Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1878-11-22

SHADowED FORTH.
Continued from yes crday)

By and by the train slackened speed
We were approaching station at which
we were timed to stop. Before the train
had come fairly to stand my carriage
door was opened and was on the plat
| form. No one had time to leave the COM
partment next to mine; no one did leave
it. tried the door; it was locked; l
| peered through the windows; the COM
| partment was empty.
| made my way to the guard of the
train. 1.-The middle compartment of that
carriage is empty and locked, said but
there was certainly some one in it as we
| came through the tunnel just now"
For moment he looked startled.
Then he held up his lamp and looked at
The number painted on the door. IN 49,"
he said. as he read il out. "No, sir: no
one was in that carriage as we came
through the tunnel. Noaone has been in
it since we left B.. ] locked il there
myself; and as you see, it is locked still"
/ did not care to tell the man what
had seen, so merely said that supposed
| must have been mistaken, and left him.
Two minutes later. as l was standing at
the refreshment bar, he came TO me with
mysterious confidential air. about that
carriage. sir he whispered. II may tell
you there is something uncommon about
it, though it would not do to tell every
body so. It's the very carriage that Mr..
Imray was murdered in. M 9S---that's
The number. The middle compartment it
was that he was found In. l was the
guard that was examined at the inquest.
You have not forgotten the case, Sirs'
Forgottenp Should ever forgetP /
don know how | answered the man, but
he must have seen that his words had
moved me- ''And now," he went on,
whenever see M SO running as part of
my train, always make point Of lock-
ing the middle compartment, and il any,
body wants to get into it tell them it's
engaged. 1t seems to me as If couldn't
bear to see anybody travelling in it.n
knowing what know about it."
slipped coin into the mans hand.
Have my traps got out OF the train"
said; 81 shall go no further to-
night"
Was there nothing more than a coinci-
dence In all thisp kept asking myself.
at is-it must be something more than
blind chance,"pI said to myself. The
more | turned the matter over in my
mind. the more settled became my convie-
tlon that there was something more yet to
come, that In due time the riddle would
be read to me--the mystery solved.
But when weeks and months passed
away, and nothing happened; when no
sign or token was vouchsafed me, and
when time had in some measure blunted
the sharp edge OF memory, l. began to
think that ] had allowed my Imagination
to outstrip my common sense.
Finally, / came to believe that had
never seen the shadow 10 the tunnel at all,
but that the fact of thinking that had
seen such thing was pretty good proof
that my mental equipoise was not. quite
SO finely adjusted as had foncly imag-
ined ii to be. Had laid the case before
my doctor, his verdict would have been
that | had oyerworked myself, and that
all needed was rest and change OF scene.
About this time | received commits
sion to. paint a picture illustrative Of cer-
tain phase OF low class London life. In
my search for types and faces to embody
in my picture, found myself after night
fall on several occasions In some of the
lowest neghborhoods. and among some
Of the vilest dens that the metropolis had
at that time reason to be ashamed of. /
had several tacquaintances among the Po-
lice, and under their sheftering wings |
visited places into which it would not have
been safe for me to venture alone. sys..#
Said one OF these acquaintances. Ser
geant Smith, to me one night, after we
had been the round of several queer
places; '.Theres ottenia rum lot in here,
Sir, though mostly foreigners. Suppose
we finish, up by taking q peep at them"
| The place he spoke of was mean and
dingy-looking cafe. situated in mean and
dirty street somewhere in the purlieus of
Soho and Leicester squares. ll 9-
We pushed open the swing-d door and
went in, and at once could have fancied
was hundreds Of miles from London,
| and that had lost myself in some low
neighborhood of the Quarter Latin. But
with the place and the people found there
have nothing here to door, rather,
have to do with one person only. l did
not see him when first went in, nor till
after had sat down and ordered a cup of
coffee But as soon as did see him. or
rather. as soon as caught sight of the
| shadow reflected on the wall beyond him,
I started to my feet with an exclamation
that turned dozen suspicious pairs of
| eyes on me in q moment. On the coarse
| whtewashed wall of this mean cafe be-
| held for the third time the sinister outline
which had haunted me twice already
once in my bedroom at the inn on the
Dove, and once in the tunnel, as was
travelling in the carriage in which poor
| Tmray had been murdered. Unbidden and
unsought by me, for the third time, there
it was. as clearly defined as though il were
the same shadow outlined in charcoal TO
The most minute particular that | had seen
| before.
1t was the shadow and not the man that
| in the first instance drew my eyes to the
remote corner of the room which they oc-
cupied, apart from any one, but my gaze
now turned involuntarily to the man him.
self. Twas filled with sort Of dread cu.
riositv--a feeling which could not anal
yze had possession OF me. Who and
what manner. of man was this that had
been so strangely singled out before me
from all the other millions of living unit.
scattered over the face of the earth ? Wa:
the riddle going to be read for me 1t last