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Page 55
"Our plan had been that Smith, the stoker, should chloroform
John Slater, the driver, so that he should vanish with the others.
In this respect, and in this respect only, our plans miscarried--I
except the criminal folly of McPherson in writing home to his wife.
Our stoker did his business so clumsily that Slater in his
struggles fell off the engine, and though fortune was with us so
far that he broke his neck in the fall, still he remained as a blot
upon that which would otherwise have been one of those complete
masterpieces which are only to be contemplated in silent
admiration. The criminal expert will find in John Slater the one
flaw in all our admirable combinations. A man who has had as many
triumphs as I can afford to be frank, and I therefore lay my finger
upon John Slater, and I proclaim him to be a flaw.
"But now I have got our special train upon the small line two
kilometres, or rather more than one mile, in length, which leads,
or rather used to lead, to the abandoned Heartsease mine, once one
of the largest coal mines in England. You will ask how it is that
no one saw the train upon this unused line. I answer that along
its entire length it runs through a deep cutting, and that, unless
someone had been on the edge of that cutting, he could not have
seen it. There WAS someone on the edge of that cutting. I was
there. And now I will tell you what I saw.
"My assistant had remained at the points in order that he might
superintend the switching off of the train. He had four armed men
with him, so that if the train ran off the line--we thought it
probable, because the points were very rusty--we might still have
resources to fall back upon. Having once seen it safely on the
side line, he handed over the responsibility to me. I was waiting
at a point which overlooks the mouth of the mine, and I was also
armed, as were my two companions. Come what might, you see, I was
always ready.
"The moment that the train was fairly on the side line, Smith,
the stoker, slowed-down the engine, and then, having turned it on
to the fullest speed again, he and McPherson, with my English
lieutenant, sprang off before it was too late. It may be that it
was this slowing-down which first attracted the attention of the
travellers, but the train was running at full speed again before
their heads appeared at the open window. It makes me smile to
think how bewildered they must have been. Picture to yourself your
own feelings if, on looking out of your luxurious carriage, you
suddenly perceived that the lines upon which you ran were rusted
and corroded, red and yellow with disuse and decay! What a catch
must have come in their breath as in a second it flashed upon them
that it was not Manchester but Death which was waiting for them at
the end of that sinister line. But the train was running with
frantic speed, rolling and rocking over the rotten line, while
the wheels made a frightful screaming sound upon the rusted
surface. I was close to them, and could see their faces. Caratal
was praying, I think--there was something like a rosary dangling
out of his hand. The other roared like a bull who smells the blood
of the slaughter-house. He saw us standing on the bank, and he
beckoned to us like a madman. Then he tore at his wrist and threw
his dispatch-box out of the window in our direction. Of course,
his meaning was obvious. Here was the evidence, and they would
promise to be silent if their lives were spared. It would have
been very agreeable if we could have done so, but business is
business. Besides, the train was now as much beyond our controls
as theirs.
"He ceased howling when the train rattled round the curve and
they saw the black mouth of the mine yawning before them. We had
removed the boards which had covered it, and we had cleared the
square entrance. The rails had formerly run very close to the
shaft for the convenience of loading the coal, and we had only to
add two or three lengths of rail in order to lead to the very brink
of the shaft. In fact, as the lengths would not quite fit, our
line projected about three feet over the edge. We saw the two
heads at the window: Caratal below, Gomez above; but they had both
been struck silent by what they saw. And yet they could not
withdraw their heads. The sight seemed to have paralysed them.
"I had wondered how the train running at a great speed would
take the pit into which I had guided it, and I was much interested
in watching it. One of my colleagues thought that it would
actually jump it, and indeed it was not very far from doing so.
Fortunately, however, it fell short, and the buffers of the engine
struck the other lip of the shaft with a tremendous crash. The
funnel flew off into the air. The tender, carriages, and van were
all smashed up into one jumble, which, with the remains of the
engine, choked for a minute or so the mouth of the pit. Then
something gave way in the middle, and the whole mass of green iron,
smoking coals, brass fittings, wheels, wood-work, and cushions all
crumbled together and crashed down into the mine. We heard the
rattle, rattle, rattle, as the debris struck against the walls, and
then, quite a long time afterwards, there came a deep roar as the
remains of the train struck the bottom. The boiler may have
burst, for a sharp crash came after the roar, and then a dense
cloud of steam and smoke swirled up out of the black depths,
falling in a spray as thick as rain all round us. Then the vapour
shredded off into thin wisps, which floated away in the summer
sunshine, and all was quiet again in the Heartsease mine.
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