McKnight is always a sympathizer with the early worm. It was late when he appeared. Perhaps, like myself, he had not slept well. But he was apparently cheerful enough, and he made a better breakfast than I did. It was one o'clock before we got to Baltimore. After a half hour's wait we took a local for M-, the station near which the cinematograph picture had been taken.
We passed the scene of the wreck, McKnight with curiosity, I with a sickening sense of horror. Back in the fields was the little farm-house where Alison West and I had intended getting coffee, and winding away from the track, maple trees shading it on each side, was the lane where we had stopped to rest, and where I had - it seemed presumption beyond belief now - where I had tried to comfort her by patting her hand.
We got out at M-, a small place with two or three houses and a general store. The station was a one-roomed affair, with a railed-off place at the end, where a scale, a telegraph instrument and a chair constituted the entire furnishing.
The station agent was a young man with a shrewd face. He stopped hammering a piece of wood over a hole in the floor to ask where we wanted to go.
"We're not going," said McKnight, "we're coming. Have a cigar?"
The agent took it with an inquiring glance, first at it and then at us.
"We want to ask you a few questions," began McKnight, perching himself on the railing and kicking the chair forward for me. "Or, rather, this gentleman does."
"Wait a minute," said the agent, glancing through the window. "There's a hen in that crate choking herself to death."
He was back in a minute, and took up his position near a sawdust-filled box that did duty as a cuspidor.
"Now fire away," he said.
"In the first place," I began, "do you remember the day the Washington Flier was wrecked below here?"
"Do I!" he said. "Did Jonah remember the whale?"
"Were you on the platform here when the first section passed?" "I was."
"Do you recall seeing a man hanging to the platform of the last car?"
"There was no one hanging there when she passed here," he said with conviction. "I watched her out of sight."
"Did you see anything that morning of a man about my size, carrying a small grip, and wearing dark clothes and a derby hat?" I asked eagerly.
McKnight was trying to look unconcerned, but I was frankly anxious. It was clear that the man had jumped somewhere in the mile of track just beyond.
"Well, yes, I did." The agent cleared his throat. "When the smash came the operator at MX sent word along the wire, both ways. I got it here, and I was pretty near crazy, though I knew it wasn't any fault of mine.
"I was standing on the track looking down, for I couldn't leave the office, when a young fellow with light hair limped up to me and asked me what that smoke was over there.
"'That's what's left of the Washington Flier,' I said, 'and I guess there's souls going up in that smoke.'
"'Do you mean the first section?' he said, getting kind of greenish-yellow.
"'That's what I mean,' I said; 'split to kindling wood because Rafferty, on the second section, didn't want to be late.'
"He put his hand out in front of him, and the satchel fell with a bang.
"'My God!' he said, and dropped right on the track in a heap.
"I got him into the station and he came around, but he kept on groaning something awful. He'd sprained his ankle, and when he got a little better I drove him over in Carter's milk wagon to the Carter place, and I reckon he stayed there a spell."
"That's all, is it?" I asked.
"That's all - or, no, there's something else. About noon that day one of the Carter twins came down with a note from him asking me to send a long-distance message to some one in Washington."
"To whom?" I asked eagerly. "I reckon I've forgot the name, but the message was that this fellow - Sullivan was his name - was at M-, and if the man had escaped from the wreck would he come to see him."
"He wouldn't have sent that message to me," I said to McKnight, rather crestfallen. "He'd have every object in keeping out of my way."
"There might be reasons," McKnight observed judicially. "He might not have found the papers then."
"Was the name Blakeley?" I asked.
"It might have been - I can't say. But the man wasn't there, and there was a lot of noise. I couldn't hear well. Then in half an hour down came the other twin to say the gentleman was taking on awful and didn't want the message sent."
"He's gone, of course?"
"Yes. Limped down here in about three days and took the noon train for the city."
It seemed a certainty now that our man, having hurt himself somewhat in his jump, had stayed quietly in the farm-house until he was able to travel. But, to be positive, we decided to visit the Carter place.
I gave the station agent a five-dollar bill, which he rolled up with a couple of others and stuck in his pocket. I turned as we got to a bend in the road, and he was looking curiously after us.
