The guard of the train was a tried
servant of the company--a man who had worked for twenty-two years
without a 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