CHAPTER XXIVA PRETTY KETTLE OF FISH!
Here was a pretty kettle of fish! For the first desperate moment wild thoughts of pulling the connecting cord and stopping the train peeped in my brain like the mad faces seen at the windows of an asylum. But as the mad faces vanish at the return of the keeper, so in the next moment wiser counsels prevailed and I was considering the situation with the seriousness which the facts demanded.
And first I had to ask myself what could be the red-bearded passenger’s motive for booking to London, and then suddenly changing his plans and getting out at an unimportant country station? Could it be that he was indeed James Mullen, and that he was at his old tricks of covering up his tracks?
If he had reason to believe himself shadowed from Southend, he could have done nothing wiser than to alight at Hornchurch. A detective who suspected the traveller’s identity andhad watched him enter the train at one end would in all probability telegraph to the police to meet the train at the other end and effect an arrest. By getting out at Hornchurch, Mullen would not only dodge this possible danger, but would, so to speak, force his adversary to come out into the open, for though shadowing can be carried on with small risk of detection in London, where the person so engaged is only a unit in a crowd, a shadower cannot possibly hope to escape notice in a country village.
Altogether I had to admit that, even if I had seen the red-bearded man get out at Hornchurch in time for me to follow him, I should have been uncertain how to act. Probably not more than two passengers would be likely to leave the train at such a place, and it would be comparatively easy for a man like Mullen to decide who had legitimate business in the neighbourhood and who had not. Had I been one of these passengers I should have brought myself under his direct notice, and this I was anxious to avoid, as it was quite possible that, in order to obtain evidence of his identity, circumstances might render it necessary for me to come in personal contact with him.
So far as I knew, he was at that time unaware of my connection with Green and Quickly, whose action in constituting themselves private detectives he might reasonably suppose had been taken upon their own responsibility, and in the hope of enriching themselves by obtaining the offered reward.
Knowing, as I did, how long was Mullen’s arm and how merciless his vengeance, I could not help thinking that had he been aware of my connection with the two men I have mentioned, and of my intentions towards himself, he would before this have made an attempt to bestow upon me some such unmistakable mark of his personal attention as he had bestowed upon them. That no such attempt had been made argued—so at least I tried to persuade myself—that I had been lucky enough to escape his notice and the honour of being entered upon his black list. To have got out at Hornchurch and denounced the red-bearded man as Captain Shannon, when I had no shred of actual evidence in support of my statement, and when it was more than possible he might be some one else, would not only render me ridiculous, but would mean trumping my own card by makingknown to the real Captain Shannon, as well as to the public generally, the enterprise upon which I was engaged.
All things considered, the incident which had prevented me from seeing the man I was shadowing leave the train at Hornchurch until it was too late to follow him was not an unmixed evil, for it was possible that had I been compelled to act upon the spur of the moment I might have adopted a course which I should afterwards have reason to regret.
While I had been coming to this conclusion the train had been trundling along towards the next station, and was already slowing off for a stoppage. If I were to take action I must do so immediately, and for the moment I found it difficult to decide whether it would be best to go on to London or to get out and make my way back to Hornchurch, in order to pursue inquiries about the red-bearded man and his movements.
If he were, as I suspected, James Mullen, the chances were that he had got out at Hornchurch, not because he had any business there, but to put a possible pursuer at fault. In that case he would go on to London—which was in allprobability his destination—by a later train, or it was possible that he might seek other means of reaching town than by the line on which he had set out.
And then, all in a moment, I recollected what I ought to have recollected at first,—that Hornchurch is but a half an hour’s walk from Romford, where there is a station on the Great Eastern railway.
Might it not be, I asked myself, that Mullen, knowing this, had got out at Hornchurch in order that he might walk to Romford, and thence continue his journey to town by another line? Such a manœuvre as this was just what one might expect from him, and I promptly decided to act upon the assumption that he had done so.
At Fenchurch Street I joined Grant, and told him in a few hurried words what had happened, and what were my suspicions.
“If Redbeard has got upon the Great Eastern line at Romford,” I said, “he can’t go farther than Liverpool Street, the terminus. He may of course ‘do’ us by getting out at some station immediately preceding the terminus, but that I must chance, and it’s not at all unlikelyhe may come on by an express that doesn’t stop at the intermediate stations. Anyhow, I’m going to cab it to Liverpool Street to watch all the Romford trains. You stay here—where you can’t be seen, of course—and keep an eye upon the other trains that come in. If you see Redbeard, shadow him, and wire me to the club when you’ve got any news. But remember Quickly and Green, and take care of yourself. Good-bye.”