The wording of Mr Arnold's injunction was "to be present at the railway
station of Totnes at five o'clock." It did not mention the platform or
the booking-office. Examination of the time-table showed that no train
arrived at or left Totnes between the hours of four p.m., when the
Plymouth train arrived, and the five-fifteen up-train to Exeter and
Taunton. There were several expresses, of course, Totnes being on the
Great Western main line between Plymouth and London.
By this fact it seemed that the mysterious man whom I was to meet would
already be in Totnes, and would come to the station in order to meet me.
All day, therefore, my eyes were open for sight of a man wearing a red
tie or a carnation in his coat.
Mr Arnold had held suspicion that he might be watched. Why? What did
he fear?
I was not to approach him unless he unbuttoned his gloves and removed
them.
All that well-remembered day I idled by the cool rippling river,
lingered by the rushing weir, watching the fishermen haul in their
salmon-nets, and strolled about the quiet old-world streets of the
rather sleepy place, eager for the arrival of five o'clock.
The station being some distance from the town, I walked down to it about
half-past four. The afternoon was blazing-hot, and scarcely anyone was
astir, even the dogs were asleep in the shadows, and the heat-slumber
was over everything.
A hundred times had I tried to picture to myself what Mr Arthur Dawnay
could be like. In the High Street, earlier in the day, I had seen a
young man in tweed Norfolk jacket, obviously a tourist, wearing a red
tie, but no carnation, and had followed him unnoticed to a house out on
the outskirts of the town, where he was evidently lodging. Was his name
Dawnay, I wondered! If he were actually the man whom I was to meet,
then he certainly was a very prosaic looking person.
Still I possessed my soul in patience, and with the dead man's letter in
my breast-pocket I walked through the booking-office and on to the
platform.
Several persons were about--ordinary looking individuals, such as one
sees every day at the station of a small provincial town--but there was
no man wearing either a red cravat or a carnation.
I lit a cigarette and strolled up and down the platform where the
booking-office was situated. The gate of the up-platform being kept
locked, he would be compelled to pass through the booking-office.
Twice expresses with ocean mails from Plymouth to London roared through,
and slowly the hands of the big clock approached the hour of five.
The appointment must have been made long ago by the man now dead--weeks
ago, when he was still abroad; for the letter, I recollected, had been
written on board the liner between Naples and London. But the principal
point which puzzled me was the reason why the dead man's letter should
be delivered in such secrecy.