I have the
papers on a side-table here, so if you will be good enough to sign them
now, we can have the patient removed in the morning.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

So that was my visit to Sir Thomas Rossiter, the famous beetle-hunter,
and that was also my first step upon the ladder of success, for Lady
Rossiter and Lord Linchmere have proved to be staunch friends, and they
have never forgotten my association with them in the time of their need. Sir Thomas is out and said to be cured, but I still think that if I
spent another night at Delamere Court, I should be inclined to lock my
door upon the inside. THE MAN WITH THE WATCHES


There are many who will still bear in mind the singular circumstances
which, under the heading of the Rugby Mystery, filled many columns of
the daily Press in the spring of the year 1892. Coming as it did at a
period of exceptional dulness, it attracted perhaps rather more
attention than it deserved, but it offered to the public that mixture of
the whimsical and the tragic which is most stimulating to the popular
imagination. Interest drooped, however, when, after weeks of fruitless
investigation, it was found that no final explanation of the facts was
forthcoming, and the tragedy seemed from that time to the present to
have finally taken its place in the dark catalogue of inexplicable and
unexpiated crimes. A recent communication (the authenticity of which
appears to be above question) has, however, thrown some new and clear
light upon the matter. Before laying it before the public it would be as
well, perhaps, that I should refresh their memories as to the singular
facts upon which this commentary is founded. These facts were briefly as
follows:—

At five o’clock on the evening of the 18th of March in the year already
mentioned a train left Euston Station for Manchester. It was a rainy,
squally day, which grew wilder as it progressed, so it was by no means
the weather in which any one would travel who was not driven to do so by
necessity. The train, however, is a favourite one among Manchester
business men who are returning from town, for it does the journey in
four hours and twenty minutes, with only three stoppages upon the way. In spite of the inclement evening it was, therefore, fairly well filled
upon the occasion of which I speak. The guard of the train was a tried
servant of the company—a man who had worked for twenty-two years without
blemish or complaint. His name was John Palmer. The station clock was upon the stroke of five, and the guard was about
to give the customary signal to the engine-driver when he observed two
belated passengers hurrying down the platform. The one was an
exceptionally tall man, dressed in a long black overcoat with Astrakhan
collar and cuffs. I have already said that the evening was an inclement
one, and the tall traveller had the high, warm collar turned up to
protect his throat against the bitter March wind. He appeared, as far as
the guard could judge by so hurried an inspection, to be a man between
fifty and sixty years of age, who had retained a good deal of the vigour
and activity of his youth. In one hand he carried a brown leather
Gladstone bag. His companion was a lady, tall and erect, walking with a
vigorous step which outpaced the gentleman beside her. She wore a long,
fawn-coloured dust-cloak, a black, close-fitting toque, and a dark veil
which concealed the greater part of her face. The two might very well
have passed as father and daughter. They walked swiftly down the line of
carriages, glancing in at the windows, until the guard, John Palmer,
overtook them. “Now, then, sir, look sharp, the train is going,” said he. “First-class,” the man answered. The guard turned the handle of the nearest door. In the carriage, which
he had opened, there sat a small man with a cigar in his mouth. His
appearance seems to have impressed itself upon the guard’s memory, for
he was prepared, afterwards, to describe or to identify him. He was a
man of thirty-four or thirty-five years of age, dressed in some grey
material, sharp-nosed, alert, with a ruddy, weather-beaten face, and a
small, closely cropped black beard. He glanced up as the door was
opened. The tall man paused with his foot upon the step. “This is a smoking compartment. The lady dislikes smoke,” said he,
looking round at the guard. “All right! Here you are, sir!” said John Palmer. He slammed the door of
the smoking carriage, opened that of the next one, which was empty, and
thrust the two travellers in. At the same moment he sounded his whistle
and the wheels of the train began to move. The man with the cigar was at
the window of his carriage, and said something to the guard as he rolled
past him, but the words were lost in the bustle of the departure. Palmer
stepped into the guard’s van, as it came up to him, and thought no more
of the incident. Twelve minutes after its departure the train reached Willesden Junction,
where it stopped for a very short interval. An examination of the
tickets has made it certain that no one either joined or left it at this
time, and no passenger was seen to alight upon the platform. At 5.14 the
journey to Manchester was resumed, and Rugby was reached at 6.50, the
express being five minutes late. At Rugby the attention of the station officials was drawn to the fact
that the door of one of the first-class carriages was open. An
examination of that compartment, and of its neighbour, disclosed a
remarkable state of affairs. The smoking carriage in which the short, red-faced man with the black
beard had been seen was now empty. Save for a half-smoked cigar, there
was no trace whatever of its recent occupant. The door of this carriage
was fastened. In the next compartment, to which attention had been
originally drawn, there was no sign either of the gentleman with the
Astrakhan collar or of the young lady who accompanied him. All three
passengers had disappeared. On the other hand, there was found upon the
floor of this carriage—the one in which the tall traveller and the lady
had been—a young man, fashionably dressed and of elegant appearance. He
lay with his knees drawn up, and his head resting against the further
door, an elbow upon either seat. A bullet had penetrated his heart and
his death must have been instantaneous. No one had seen such a man enter
the train, and no railway ticket was found in his pocket, neither were
there any markings upon his linen, nor papers nor personal property
which might help to identify him. Who he was, whence he had come, and
how he had met his end were each as great a mystery as what had occurred
to the three people who had started an hour and a half before from
Willesden in those two compartments. I have said that there was no personal property which might help to
identify him, but it is true that there was one peculiarity about this
unknown young man which was much commented upon at the time.