The rural quiet of the place palled upon me—so much so, indeed, that while sitting on the wide veranda smoking in the sunset on the third evening after my arrival I made up my mind to leave again next day. This I did, much to Tucker’s regret.
The old fellow watched me climb into the dog-cart, and touched his straw hat in respectful silence. I knew how the poor old fellow hated his master to be absent.
Again in London, I waited in eager impatience until the nineteenth of the month, when I left Paddington for Totnes, in Devon. It was, I found, a quaint old town among green hills through which wound the picturesque Dart—a town with a long, steep high street, a city gateway, with shops built over the footpath, like those in the Borgo Largo in Pisa.
The Seymour Hotel, where I took up my quarters, was situated by the bridge, and faced the river—a well-known resort of anglers and summer tourists. But of such things as fishing or scenery I cared nothing on that well-remembered day—the day appointed for me to keep the strange tryst made by the man now dead.
The wording of Mr Arnold’s injunction was “to be present at the railway station of Totnes at five o’clock.” It did not mention the platform or the booking-office. Examination of the time-table showed that no train arrived at or left Totnes between the hours of four p.m., when the Plymouth train arrived, and the five-fifteen up-train to Exeter and Taunton. There were several expresses, of course, Totnes being on the Great Western main line between Plymouth and London.
By this fact it seemed that the mysterious man whom I was to meet would already be in Totnes, and would come to the station in order to meet me. All day, therefore, my eyes were open for sight of a man wearing a red tie or a carnation in his coat.
Mr Arnold had held suspicion that he might be watched. Why? What did he fear?
I was not to approach him unless he unbuttoned his gloves and removed them.
All that well-remembered day I idled by the cool rippling river, lingered by the rushing weir, watching the fishermen haul in their salmon-nets, and strolled about the quiet old-world streets of the rather sleepy place, eager for the arrival of five o’clock.
The station being some distance from the town, I walked down to it about half-past four. The afternoon was blazing-hot, and scarcely anyone was astir, even the dogs were asleep in the shadows, and the heat-slumber was over everything.