Dorne fumbled in his inner pocket and brought out a card-case, which he
opened, and produced a card. Connery, glancing at the card while the
other still held it, saw that it was President Jarvis' visiting card,
with the president's name in engraved block letters; across its top was
written briefly in Jarvis' familiar hand, "_This is the passenger_";
and below, it was signed with the same scrawl of initials which had
been on the note Connery had received that morning--"_H. R. J._"
Connery's hand shook as, while trying to recover himself, he took the
card and looked at it more closely, and he felt within him the sinking
sensation which follows an escape from danger. He saw that his too
ready and too assured assumption that Eaton was the man to whom Jarvis'
note had referred, had almost led him into the sort of mistake which is
unpardonable in a "trusted" man; he had come within an ace, he
realized, of speaking to Eaton and so betraying the presence on the
train of a traveler whose journey his superiors were trying to keep
secret.
"You need, of course, hold the train no longer," Dorne said to Connery.
"Yes, sir; I received word from Mr. Jarvis about you, Mr. Dorne. I
shall follow his instructions fully." Connery recalled the discussion
about the drawing-room which had been given to Dorne's daughter. "I
shall see that the Pullman conductor moves some one in one of the other
cars to have a compartment for you, sir."
"I prefer a place in the open car," Dorne replied. "I am well situated
here. Do not disturb any one."
As he went forward again after the train was under way, Connery tried
to recollect how it was that he had been led into such a mistake, and
defending himself, he laid it all to old Sammy. But old Sammy was not
often mistaken in his identifications. If Eaton was not the person for
whom the train was held, might he be some one else of importance? Now
as he studied Eaton, he could not imagine what had made him accept this
passenger as a person of great position. It was only when he passed
Eaton a third time, half an hour later, when the train had long left
Seattle, that the half-shaped hazards and guesses about the passenger
suddenly sprang into form. Connery stood and stared back. Eaton did
not look like any one whom he remembered having seen; but he fitted
perfectly some one whose description had been standing for ten days in
every morning and evening edition of the Seattle papers. Yes, allowing
for a change of clothes and a different way of brushing his hair, Eaton
was exactly the man whom Warden had expected at his house and who had
come there and waited while Warden, away in his car, was killed.
Connery was walking back through the train, absent-minded in trying to
decide whether he could be at all sure of this from the mere printed
description, and trying to decide what he should do if he felt sure,
when Mr. Dorne stopped him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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