I jumped up,
"This is really intolerable!" said the Compleat Clergyman. "Do you insinuate, sir, that I am not a genuine — "
"I do," returned my friend. He nodded towards Evelyn, and looked back at the ticket-collector. "And, if I am not mistaken, that young lady is his accomplice."
"Bust him one in the snoot, reverend," Stone said to me, evidently stung by this unchivalrous reference to Evelyn. Evelyn had assumed her Easter-card expression, now of a spiritual horror. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" said Stone warmly, "running around and making trouble for innocent people who-"
The ticket-collector clucked his tongue, and looked gloomily at us, but said nothing.
"Innocent people!" said my friend. "Ha ha ha. You will permit me, sir, the indulgence of a smile. Ha ha ha." He turned to the ticket-collector. "Allow me to repeat precisely what occurred. As this train was leaving a station called (I believe) Moreton Abbot, I distinctly observed this young man run out of the station. He was then dressed in the uniform of a police-constable, and he had in his hand that dark suit-case which you now perceive in the rack beside my own luggage. He boarded the train. This young lady was quite obviously expecting him; since, when he failed to appear within the next five minutes, she went in search of him. Not long afterwards he appeared in this compartment, apparelled in that grotesque travesty of a clerical costume which you now observe him to be wearing. You do not deny all this, sir?"
"Most certainly I do."
My friend folded his arms. "Perhaps you also deny the sequel? Of this young man's subsequent conduct I say little. I pass over his blasphemous language when he entered here, and these two gentlemen cursed at each other in greeting. I pass over his conduct with this young lady, behaviour which I can only describe as the beginning of a libidinous orgy. I wish to make my position clear. If this is the result of a prank or a wager, I have no wish to cause unpleasantness for this young man beyond insisting that he have the decency to leave off this insulting masquerade. I admire high spirits as well, I trust, as anyone else. But — if you will allow me to express an opinion in which I should be only too happy to be proved wrong — I cannot help feeling that something more serious lies at the bottom of it all. To be candid, I should not be surprised if this man were a criminal whom the police are anxious to apprehend. If this proves to be the case, I shall insist that he be put under restraint and handed over to the authorities in the next town."
Stiffly he pointed to the black bag on the rack.
"You have denied my allegations, sir," he said. "Well, prove it. Open that bag."
CHAPTER TEN
The Flying Corpse
This was getting tolerably bad. Everywhere I turned that night, there seemed to be clink at the end of it. The ticket-collector, still silent, turned on me his sad and gloomy expression, giving a curious grunt with a rising inflection.
"No, sir," I said. "I most certainly will not open that bag.’
"You will not open the bag," stated the other formally, and folded his arms again. "And why won't you open the bag, sir, may I ask? Why won't you open the bag?"
"Because it's not mine."
This took him under the ear, but it confirmed his suspicions. He whirred in his throat, looked grimly at the ticket-collector, and regarded me with a terrible smile. He wasn't a bad old boy, and it must have made him furious to see such goings-on in canonicals, so there was good excuse for his accusation.
"You deny," he said, "you deny that you brought a bag in here?"
"No, I don't. But it wasn't that one. My bag is there."
Now it was time to bless Charters's thoroughness in sending me some wearing apparel. I pointed to the valise Evelyn had brought.
"I might have anticipated this, indeed," declared my friend, wagging his head. "Is there any use of his pretending further? I myself can give testimony that the bag he indicates was brought into this compartment by that young lady herself."
Evelyn, her eyes beaming, reached up and took it down. "Open it," she said to the ticket-collector, sweetly.
That functionary, delving deep, produced a tweed suit — clearly Charters's — a pair of pyjamas, a straight-bladed razor, a shaving-brush, and a stick of shaving-soap; and by this time the ticket-collector was turning a very sour eye on a furious clergyman. Then he broke his oracular silence at last.
"Ye'll no' maintain," be said, "that this belongs to the young lady, will ye? For mysel', I'll no judge ye; but, if ye maun hae my opeenion, sin, ye're as daft as auld Jamie."
"Crazy as a bed-bug, agreed Stone. "Or drunk."
"Ay," agreed the other. He took up the coat, and examined the tailor's label with a sinister squint. "You, sir you'll no' mind givin' your name, now?"
"Martin Charters," I said, and Stone shut his eyes.
The ticket-collector examined the label, nodded in satisfaction, and grunted. Then he looked at the black bag on the rack. "Ay. But that —?"
Evelyn pointed dramatically at my antagonist, and entered flushed into the battle. "It's his," she declared. "I saw him bring it in. But I don't think he's drunk, really. I think it's all a part of a nasty, clever plot to throw suspicion on the Rev. Mr. Charters while he gets away: that's what I think! Why should he talk about somebody being a criminal, unless he's one himself? And as for casting those nasty aspersions on my virtue… he says I went out of the compartment. Well, I did! Do you know why?"
"Eh?"
"He made indecent proposals to me," said Evelyn, and her eyes filled with tears.
My antagonist went the colour of an oak-leaf in autumn.
"This is really intolerable," he said breathlessly. "For sheer matchless impudence, this is beyond any contingency I could ever have suspected or conceived of. I shall be happy to prove my identity and my good character by the testimony of any of those who travelled with me in the liner. I–I " He was so furious that he gibbered. "I have been for twenty-two years rector of St. Josephus's Church of Toronto-"
"So he's escaping," said Evelyn, folding her own arms and nodding in an ominous way. "He's running away. If you examine that black bag of his, I'll just bet you find a forged passport, or disguises and things, and maybe a steamship ticket to somewhere in the wilds "
The ticket-collector reached up and yanked down the black bag. And that was how we came at last to discover what Mr. Joseph Serpos had really stolen.
The bag was resting in the hollow of the cloth netting, well down against the bar which prevents luggage from sliding out. It is conceivable that the lower part of the bag, with the metal studs along the edgings at the bottom, caught against the bar when the valise was pulled out. I am not certain precisely what happened. But, as the ticket-collector jumped back, about two inches of the bottom of the bag flew loose on a hinge: and in the next instant the whole compartment was showered with paper money.
To my dazed wits it seemed that, outside a bank, I had never seen so much money in my life. Through the partly open window of the compartment a strong breeze was blowing, and the cloud of currency whirled and circled round our heads. Some of it was loose, some of it in packets. There were batches of five-pound, ten-pound and even fifty-pound notes; including some packets of pound and ten-shilling notes. We did not stop to think. We pounced after it instinctively, to gather it up before it should be blown wide out of the window or into the corridor. Stone dived to pull up the strap and shut the window, losing his hat outside in the confusion. But even in the confusion, I am glad to say, I remembered my impoverished state well enough to thrust a packet of ten-shilling notes into my pocket. We gathered it up as well as we could. The ticket-collector stood back, breathing hard, and eyed the rector of St. Josephus's with malevolence.