Uncanny Tales Part 9

"THE MAN WITH THE COUGH."

I am a German by birth and descent. My name is Schmidt. But by education I am quite as much an Englishman as a "Deutscher," and by affection much more the former. My life has been spent pretty equally between the two countries, and I flatter myself I speak both languages without any foreign accent.

I count England my headquarters now: it is "home" to me. But a few years ago I was resident in Germany, only going over to London now and then on business. I will not mention the town where I lived. It is unnecessary to do so, and in the peculiar experience I am about to relate I think real names of people and places are just as well, or better, avoided.

I was connected with a large and important firm of engineers. I had been bred up to the profession, and was credited with a certain amount of talent; and I was considered--and, with all modesty, I think I deserved the opinion--steady and reliable, so that I had already attained a fair position in the house, and was looked upon as a "rising man". But I was still young, and not quite so wise as I thought myself. I came very near once to making a great mess of a certain affair. It is this story which I am going to tell.

Our house went in largely for patents--rather too largely, some thought.

But the head partner's son was a bit of a genius in his way, and his father was growing old, and let Herr Wilhelm--Moritz we will call the family name--do pretty much as he chose. And on the whole Herr Wilhelm did well. He was cautious, and he had the benefit of the still greater caution and larger experience of Herr Gerhardt, the second partner in the firm.

Patents and the laws which regulate them are queer things to have to do with. No one who has not had personal experience of the complications that arise could believe how far these spread and how entangled they become. Great acuteness as well as caution is called for if you would guide your patent bark safely to port--and perhaps more than anything, a power of holding your tongue. I was no chatterbox, nor, when on a mission of importance, did I go about looking as if I were bursting with secrets, which is, in my opinion, almost as dangerous as revealing them. No one, to meet me on the journeys which it often fell to my lot to undertake, would have guessed that I had anything on my mind but an easy-going young fellow's natural interest in his surroundings, though many a time I have stayed awake through a whole night of railway travel if at all doubtful about my fellow-pa.s.sengers, or not dared to go to sleep in a hotel without a ready-loaded revolver by my pillow.

For now and then--though not through me--our secrets did ooze out. And if, as _has_ happened, they were secrets connected with Government orders or contracts, there was, or but for the exertion of the greatest energy and tact on the part of my superiors, there _would_ have been, to put it plainly, the devil to pay.

One morning--it was nearing the end of November--I was sent for to Herr Wilhelm's private room. There I found him and Herr Gerhardt before a table spread with papers covered with figures and calculations, and sheets of beautifully executed diagrams.

"Lutz," said Herr Wilhelm. He had known me from childhood, and often called me by the abbreviation of my Christian name, which is Ludwig, or Louis. "Lutz, we are going to confide to you a matter of extreme importance. You must be prepared to start for London to-morrow."

"All right, sir," I said, "I shall be ready."

"You will take the express through to Calais--on the whole it is the best route, especially at this season. By travelling all night you will catch the boat there, and arrive in London so as to have a good night's rest, and be clear-headed for work the next morning."

I bowed agreement, but ventured to make a suggestion.

"If, as I infer, the matter is one of great importance," I said, "would it not be well for me to start sooner? I can--yes," throwing a rapid survey over the work I had before me for the next two days--"I can be ready to-night."

Herr Wilhelm looked at Herr Gerhardt. Herr Gerhardt shook his head.

"No," he replied; "to-morrow it must be," and then he proceeded to explain to me why.

I need not attempt to give all the details of the matter with which I was entrusted. Indeed, to "lay" readers it would be impossible. Suffice it to say, the whole concerned a patent--that of a very remarkable and wonderful invention, which it was hoped and believed the Governments of both countries would take up. But to secure this being done in a thoroughly satisfactory manner it was necessary that our firm should go about it in concert with an English house of first-rate standing. To this house--the firm of Messrs. Bluestone and f.a.gg I will call them--I was to be sent with full explanations. And the next half-hour or more pa.s.sed in my superiors going minutely into the details, so as to satisfy themselves that I understood. The mastering of the whole was not difficult, for I was well grounded technically; and like many of the best things the idea was essentially simple, and the diagrams were perfect. When the explanations were over, and my instructions duly noted, I began to gather together the various sheets, which were all numbered. But, to my surprise, Herr Gerhardt, looking over me, withdrew two of the most important diagrams, without which the others were valueless, because inexplicable.

