is all. Stay—in the paper you have, look down the first money column and see if there is any reference to the Central and Suburban.”
“Yes, sir. ‘City and Suburbans, which after their late depression on the projected extension of the motor bus service, had been steadily creeping up on the abandonment of the scheme, and as a result of their own excellent traffic returns, suffered a heavy slump through the lamentable accident of Thursday night. The Deferred in particular at one time fell eleven points as it was felt that the possible dividend, with which rumour has of late been busy, was now out of the question.’ ”
“Yes; that is all. Now you can take the papers back. And let it be a warning to you, Parkinson, not to invest your savings in speculative railway deferreds.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir, I will endeavour to remember.” He lingered for a moment as he shook the file of papers level. “I may say, sir, that I have my eye on a small block of cottage property at Acton. But even cottage property scarcely seems safe from legislative depredation now, sir.”
The next day Mr. Carrados called on his brokers in the city. It is to be presumed that he got through his private business quicker than he expected, for after leaving Austin Friars he continued his journey to Holloway, where he found Hutchins at home and sitting morosely before his kitchen fire. Rightly assuming that his luxuriant car would involve him in a certain amount of public attention in Klondyke Street, the blind man dismissed it some distance from the house, and walked the rest of the way, guided by the almost imperceptible touch of Parkinson’s arm.
“Here is a gentleman to see you, father,” explained Miss Hutchins, who had come to the door. She divined the relative positions of the two visitors at a glance.
“Then why don’t you take him into the parlour?” grumbled the ex-driver. His face was a testimonial of hard work and general sobriety but at the moment one might hazard from his voice and manner that he had been drinking earlier in the day.
“I don’t think that the gentleman would be impressed by the difference between our parlour and our kitchen,” replied the girl quaintly, “and it is warmer here.”
“What’s the matter with the parlour now?” demanded her father sourly. “It was good enough for your mother and me. It used to be good enough for you.”
“There is nothing the matter with it, nor with the kitchen either.” She turned impassively to the two who had followed her along the narrow passage. “Will you go in, sir?”
“I don’t want to see no gentleman,” cried Hutchins noisily. “Unless”—his manner suddenly changed to one of pitiable anxiety—“unless you’re from the Company, sir, to—to——”
“No; I have come on Mr. Carlyle’s behalf,” replied Carrados, walking to a chair as though he moved by a kind of instinct.
Hutchins laughed his wry contempt.
“Mr. Carlyle!” he reiterated; “Mr. Carlyle! Fat lot of good he’s been. Why don’t he do something for his money?”
“He has,” replied Carrados, with imperturbable good-humour; “he has sent me. Now, I want to ask you a few questions.”
“A few questions!” roared the irate man. “Why, blast it, I have done nothing else but answer questions for a month. I didn’t pay Mr. Carlyle to ask me questions; I can get enough of that for nixes. Why don’t you go and ask Mr. Herbert Ananias Mead your few questions—then you might find out something.”
There was a slight movement by the door and Carrados knew that the girl had quietly left the room.
“You saw that, sir?” demanded the father, diverted to a new line of bitterness. “You saw that girl—my own daughter, that I’ve worked for all her life?”
“No,” replied Carrados.
“The girl that’s just gone out—she’s my daughter,” explained Hutchins.
“I know, but I did not see her. I see nothing. I am blind.”
“Blind!” exclaimed the old fellow, sitting up in startled wonderment. “You mean it, sir? You walk all right and you look at me as if you saw me. You’re kidding surely.”
“No,” smiled Carrados. “It’s quite right.”
“Then it’s a funny business, sir—you what are blind expecting to find something that those with their eyes couldn’t,” ruminated Hutchins sagely.
“There are things that you can’t see with your eyes, Hutchins.”
“Perhaps you are right, sir. Well, what is it you want to know?”
“Light a cigar first,” said the blind man, holding out his case and waiting until the various sounds told him that his host was smoking contentedly. “The train you were driving at the time of the accident was the six-twenty-seven from Notcliff. It stopped everywhere until it reached Lambeth Bridge, the chief London station of your line. There it became something of an express, and leaving Lambeth Bridge at seven-eleven, should not stop again until it fetched Swanstead on Thames, eleven miles out, at seven-thirty-four. Then it stopped on and off from Swanstead to Ingerfield, the terminus of that branch, which it reached at eight-five.”
Hutchins nodded, and then, remembering, said: “That’s right, sir.”
“That was your business all day—running between Notcliff and Ingerfield?”
“Yes, sir. Three journeys up and three down mostly.”
“With the same stops on all the down journeys?”
“No. The seven-eleven is the only one that does a run from the Bridge to Swanstead. You see, it is just on the close of the evening rush, as they call it. A good many late business gentlemen living at Swanstead use the seven-eleven regular. The other journeys we stop at every station to Lambeth Bridge, and then here and there beyond.”
“There are, of course, other trains doing exactly the same journey—a service, in fact?”
“Yes, sir. About six.”
“And do any of those—say, during the rush—do any of those run non-stop from Lambeth to Swanstead?”
Hutchins reflected a moment. All the choler and restlessness had melted out of the man’s face. He was again the excellent artisan, slow but capable and self-reliant.
“That I couldn’t definitely say, sir. Very few short-distance trains pass the junction, but some of those may. A guide would show us in a minute but I haven’t got one.”
“Never mind. You said at the inquest that it was no uncommon thing for you to be pulled up at the ‘stop’ signal east of Knight’s Cross Station. How often would that happen—only with the seven-eleven, mind.”
“Perhaps three times a week; perhaps twice.”
“The accident was on a Thursday. Have you noticed that you were pulled up oftener on a Thursday than on any other day?”
A smile crossed the driver’s face at the question.