It was not until we had climbed the hill and turned onto the road to the Carter place that I realized where we were going. Although we approached it from another direction, I knew the farm-house at once. It was the one where Alison West and I had breakfasted nine days before. With the new restraint between us, I did not tell McKnight. I wondered afterward if he had suspected it. I saw him looking hard at the gate-post which had figured in one of our mysteries, but he asked no questions. Afterward he grew almost taciturn, for him, and let me do most of the talking.
We opened the front gate of the Carter place and went slowly up the walk. Two ragged youngsters, alike even to freckles and squints, were playing in the yard.
"Is your mother around?" I asked.
"In the front room. Walk in," they answered in identical tones.
As we got to the porch we heard voices, and stopped. I knocked, but the people within, engaged in animated, rather one-sided conversation, did not answer.
"'In the front room. Walk in,'" quoted McKnight, and did so.
In the stuffy farm parlor two people were sitting. One, a pleasant-faced woman with a checked apron, rose, somewhat embarrassed, to meet us. She did not know me, and I was thankful. But our attention was riveted on a little man who was sitting before a table, writing busily. It was Hotchkiss!
He got up when he saw us, and had the grace to look uncomfortable.
"Such an interesting case," he said nervously, "I took the liberty - "
"Look here," said McKnight suddenly, "did you make any inquiries at the station?"
"A few," he confessed. "I went to the theater last night - I felt the need of a little relaxation - and the sight of a picture there, a cinematograph affair, started a new line of thought. Probably the same clue brought you gentlemen. I learned a good bit from the station agent."
"The son-of-a-gun," said McKnight. "And you paid him, I suppose?"
"I gave him five dollars," was the apologetic answer. Mrs. Carter, hearing sounds of strife in the yard, went out, and Hotchkiss folded up his papers.
"I think the identity of the man is established," he said. "What number of hat do you wear, Mr. Blakeley?"
"Seven and a quarter," I replied.
"Well, it's only piling up evidence," he said cheerfully.
"On the night of the murder you wore light gray silk underclothing, with the second button of the shirt missing. Your hat had 'L. B.' in gilt letters inside, and there was a very minute hole in the toe of one black sock."
"Hush," McKnight protested. "If word gets to Mrs. Klopton that Mr. Blakeley was wrecked, or robbed, or whatever it was, with a button missing and a hole in one sock, she'll retire to the Old Ladies' Home. I've heard her threaten it."
Mr. Hotchkiss was without a sense of humor. He regarded McKnight gravely and went on:
"I've been up in the room where the man lay while he was unable to get away, and there is nothing there. But I found what may be a possible clue in the dust heap.
"Mrs. Carter tells me that in unpacking his grip the other day she took out of the coat of the pajamas some pieces of a telegram. As I figure it, the pajamas were his own. He probably had them on when he effected the exchange."
I nodded assent. All I had retained of my own clothing was the suit of pajamas I was wearing and my bath-robe.
"Therefore the telegram was his, not yours. I have pieces here, but some are missing. I am not discouraged, however."
He spread out some bits of yellow paper, and we bent over them curiously. It was something like this:
Man with p- Get- Br-
We spelled it out slowly.
"Now," Hotchkiss announced, "I make it something like this: The 'p.-' is one of two things, pistol - you remember the little pearl-handled affair belonging to the murdered man - or it is pocket-book. I am inclined to the latter view, as the pocket-book had been disturbed and the pistol had not."
I took the piece of paper from the table and scrawled four words on it.
"Now," I said, rearranging them, "it happens, Mr. Hotchkiss, that I found one of these pieces of the telegram on the train. I thought it had been dropped by some one else, you see, but that's immaterial.
Arranged this way it almost makes sense. Fill out that 'p.-' with the rest of the word, as I imagine it, and it makes 'papers,' and add this scrap and you have:
"'Man with papers (in) lower ten, car seven. Get (them).'
McKnight slapped Hotchkiss on the back. "You're a trump," he said. "Br- is Bronson, of course. It's almost too easy. You see, Mr. Blakeley here engaged lower ten, but found it occupied by the man who was later murdered there. The man who did the thing was a friend of Bronson's, evidently, and in trying to get the papers we have the motive for the crime."
"There are still some things to be explained." Mr. Hotchkiss wiped his glasses and put them on. "For one thing, Mr. Blakeley, I am puzzled by that bit of chain."
I did not glance at McKnight. I felt that the hand, with which I was gathering up the bits of torn paper were shaking. It seemed to me that this astute little man was going to drag in the girl in spite of me.