"Mr. Timmins is a man of four or five and twenty, with a fair but somewhat freckled face, straw-coloured hair, and weak eyes. By the time I had been ten minutes in his company I had discovered him to be one of that numerous class of young men who have a very excellent opinion of themselves and their abilities, without having anything to offer the world in justification thereof.
"The first thing I did was to hand him my card.
"'To what may I attribute the honour of this visit, Mr. Winslade?' he asked, as, after glancing at the card, he laid it on the table.
"'I am given to understand by the editor of The Family Cornucopia that you are the author of a story entitled "How, and Why" which appeared in a recent number of that magazine. May I assume, Mr. Timmins, that such is the fact?'
"He changed colour and hesitated for a second or two before answering. Then he said: 'Really, Mr. Winslade, I am at a loss to imagine how it can possibly matter to you whether I am, or am not, the author of the story in question. Still, if, as you state, Mr. Philpot has seen fit to acknowledge the fact, I am not going to run counter to his statement.'
"'Thank you for your frankness, Mr. Timmins,' I replied, as I drew my chair a little closer to the table which divided us. 'You may take it for granted that the information I am here to seek at your hands has not for its object the satisfaction of an idle curiosity; very far indeed is that from being the case. What I should like you to tell me first of all is, whence and how you obtained the information, in other words, the basis of fact, on which your story is built up.'
"As before, there was the same hesitation prior to answering. Then he said: 'I fail to understand why you should assume that my story has any, even the slightest substratum of fact, or that it is anything more than a specimen of purely imaginative writing.'
"'That is a point as to which I can speedily enlighten you,' was my reply.
"Thereupon I entered into the reasons, one by one, which had sufficed to convince me that, whoever the writer of the story might be, he was someone who had not merely a suspiciously intimate knowledge of all the details of the Loudwater Tragedy, but one who professed to account for the crime after a fashion so startling and original that I, as a person connected to some extent with the case, felt bound to ascertain what amount of truth, if any, underlaid his statements.
"Mr. Timmins listened with growing wonder, and when I had come to an end he lay back in his chair, and for several seconds could do nothing but stare blankly at me. At length he said: 'It is, perhaps, a fortunate thing for me, Mr. Winslade, that my share in the story, or whatever it may be called, is one that can very readily be explained. To begin with, I am only part author of it. But perhaps I had better, first of all, explain by what a singular conjunction of circumstances the original MS. came into my hands. Possibly you may remember that, some months ago, several people were killed owing to a railway accident about a couple of miles beyond Eastwich?' I nodded. 'I, sir, happened to be in the train when the accident took place, but was fortunate enough to escape with nothing worse than a few bruises and a severe shaking, while the only other passenger in the same compartment with me was killed on the spot. I had been to report the speeches at a great political meeting in the country, and was on my way back to London by the night mail, travelling first-class in order that I might be the better enabled to transcribe my notes en route. For a part of the time I was alone, but at some station, I forget which, I was joined by another passenger. I was too immersed in my work to take more than the most casual notice of him, and all I can remember is that he was young and dark-complexioned and had a black moustache. I did notice, however, and I had occasion to remember the fact later on, that after he had been some time in the carriage he took out of his pocket a number of loose sheets of paper covered with writing, and began to read them with what seemed to me the closest attention, making an occasional pencil memorandum in the margin of one or another of them as he went on. We were both at work, each in his own fashion, when, without any other warning than a prolonged shriek of the engine, of which neither of us took any notice, the crash came. All I knew, or felt, of it was a momentary shock, as if all my limbs had been suddenly dislocated, after which came an utter blank.