"Stay," he said; "these two, Ludwig, must be kept separate. These we send to-day, by registered post, direct to Bluestone and f.a.gg. They will receive them a day before they see you, and with them a letter announcing your arrival."

I looked up in some disappointment. I had known of precautions of the kind being taken, but usually when the employe sent was less reliable than I believed myself to be. Still, I scarcely dared to demur.

"Do you think that necessary?" I said respectfully. "I can a.s.sure you that from the moment you entrust me with the papers they shall never quit me day or night. And if there were any postal delay--you say time is valuable in this case--or if the papers were stolen in the transit--such things have happened--my whole mission would be worthless."

"We do not doubt your zeal and discretion, my good Schmidt," said Herr Gerhardt. "But in this case we must take even extra precautions. I had not meant to tell you, fearing to add to the certain amount of nervousness and strain unavoidable in such a case, but still, perhaps it is best that you should know that we _have_ reason for some special anxiety. It has been hinted to us that some breath of this"--and he tapped the papers--"has reached those who are always on the watch for such things. We cannot be too careful."

"And yet," I persisted, "you would trust the post?"

"We do not trust the post," he replied. "Even if these diagrams were tampered with, they would be perfectly useless. And tampered with they will not be. But even supposing anything so wild, the rogues in question knowing of your departure (and they are _more_ likely to know of it than of our packet by post), were they in collusion with some traitor in the post-office, are sharp enough to guess the truth--that we have made a Masonic secret of it--the two separate diagrams are valueless without your papers; _your_ papers reveal nothing without Nos. 7 and 13."

I bowed in submission. But I was, all the same, disappointed, as I said, and a trifle mortified.

Herr Wilhelm saw it, and cheered me up.

"All right, Lutz, my boy," he said. "I feel just like you--nothing I should enjoy more than a rush over to London, carrying the whole doc.u.ments, and prepared for a fight with any one who tried to get hold of them. But Herr Gerhardt here is cooler-blooded than we are."

The elder man smiled.

"I don't doubt your readiness to fight, nor Ludwig's either. But it would be by no such honestly brutal means as open robbery that we should be outwitted. Make friends readily with no one while travelling, Lutz, yet avoid the appearance of keeping yourself aloof. You understand?"

"Perfectly," I said. "I shall sleep well to-night, so as to be prepared to keep awake throughout the journey."

The papers were then carefully packed up. Those consigned to my care were to be carried in a certain light, black handbag with a very good lock, which had often before been my travelling companion.

And the following evening I started by the express train agreed upon.

So, at least, I have always believed, but I have never been able to bring forward a witness to the fact of my train at the start being the right one, as no one came with me to see me off. For it was thought best that I should depart in as un.o.btrusive a manner as possible, as, even in a large town such as ours, the members and employes of an old and important house like the Moritzes' were well known.

I took my ticket then, registering no luggage, as I had none but what I easily carried in my hand, as well as _the_ bag. It was already dusk, if not dark, and there was not much bustle in the station, nor apparently many pa.s.sengers. I took my place in an empty second-cla.s.s compartment, and sat there quietly till the train should start. A few minutes before it did so, another man got in. I was somewhat annoyed at this, as in my circ.u.mstances nothing was more undesirable than travelling alone with one other. Had there been a crowded compartment, or one with three or four pa.s.sengers, I would have chosen it; but at the moment I got in, the carriages were all either empty or with but one or two occupants. Now, I said to myself, I should have done better to wait till nearer the time of departure, and then chosen my place.

