The Saturday before Christmas happened to be the occasion for one of these fortnightly visits. It was usual for Mr. Pargent to walk the short half mile which separated West Laverhurst from his sister’s house, but, the afternoon being wet and Mr. Pargent very careful of his health, he asked Miss Margaret to requisition a car to drive him to the station. He arrived there in plenty of time, and in due course the 3.10 came in punctually. Mr. Pargent took a corner seat in a first-class non-smoking carriage, and immediately became immersed in a book which he had brought with him for the purpose of reading in the train. He inwardly congratulated himself upon having secured a seat in an empty carriage.
The 3.10 up from West Laverhurst stops twice before reaching Reading, and then runs fast up to London. The stop at Reading is a somewhat long one, owing to the fact that tickets are collected there. On this particular afternoon, the train had run into the station a minute or two before time, and the stop was even longer than usual, giving a tall man in a rather tight-fitting overcoat ample time to walk leisurely the whole length of the train and select an empty first-class smoking carriage close to the engine. The train started at last, Mr. Pargent being left in undisputed possession of his compartment.
The train arrived at Paddington punctually at five minutes to five. Mr. Pargent had observed that the rain was falling more heavily than ever, but, from his long experience of Paddington station, he knew how to reach the stopping place of the No. 15 bus, keeping under cover nearly all the way. He had only to follow the subway which leads to the Underground booking-office, and then climb the stairway which leads into Praed Street. The No. 15 bus stops nearly opposite on the further side of the street.
The passenger who had got in at Reading seemed to know his way about as well as did Mr. Pargent. This man, who somehow vaguely suggested a retired ship’s officer, had an iron-grey beard and a curious patch of crimson, such as is popularly known as a port-wine mark, on his left cheek. He walked slowly down the subway, so slowly that Mr. Pargent overtook him before he reached the foot of the stairway. The two ascended it together, only a few steps separating them, Mr. Pargent leading.
The mouth of the stairway was blocked, as it so often is in wet weather, by a knot of people unfurling their umbrellas and waiting for an interval in the traffic to dash across to the refuge in the middle of the road. Mr. Pargent unfolded his umbrella like the rest, and seizing his opportunity, ran for the island. The interval was a narrow one; an almost unceasing stream of buses and taxis was pouring down Praed Street. Only two or three followed Mr. Pargent’s example, among them the Reading passenger. In the blinding rain and the flurry of the traffic nobody noticed a swift movement of the latter’s arm, nor did they watch him as he left the refuge immediately and gained the far side of the road.
The clock above the entrance of the station showed it to be exactly five o’clock. The Reading passenger glanced at it, walked swiftly a few yards westward up Praed Street, then, seizing his opportunity, crossed the road again. This brought him to the slope leading to the departure platform of Paddington station. He hurried through the booking office on to No. 1 platform, at which stood the 5.5 train for Bristol, which stops for the first time at Reading. He showed the ticket collector a third-class single ticket for Reading, and the man hastily opened a carriage door and pushed him in. “Near shave that, sir!” he remarked.
The passenger was far too short of breath to do anything but nod his head in reply. He sank down exhausted upon the seat as the guard blew his whistle and the train drew out of the station. There were only two men beside himself in the carriage, and they, with true British indifference, took no further notice of him. The train had nearly reached Reading when he walked down the corridor to the lavatory. He did not return to the carriage, but stepped Straight from the corridor to the platform as the train came to rest. He mingled unnoticed with the stream passing the barriers. He noticed that the hands of the clock pointed to ten minutes to six.
Meanwhile Mr. Pargent had stood for an instant upon the refuge in the middle of Praed Street, a puzzled expression on his face. An approaching taxi-driver noticed his swaying form and swerved sharply, just in time to avoid him as he crashed forward into the road-way. The taxi-driver’s action caused a sudden check to the traffic, and for an instant there was a chaos of skidding vehicles, screeching brakes, and blasphemous language. Then the nearest drivers jumped from their seats and clustered round the prone form. A majestic policeman, setting a calm and undeviating course through the tumult, knelt down and turned the body over. Mr. Pargent was dead.
The newspaper which Mr. Ludgrove bought at Wokingham station and read carefully during his journey to Waterloo contained nothing more than a bare statement that the famous poet, Richard Pargent, had fallen dead in Praed Street, and that, upon the body being conveyed to the mortuary, a blade was found in it, with the point entering the heart. Round these facts a formidable structure of conjecture and reminiscence was built up. There was an obituary notice, in which Mr. Pargent’s Christian names and the titles of his published works were incorrectly stated. There was a résumé of the case of Mr. Tovey, and a photograph of Praed Street, with heavy black crosses marking the places where the murders had taken place. Finally there was a leading article, in which the responsibility for the murders was ingeniously fixed upon the Government, which in consequence came in for severe criticism. In fact, the murder of Mr. Pargent was evidently the topic of the day.
Mr. Ludgrove sat with his haversack beside him on the carriage seat, even his beloved plants unheeded. He read every bit of the paper over and over again, seeking for some clue which might account for the crime. The description ended with the words “the police are, however, in possession of a clue, the nature of which they are not at present prepared to divulge, but which, they are confident, will lead to startling developments in the near future.” Mr. Ludgrove smiled rather cynically as he read them. They seemed to him to have a somewhat familiar ring.