Light then at last seemed to be gleaming on our darkness; not only a glimmer, but a full bright ray. There was consistency and connection in all that the inspector had put before us, though only as yet, to a great degree, in supposition. Merrivale, agreeing with me that he would send us on no wild-goose chase, it was settled I should go down by the five-o'clock express train.
In less than an hour I was standing at King's Cross Terminus, and five minutes past five I was whirling away from London at the rate of thirty miles an hour. At Peterborough we stopped for half-an-hour to change carriages, and I went into the waiting-room to get some refreshment. It was very full, for numbers of passengers were travelling by that train to be present at some local races, and for some minutes I could not approach the counter. At last I contrived to edge in next to a rather tall man, very much enveloped in wraps, wearing a travelling-cap and blue spectacles. I asked for a cup of coffee and a sandwich. Every one knows the degree of heat to which railway coffee is brought; and waiting awhile for the sake of my throat before drinking it, I suddenly bethought myself of setting my watch by the clock in the room. I put up my glass to look for it; it [{748}] was at the opposite end, and I turned my back upon my tall neighbor whilst altering the watch. When I turned round he was gone. I finished my coffee and paid for it. Bah! how mawkish a taste it had left in my mouth; what stuff they sell in England for real Mocha! So I thought as I stepped out on the platform and walked up and down, awaiting the train and reading in a sort of dreamy, unconscious manner the advertisements and placards covering the walls. Taylor Brothers, Parkins and Gotto, Heal and Son, Mudie's Library, and all the rest, so well known Ha! what is this? "MURDER: £100 Reward," for information leading to the detection of the murderer of Mr. Gilbert Thorneley; and beneath, another, "Reward of £50 offered for the apprehension of Robert Bradley," alias O'Brian, escaped convict, with a full description of his personal appearance appended. "Inspector Keene's work," thought I to myself. One solitary female figure stood before me, reading the placard; a neat trim figure, clad in deep mourning garments, motionless, mute, and absorbed as it were in the interest of what she was perusing. What was it that made me start and shiver as my eye fell upon that statue-like form? what was it that, amidst an overpowering and unaccountable drowsiness creeping over me, seemed to sting me into life and vigilance? The answer was plain before me: staring at me with wildly-gleaming eyes, with a face startled out of its habitual calmness and self-possession, with fear and rage and a hundred passions at work in her countenance, was old Thorneley's housekeeper. "Mrs. Haag!" I exclaimed; and almost as I spoke, a change sudden and rapid as thought took place in her, and she regained the cold passionless expression I had noticed that same afternoon.
"The same, Mr. Kavanagh;" and, inclining her head, she was passing on.
"Stay!" I said, catching her by the arm. "What are you doing here? Where are you going?"
"By what right do you ask me, sir?" was the reply in very calm and perfectly respectful tones.
"By what right!" I cried with headlong impetuosity. "By the best right that any man could have--the right of asking, or saying, or doing anything that may help me to detect the guilty and clear the innocent. Woman, there is some deadly mystery hanging around yon, some guilty secret in which you have played your part, and which, by the heavens above us, I will unearth and bring to light! I will, I will!"
What was the matter with me? My brain was dizzy; the lights, the station, the faces around me, the woman I was addressing, seemed to be going round and round, and I became conscious that my speech was getting incoherent.
"You have been drinking, Mr. Kavanagh," I heard a hard voice saying to me, with a slight foreign accent. Then a bell rang, and I was hurried forward by the crowd who were flocking on the platform; hurried on toward a train that had come into the station whilst I had been engaged with the housekeeper. I remember entering a carriage and sinking down on a cushioned seat; then I lost all consciousness, until I heard a voice shouting in my ear, "Your ticket, sir, please."
I started up.
"Where am I?"