"At first," Eaton went on, "Edith did not find out anything. Then,
this year, she learned that there was to be a reorganization of some of
the Latron properties. We hoped that, during that, something would
come out which might help us. I had been away almost five years; my
face was forgotten, and we thought I could take the chance of coming
back to be near at hand so I could act if anything did come out.
Lawrence met me at Vancouver. We were about to start East when I
received a message from Mr. Warden. I did not know Warden and I don't
know now how he knew who I was or where he could reach me. His message
merely said he knew I needed help and he was prepared to give it and
made an appointment for me to see him at his house. He was one of the
Latron crowd but, I found out, one of those least likely to have had a
hand in my conviction. I thought possibly Warden was going to tell me
the name of Latron's murderer and I decided to take the risk of seeing
him. You know what happened when I tried to keep the appointment.
"Then you came to Seattle and took charge of Warden's affairs. I felt
certain that if there was any evidence among Warden's effects as to who
had killed Latron, you would take it back with you with the other
matters relating to the Latron reorganization. You could not recognize
me from your having been at my trial because you were blind; I decided
to take the train with you and try to get possession of the draft of
the reorganization agreement and the other documents with it which
Warden had been working on. I had suspected that I was being watched
by agents of the men protecting Latron's murderer while I was in
Seattle. I had changed my lodgings there because of that, but Lawrence
had remained at the old lodgings to find out for me. He found there
was a man following me who disappeared after I had taken the train, and
Lawrence, after questioning the gateman at Seattle decided the man had
taken the same train I did. He wired me in the cipher we had sometimes
used in communicating with each other, but not knowing what name I was
using on the train he addressed it to himself, confident that if a
telegram reached the train addressed to 'Lawrence Hillward' I would
understand and claim it.
"Of course, I could not follow his instructions and leave the train; we
were snowed in. Besides, I could not imagine how anybody could have
followed me onto the train, as I had taken pains to prevent that very
thing by being the last passenger to get aboard it."
"The man whom the gateman saw did not follow you; he merely watched you
get on the train and notified two others, who took the train at
Spokane. They had planned to get rid of you after you left Seattle so
as to run less risk of your death being connected with that of Warden.
It was my presence which made it necessary for them to make the
desperate attempt to kill you on the train."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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