They told me that he and a tall
gentleman (whom I recognized as MacCoy) had gone off together, and that
he had left the lodgings and taken his things with him. The landlady had
heard them give several directions to the cabman, ending with Euston
Station, and she had accidentally overheard the tall gentleman saying
something about Manchester. She believed that that was their
destination. “A glance at the time-table showed me that the most likely train was at
five, though there was another at 4.35 which they might have caught. I
had only time to get the later one, but found no sign of them either at
the depôt or in the train. They must have gone on by the earlier one, so
I determined to follow them to Manchester and search for them in the
hotels there. One last appeal to my brother by all that he owed to my
mother might even now be the salvation of him. My nerves were
overstrung, and I lit a cigar to steady them. At that moment, just as
the train was moving off, the door of my compartment was flung open, and
there were MacCoy and my brother on the platform. “They were both disguised, and with good reason, for they knew that the
London police were after them. MacCoy had a great Astrakhan collar drawn
up, so that only his eyes and nose were showing. My brother was dressed
like a woman, with a black veil half down his face, but of course it did
not deceive me for an instant, nor would it have done so even if I had
not known that he had often used such a dress before. I started up, and
as I did so MacCoy recognized me. He said something, the conductor
slammed the door, and they were shown into the next compartment. I tried
to stop the train so as to follow them, but the wheels were already
moving, and it was too late. “When we stopped at Willesden, I instantly changed my carriage. It
appears that I was not seen to do so, which is not surprising, as the
station was crowded with people. MacCoy, of course, was expecting me,
and he had spent the time between Euston and Willesden in saying all he
could to harden my brother’s heart and set him against me. That is what
I fancy, for I had never found him so impossible to soften or to move. I
tried this way and I tried that; I pictured his future in an English
gaol; I described the sorrow of his mother when I came back with the
news; I said everything to touch his heart, but all to no purpose. He
sat there with a fixed sneer upon his handsome face, while every now and
then Sparrow MacCoy would throw in a taunt at me, or some word of
encouragement to hold my brother to his resolutions. “‘Why don’t you run a Sunday-school?’ he would say to me, and then, in
the same breath: ‘He thinks you have no will of your own. He thinks you
are just the baby brother and that he can lead you where he likes. He’s
only just finding out that you are a man as well as he.’

“It was those words of his which set me talking bitterly. We had left
Willesden, you understand, for all this took some time. My temper got
the better of me, and for the first time in my life I let my brother see
the rough side of me. Perhaps it would have been better had I done so
earlier and more often. “‘A man!’ said I. ‘Well, I’m glad to have your friend’s assurance of it,
for no one would suspect it to see you like a boarding-school missy. I
don’t suppose in all this country there is a more contemptible-looking
creature than you are as you sit there with that Dolly pinafore upon
you.’ He coloured up at that, for he was a vain man, and he winced from
ridicule. “‘It’s only a dust-cloak,’ said he, and he slipped it off. ‘One has to
throw the coppers off one’s scent, and I had no other way to do it.’ He
took his toque off with the veil attached, and he put both it and the
cloak into his brown bag. ‘Anyway, I don’t need to wear it until the
conductor comes round,’ said he. “‘Nor then, either,’ said I, and taking the bag I slung it with all my
force out of the window. ‘Now,’ said I, ‘you’ll never make a Mary Jane
of yourself while I can help it. If nothing but that disguise stands
between you and a gaol, then to gaol you shall go.’

“That was the way to manage him. I felt my advantage at once. His supple
nature was one which yielded to roughness far more readily than to
entreaty. He flushed with shame, and his eyes filled with tears. But
MacCoy saw my advantage also, and was determined that I should not
pursue it. “‘He’s my pard, and you shall not bully him,’ he cried. “‘He’s my brother, and you shall not ruin him,’ said I. ‘I believe a
spell of prison is the very best way of keeping you apart, and you shall
have it, or it will be no fault of mine.’

“‘Oh, you would squeal, would you?’ he cried, and in an instant he
whipped out his revolver. I sprang for his hand, but saw that I was too
late, and jumped aside. At the same instant he fired, and the bullet
which would have struck me passed through the heart of my unfortunate
brother. “He dropped without a groan upon the floor of the compartment, and
MacCoy and I, equally horrified, knelt at each side of him, trying to
bring back some signs of life. MacCoy still held the loaded revolver in
his hand, but his anger against me and my resentment towards him had
both for the moment been swallowed up in this sudden tragedy. It was he
who first realized the situation. The train was for some reason going
very slowly at the moment, and he saw his opportunity for escape. In an
instant he had the door open, but I was as quick as he, and jumping upon
him the two of us fell off the footboard and rolled in each other’s arms
down a steep embankment. At the bottom I struck my head against a stone,
and I remembered nothing more. When I came to myself I was lying among
some low bushes, not far from the railroad track, and somebody was
bathing my head with a wet handkerchief. It was Sparrow MacCoy. “‘I guess I couldn’t leave you,’ said he. ‘I didn’t want to have the
blood of two of you on my hands in one day. You loved your brother, I’ve
no doubt; but you didn’t love him a cent more than I loved him, though
you’ll say that I took a queer way to show it. Anyhow, it seems a mighty
empty world now that he is gone, and I don’t care a continental whether
you give me over to the hangman or not.’

“He had turned his ankle in the fall, and there we sat, he with his
useless foot, and I with my throbbing head, and we talked and talked
until gradually my bitterness began to soften and to turn into something
like sympathy. What was the use of revenging his death upon a man who
was as much stricken by that death as I was? And then, as my wits
gradually returned, I began to realize also that I could do nothing
against MacCoy which would not recoil upon my mother and myself. How
could we convict him without a full account of my brother’s career being
made public—the very thing which of all others we wished to avoid? It
was really as much our interest as his to cover the matter up, and from
being an avenger of crime I found myself changed to a conspirator
against Justice.