Page:Gaston Leroux--The man with the black feather.djvu/272

248 the padlock, which had actually been the case, and that Theophrastus, who had good reasons for stopping the train in order to join Signor Petito, had profited by the presence of that key, to shift the points. It was only a matter of thrusting over the lever of the switch; and that would explain why the train was not seen by the signal-man at A, since, instead of continuing along the line B A, it had turned off up H I towards the sand-pit. I told myself all this; and if it had explained anything, I should have stated it at once, and instead of giving two maps I should have given merely the latter with the side-line H I on it.

That I have not done so is owing to the fact that the side-line H I explains nothing. I also believed at first that it was going to make the disappearance of the express clear to us, but as a matter of fact it complicates the catastrophe instead of explaining it; for here is the story, the true story; and that too continues to explain nothing at all.

Wandering along the road which runs beside the railway, Theophrastus had noticed the little side-line, and seen that the key had been left in the padlock of the switch. This fact, which had been of no importance to him before his brief but stormy interview with Signora Petito,