I turned to reconnoitre my companion, but I could not see his face clearly, as he was half leaning out of the window. Was he doing so on purpose? I said to myself, for naturally I was in a suspicious mood. And as the thought struck me I half started up, determined to choose another compartment. Suddenly a peculiar sound made itself heard. My companion was coughing. He drew his head in, covering his face with his hand, as he coughed again. You never heard such a curious cough. It was more like a hen clucking than anything I can think of. Once, twice he coughed; then, as if he had been waiting for the slight spasm to pa.s.s, he sprang up, looked eagerly out of the window again, and, opening the door, jumped out, with some exclamation, as if he had just caught sight of a friend.

And in another moment or two--he could barely have had time to get in elsewhere--much to my satisfaction, the train moved off.

"Now," thought I, "I can make myself comfortable for some hours. We do not stop till M----: it will be nine o'clock by then. If no one gets in there I am safe to go through till to-morrow alone; then there will only be ---- Junction, and a clear run to Calais."

I unstrapped my rug and lit a cigar--of course I had chosen a smoking-carriage--and, delighted at having got rid of my clucking companion, the time pa.s.sed pleasantly till we pulled up at M----. The delay there was not great, and to my enormous satisfaction no one molested my solitude. Evidently the express to Calais was not in very great demand that night. I now felt so secure that, notwithstanding my intention of keeping awake all night, my innermost consciousness had not I suppose quite resigned itself to the necessity, for, not more than a hour or so after leaving M----, possibly sooner, I fell fast asleep.

It seemed to me that I had slept heavily, for when I awoke I had great difficulty in remembering where I was. Only by slow degrees did I realise that I was not in my comfortable bed at home, but in a chilly, ill-lighted railway-carriage. Chilly--yes, that it was--very chilly; but as my faculties returned I remembered my precious bag, and forgot all else in a momentary terror that it had been taken from me. No; there it was--my elbow had been pressed against it as I slept. But how was this?

The train was not in motion. We were standing in a station; a dingy deserted-looking place, with no cheerful noise or bustle; only one or two porters slowly moving about, with a sort of sleepy "night duty,"

surly air. It could not be the Junction? I looked at my watch. Barely midnight! Of course, not the Junction. We were not due there till four o'clock in the morning or so.

What, then, were we doing here, and what _was_ "here"? Had there been an accident--some unforeseen necessity for stopping? At that moment a curious sound, from some yards' distance only it seemed to come, caught my ear. It was that croaking, cackling cough!--the cough of my momentary fellow-pa.s.senger, towards whom I had felt an instinctive aversion. I looked out of the window--there was a refreshment-room just opposite, dimly lighted, like everything else, and in the doorway, as if just entering, was a figure which I felt pretty sure was that of the man with the cough.

"Bah!" I said to myself, "I must not be fanciful. I daresay the fellow's all right. He is evidently in the same hole as myself. What in Heaven's name are we waiting here for?"

I sprang out of the carriage, nearly tumbling over a porter slowly pa.s.sing along.

"How long are we to stay here?" I cried. "When do we start again for ----?" and I named the Junction.

"For ----" he repeated in the queerest German I ever heard--was it German? or did I discover his meaning by some preternatural cleverness of my own? "There is no train for ---- for four or five hours, not till----" and he named the time; and leaning forward lazily, he took out my larger bag and my rug, depositing them on the platform. He did not seem the least surprised at finding me there--I might have been there for a week, it seemed to me.

"No train for five hours? Are you mad?" I said.

He shook his head and mumbled something, and it seemed to me that he pointed to the refreshment-room opposite. Gathering my things together I hurried thither, hoping to find some more reliable authority. But there was no one there except a fat man with a white ap.r.o.n, who was clearing the counter--and--yes, in one corner was the figure I had mentally dubbed "The man with the cough".

I addressed the cook or waiter--whichever he was. But he only shook his head--denied all knowledge of the trains, but informed me that--in other words--I must turn out; he was going to shut up.

"And where am I to spend the night, then?" I said angrily, though clearly it was not the ap.r.o.ned individual who was responsible for the position in which I found myself.

There was a "Restauration," he informed me, near at hand, which I should find still open, straight before me on leaving the station, and then a few doors to the right, I would see the lights.