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Page 68
The fact that he should be without a ticket would be consistent
with the idea of concealment, and it was well known that women
played a prominent part in the Nihilistic propaganda. On the other
hand, it was clear, from the guard's statement, that the man must
have been hidden there BEFORE the others arrived, and how
unlikely the coincidence that conspirators should stray exactly
into the very compartment in which a spy was already concealed!
Besides, this explanation ignored the man in the smoking carriage,
and gave no reason at all for his simultaneous disappearance. The
police had little difficulty in showing that such a theory would
not cover the facts, but they were unprepared in the absence of
evidence to advance any alternative explanation.
There was a letter in the Daily Gazette, over the signature
of a well-known criminal investigator, which gave rise to
considerable discussion at the time. He had formed a
hypothesis which had at least ingenuity to recommend it, and I
cannot do better than append it in his own words.
"Whatever may be the truth," said he, "it must depend upon some
bizarre and rare combination of events, so we need have no
hesitation in postulating such events in our explanation. In the
absence of data we must abandon the analytic or scientific method
of investigation, and must approach it in the synthetic fashion.
In a word, instead of taking known events and deducing from them
what has occurred, we must build up a fanciful explanation if it
will only be consistent with known events. We can then test this
explanation by any fresh facts which may arise. If they all fit
into their places, the probability is that we are upon the right
track, and with each fresh fact this probability increases in a
geometrical progression until the evidence becomes final and
convincing.
"Now, there is one most remarkable and suggestive fact which
has not met with the attention which it deserves. There is a local
train running through Harrow and King's Langley, which is timed in
such a way that the express must have overtaken it at or about the
period when it eased down its speed to eight miles an hour on
account of the repairs of the line. The two trains would at that
time be travelling in the same direction at a similar rate of speed
and upon parallel lines. It is within every one's experience how,
under such circumstances, the occupant of each carriage can see
very plainly the passengers in the other carriages opposite to him.
The lamps of the express had been lit at Willesden, so that each
compartment was brightly illuminated, and most visible to an
observer from outside.
"Now, the sequence of events as I reconstruct them would be
after this fashion. This young man with the abnormal number of
watches was alone in the carriage of the slow train. His ticket,
with his papers and gloves and other things, was, we will suppose,
on the seat beside him. He was probably an American, and also
probably a man of weak intellect. The excessive wearing of
jewellery is an early symptom in some forms of mania.
"As he sat watching the carriages of the express which were
(on account of the state of the line) going at the same pace as
himself, he suddenly saw some people in it whom he knew. We will
suppose for the sake of our theory that these people were a
woman whom he loved and a man whom he hated--and who in return
hated him. The young man was excitable and impulsive. He opened
the door of his carriage, stepped from the footboard of the local
train to the footboard of the express, opened the other door, and
made his way into the presence of these two people. The feat (on
the supposition that the trains were going at the same pace) is by
no means so perilous as it might appear.
"Having now got our young man, without his ticket, into the
carriage in which the elder man and the young woman are travelling,
it is not difficult to imagine that a violent scene ensued. It is
possible that the pair were also Americans, which is the more
probable as the man carried a weapon--an unusual thing in England.
If our supposition of incipient mania is correct, the young man is
likely to have assaulted the other. As the upshot of the quarrel
the elder man shot the intruder, and then made his escape from the
carriage, taking the young lady with him. We will suppose that all
this happened very rapidly, and that the train was still going at
so slow a pace that it was not difficult for them to leave it. A
woman might leave a train going at eight miles an hour. As a
matter of fact, we know that this woman DID do so.
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