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Updated: June 18, 2025
He was positive that I remained alone in that compartment all the way from London to Clayborough. He was ready to take his oath that Mr. Dwerrihouse was neither in that carriage with me, nor in any compartment of that train.
John Dwerrihouse had embezzled seventy-five thousand pounds of the company's money, yet told me that he carried that sum upon his person! Were ever facts so strangely incongruous, so difficult to reconcile? How should he have ventured again into the light of day? How dared he show himself along the line? Above all, what had he been doing throughout those mysterious three months of disappearance?
"You say that Mr. Dwerrihouse alighted at Blackwater, and that he was in possession of a private key. Are you sure that he had not alighted by means of that key before the guard came round for the tickets?" "I am quite positive that he did not leave the carriage till the train had fairly entered the station, and the other Blackwater passengers alighted.
Dwerrihouse was speaking, and, on putting my head out of the window, I could see the station some few hundred yards ahead. There was another train before us blocking the way, and the guard was making use of the delay to collect the Blackwater tickets. I had scarcely ascertained our position when the ruddy-faced official appeared at our carriage door. "Tickets, sir!" said he.
"It was a near relation of your own, Mrs. Jelf." "Then I am more puzzled than ever," replied my hostess. "Pray tell me who it was." "It was no less a person than your cousin, Mr. John Dwerrihouse." Jonathan Jelf laid down his knife and fork. Mrs. Jelf looked at me in a strange, startled way, and said never a word.
He was positive that I remained alone in that compartment all the way from London to Clayborough. He was ready to take his oath that Dwerrihouse was neither in that carriage with me nor in any compartment of that train.
"One last question, then," interposed Jelf, with a sort of desperation. "If this gentleman's fellow-traveller had been Mr. John Dwerrihouse, and he had been sitting in the corner next the door by which you took the tickets, could you have failed to see and recognize him?" "No, sir; it would have been quite impossible." "And you are certain you did not see him?"
Dwerrihouse disappeared." "I never even heard that he had disappeared till I came back!" "That must remain to be proved," said the chairman. "I shall at once put this matter in the hands of the police. In the meanwhile, Mr. Raikes, being myself a magistrate and used to deal with these cases, I advise you to offer no resistance but to confess while confession may yet do you service.
"Did you, or did you not, meet Mr. John Dwerrihouse at Blackwater station? The charge brought against you is either true or false. If true, you will do well to throw yourself upon the mercy of the board and make full confession of all that you know." The under-secretary wrung his hands in an agony of helpless terror. "I was away!" he cried. "I was two hundred miles away at the time!
Blackwater!" cried the porter, running along the platform beside us, as we glided into the station. Mr. Dwerrihouse pulled out his deed-box, put his travelling-cap in his pocket, resumed his hat, took down his umbrella, and prepared to be gone. "Many thanks, Mr. Langford, for your society," he said, with old-fashioned courtesy. "I wish you a good evening."
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