When I awake,—awake with a bewildered mixed sense of having been a long time asleep,—of not knowing where I am—and of having some great dread and horror on my mind—awake and look round, the dawn is breaking. I shiver, with the chilly sensation that the coming of even a warm day brings, and look round, still half unconsciously, in a misty way. But what has happened? how empty the carriage is! the dressing-case is gone! the clock is gone! the man who sat nearly opposite me is gone! Watson is gone! but the man in the cloak and the wax hands still sits beside me! Still the hands are holding the paper; still the fur is touching me! Good God! I am tête-à-tête with him! A feeling of the most appalling desolation and despair comes over me—vanquishes me utterly. I clasp my hands together frantically, and, still looking at the dim form beside me, groan out—“Well! I did not think that Watson would have forsaken me!” Instantly, a sort of movement and shiver runs through the figure: the newspaper drops from the hands, which however continue to be still held out in the same position as if still grasping it; and behind the newspaper, I see by the dim morning light and the dim lamp-gleams that there is no real face but a mask. A sort of choked sound is coming from behind the mask. Shivers of cold fear are running over me. Never to this day shall I know what gave me the despairing courage to do it, but before I know what I am doing, I find myself tearing at the cloak,—tearing away the mask—tearing away the hands. It would be better to find anything underneath—Satan himself,—a horrible dead body—anything—sooner than submit any longer to this hideous mystery. And I am rewarded. When the cloak lies at the bottom of the carriage—when the mask, and the false hands and false feet—(there are false feet too)—are also cast away, in different directions, what do you think I find underneath?
Watson! Yes: it appears that while I slept—I feel sure that they must have rubbed some more of the drug on my lips while I was unconscious, or I never could have slept so heavily or so long—they dressed up Watson in the mask, feet, hands, and cloak; set the hat on her head, gagged her, and placed her beside me in the attitude occupied by the man. They had then, at the next station, got out, taking with them dressing-case and clock, and had made off in all security. When I arrive in Paris, you will not be surprised to hear that it does not once occur to me whether I am looking green or no.
And this is the true history of my night journey to Paris! You will be glad, I daresay, to learn that I ultimately recovered my sapphires, and a good many of my other ornaments. The police being promptly set on, the robbers were, after much trouble and time, at length secured; and it turned out that the man in the cloak was an ex-valet of my husband’s, who was acquainted with my bad habit of travelling in company with my trinkets—a bad habit which I have since seen fit to abandon.
What I have written is literally true, though it did not happen to myself.
THE END.
BILLING, PRINTER, GUILDFORD, SURREY.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.