A hundred times had I tried to picture to myself what Mr Arthur Dawnay could be like. In the High Street, earlier in the day, I had seen a young man in tweed Norfolk jacket, obviously a tourist, wearing a red tie, but no carnation, and had followed him unnoticed to a house out on the outskirts of the town, where he was evidently lodging. Was his name Dawnay, I wondered! If he were actually the man whom I was to meet, then he certainly was a very prosaic looking person.
Still I possessed my soul in patience, and with the dead man’s letter in my breast-pocket I walked through the booking-office and on to the platform.
Several persons were about—ordinary looking individuals, such as one sees every day at the station of a small provincial town—but there was no man wearing either a red cravat or a carnation.
I lit a cigarette and strolled up and down the platform where the booking-office was situated. The gate of the up-platform being kept locked, he would be compelled to pass through the booking-office.
Twice expresses with ocean mails from Plymouth to London roared through, and slowly the hands of the big clock approached the hour of five.
The appointment must have been made long ago by the man now dead—weeks ago, when he was still abroad; for the letter, I recollected, had been written on board the liner between Naples and London. But the principal point which puzzled me was the reason why the dead man’s letter should be delivered in such secrecy.
A man with a red tie is very easily distinguishable, and I flatter myself that I possess a very keen eyesight; yet though minute after minute went by till it was already a quarter-past the hour, still no man answering the description given by the late Mr Arnold put in an appearance.
Presently, on the opposite platform, the express from Plymouth to Bristol came in; and suspecting that he might arrive by it, I dashed up the stairs, two steps at a time, and across the footbridge. When halfway down the stairs I halted, for I could see all over the up-platform.
Few passengers had alighted, but among them I instantly discerned a man wearing a cravat of scarlet satin. He was smartly dressed in a grey lounge-suit, and in his coat he wore a pink carnation. In his hand was an old-fashioned black ebony cane with silver knob.
He was standing looking up and down the platform, as though in search of somebody. Therefore I sped down the remaining stairs and quickly approached him, though I had not seen his face distinctly.