The Mystery of Lincoln's Inn Part 52

"Quite so. I'll be here early in the morning."

Gilbert could not get to sleep easily that night. He was possessed by a feeling of intense excitement; but at last he fell into a restless slumber. It seemed to him that he had just closed his eyes when he was awakened by a loud knocking at his door.

"What is it?" he cried.

"It's Hankey. I must see you at once. Most urgent!"

Gilbert sprang out of bed instantly, and admitted the detective.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

"Sorry to disturb you so unceremoniously," said Hankey, "but it is necessary. I bring you unexpected news of supreme moment. Please dress, and while you are dressing I will tell you of a very startling development in the Russell affair."

"Is the news good or bad?"

"Good, I think; but time alone will disclose that. But please dress as quickly as you can, for you will have to go on a journey immediately. I have taken the liberty of ordering something for you to eat, and it should be here in a minute or two. You have just half an hour in which to catch the train you must travel by."

"What is the news?" asked Gilbert, going on dressing all the while.

"Well, last night, after I left you, I went to my office, late as it was, and I found one of my subordinates waiting for me. It was the man whose duty it was to shadow Russell. He reported that he had kept sight of him until he went into his own house. My man then hung about, and after some time, a conveyance drove up, into which presently Russell, his wife and child got. He followed them to the railway depot, and finally saw them depart in the Northern Pacific Express for Winnipeg."

"Gone!" exclaimed Gilbert; "and with a start of half-a-day! And James Russell leaves St. Paul the very day I arrive. That's curious. Had he got warning? But how?"

"Perhaps he saw you in the streets yesterday--you were about a good deal, were you not?"

"Yes; that may be it."

"It does not matter much, anyhow; the fact remains that he went away last night."

"And I must go after him at once. That's what you mean?"

"That's part of it; but there is more to tell you, much more. For, this morning, about forty minutes ago--oh, I lost no time, you will perceive--one of my men who has to be on duty all night at my office, came to my house and woke me up. He was aware Russell was on board the Northern Pacific Express going to Winnipeg last night, and he had come hot-foot to show me an early edition of the _Pioneer Press_--that's our leading paper--in which there is a long account of a dreadful accident to this very express. It had collided with a freight train, both trains being wrecked and smashed to pieces. Many of the pa.s.sengers have been killed, and most of the survivors are badly injured."

"And Russell?" Gilbert inquired breathlessly.

"He is not in the list of the dead; his name appears amongst those whose injuries are probably fatal. This is why I am hurrying you up. If you wish to see him alive, you must catch the first train. Now, do you see?

Was not my knocking you up in this way justified?"

"Yes, indeed. I am grateful to you for your zeal. How far up the line was the accident?"

"A few miles south of Glyndon. You can be there in a comparatively short time."

"I think I should like you to come with me," said Gilbert, after a brief silence; "that is, if you are disengaged."

"I can manage to come all right, and I should like to know the end; though it's possible the man may recover. On the other hand, if he knows he is certain to die, there's just a chance he may be willing to own up and make rest.i.tution, if that's in his power."

"A death-bed confession! Now, I should say," remarked Gilbert, "Russell is the last man on earth to make one."

But now there appeared a waiter with a tray on which was some breakfast, and the conversation stopped.

Ten minutes later, Gilbert and Hankey were speeding northwards on the Northern Pacific to the scene of the collision, where they arrived in due course. On the way up, every one was talking of the appalling disaster. Many in the train were relatives of the victims, and the whole atmosphere was charged with grief and sorrow. Gilbert Eversleigh was too young and too sensitive not to sympathize with and share these feelings.

They made such an impression on him that the vengeance he cherished, and the hatred he felt for Silwood were decidedly modified, though he was scarcely aware of it himself.

The express stopped some fifty yards away from the spot where the collision had taken place. When Gilbert and the detective alighted, they saw an enormous crowd had already gathered together, large numbers having flocked in from the surrounding country. For the most part, it was a quiet and silent crowd. The Shadow of Death lay heavy upon it; here and there, however, were little groups weeping and sobbing and wringing their hands. In the midst of one stood a woman, suddenly crazed, who alternately screamed and laughed.

The scene was such, the circ.u.mstances were such, that they could not fail to make an ineffaceable impression on Gilbert's mind.

It was an unparalleled scene of destruction.

In the centre was the wreck of the two trains lying on the torn and twisted rails. The engines were piled high in the middle, with their colossal frames seamed, cracked, broken, burnt, and bent into queer shapes. Some of the coaches and carriages of the ill-fated express had been smashed into matchwood, others lay about in large pieces and dislocated sections, and the whole formed a confusion of wood, gla.s.s, and other materials, rendered more terrible from the fact that fire had swept its destroying torch over a large part of it.

And it was whispered there were bodies, or what had once been bodies, lying somewhere in that chaos!

Gangs of railroad men were struggling to bring some sort of order into it, but their progress was necessarily slow. Now and again a charred and blackened object, which had lost all semblance to anything human, was dug up and carried away.

On one side of the wreck two large tents had been erected: one was used as a mortuary, to which the dead were carried; the other served as a hospital for the injured and wounded, where they were tended by doctors from the vicinity, who had volunteered their services.

It was to the hospital tent that Gilbert and Hankey directed their steps, but they experienced considerable difficulty in gaining admission. However, at last they were allowed in, and a doctor, of whom they inquired, told them James Russell was still alive, was indeed likely to live for two days or perhaps longer, but that the nature of the injuries he had received made his recovery impossible. He was quite conscious, and knew he was dying.

"He would be glad to see some one he knows," added the doctor.

"How are his wife and child?"

"Both are injured, but not seriously. I have not told them of Russell's condition."

"Is there any objection, doctor," asked Gilbert, "to my speaking to him at once?"

"None at all, I think," replied the physician, and he led them to the pallet on which lay Russell, his head and shoulders swathed in bandages, and his face, where visible, extraordinarily pinched and white. The false moustache which he had worn as part of his disguise was gone, the paint had been washed from his cheeks, and Gilbert had no difficulty whatever in identifying Cooper Silwood in "James Russell."

"It is he," he whispered to Hankey.

Hankey peered into the face.

"He is now more like that photograph you showed me," said Hankey beneath his breath to Gilbert.

Gilbert went and stood over Silwood, and looked him in the eyes. The dying man evinced no surprise at seeing him, but returned Gilbert's gaze calmly. He was the first to speak.

"Gilbert Eversleigh," he said in a queer voice, that had no weakness in it. "I expected you to come, but not so soon. How is it you are here so quickly? The telegram I sent by the doctor to you at the Merchants'

Hotel was despatched only two hours ago."

"You sent me a telegram!" said Gilbert, astonished, but not so much so as not to note Silwood knew he had been stopping at the Merchants'. "I have not received it. The reason I am here is, I was aware you were on board the express, and hearing of the accident, I came at once on the chance of speaking to you."

"You knew I was on the express?"