Page:Braddon--Wyllard's weird.djvu/13

Rh "About the only one necessary, I should think," said the doctor. "I saw her fall."

"Did you?" exclaimed Wyllard. "That's lucky! And what was your impression as to the manner of her fall—whether she deliberately threw herself out, or whether she was thrown out by a villain?"

This was asked in a lowered voice; since the murderer, if the deed were murder, might be within hearing.

"Upon my soul, I cannot tell," protested Menheniot, with a troubled look. "The whole thing was so rapid. It passed like a flash. I was smoking, tired, in a dozy condition altogether, and this horrible thing seemed like a dream. I saw no other head at the carriage window. I saw nothing but that girl standing on the footboard as the train came on to the bridge; and then, all in a moment, I saw her whirling down into the gorge, like a feather blown out of a window. If it was suicide she certainly hesitated, for when I first saw her she was standing on the footboard, holding the hand-rail by the side of the door. She did not leap out of the train with one desperate deliberate spring. However determined she may have been to kill herself, she must have faltered in the act."

"It would be only human to do so. Poor young thing—a mere child!" said Wyllard regretfully.

He talked apart with the guard, recommending that official to keep his eye upon the passengers who got out at Bodmin Road, and at all stations further down the line; to mark any man of ruffianly appearance or agitated demeanour; to give any such person in charge if he saw but the slightest reason for suspicion.

The passengers had resumed their seats by this time, and the train began to move slowly onward. The whole period of delay had not been twenty minutes, and the line between Plymouth and Penzance was tolerably clear at this hour. The train would be able to recover lost time before the end of the journey.

"You had better come into my carriage," said Wyllard to the young man whom he had addressed as Bothwell.

"I have only a third-class ticket," answered the other. "I've been smoking."

"I never knew you doing anything else," said Wyllard, with a touch of scorn. "Go back to your third-class carriage. No doubt you want another pipe."

"I believe after that shock it will do me good," replied the young man, producing his tobacco pouch on the instant, and beginning to fill his little clay pipe.

Mr. Wyllard went back to the compartment where he had been sitting at ease all day and alone. There is a mysterious power in the presence of such a man which, save in the stress of