag that my brother had carried! Was the bag, now peeping out at me from beneath the carriage-seat, the identical one that had disappeared with George into the mysterious house? My staring eyes were transferred from the lady's face to the valise, and from the valise to the lady's face, in swift alternation.

Then I suddenly recalled the silhouette on the blind, and, as I studied the lady's head-dress and figure, I thought if she were to pass between a light and the blind the contour of her shadow would not be very dissimilar from the one I had seen. Could she have issued from the strange house as soon as I had left it, and would that account for her haste and breathless state on entering the train? Her obvious mistrust of me, then, arose from a cause totally different from that of womanly timidity at being exposed alone to the company of a stranger. Yet, since we had never met each other before, how did she know I was a person to be avoided?

"Who are you," I muttered to myself, "and what relations do you hold with my brother? for some dealing you have with him, else—why that bag? Are you his first Daphne, I wonder, travelling to London to tell the second Daphne that you are an insurmountable obstacle to a certain wedding that's to come off this morning? A sort of sister-in-law to me, whose relationship has not been sanctioned by the Church? Has George been compromising himself? Let me try to find out."

I had a high idea of my own ability to "draw" people out. The sequel will show what a dexterous cross-examiner the law has lost in me.

"Do you object to smoking, madam?" I asked, by way of beginning a conversation.

In lieu of a verbal reply, the lady responded by a quick horizontal motion of her head, which sign presumably implied that she did not object.

Ours was not a smoking carriage. Perhaps it was this fact that suggested the idea of a cigar. Youth is defiant, and "Thou shalt not" is often the parent of "I will." So, with a sovereign contempt for the company's by-laws, I proceeded to light a cigar, remarking as I did so: