The Two Undertakers E-Book

Francis Beeding

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

I EMPTIED my stein, called for another and looked once more into the Platzl, The morning was warm and fine ; the season was late September, the 27th to be exact; and the air gave promise that St. Martin would not be cheated of his summer. Dust, chased in spirals by a light breeze, was dancing down the street and Munich was pleasant to look upon.
I was sitting in one of the arched windows of the Hofbrauhaus, in whose dark halls men had grasped beer-pots, and drunk and swore, and quarrelled and sung Lieder for four hundred years.
I had been at my table for some twenty minutes lookig through the local papers. Several farther bankruptcies were recorded ; the number of young men in the big cities who had never had any work to do and were unlikely ever to find their way to an office or factory, was steadily increasing― European statesmanship appeared to be as bankrupt as the private financiers who were shooting themselves daily. Finally, there had been another of the appalling accidents which had recently become so alarmingly frequent in the German public services, and it was openly suggested in more than one of the sheets at which I had looked that they must be the work of an organised gang of wreckers. For no apparent reason a big passenger plane flying from Munich to Berlin had crashed shortly after taking off from the aerodrome, and six passengers and the two pilots had been killed outright,

Leseprobe

THE TWO UNDERTAKERS

Francis Beeding

1933

© 2023 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782383838012

Contents

1: I Am Sent About My Business

2: I Meet The Mighty Magistro

3: I Become A Body-Snatcher

4: I Lose The Deceased

5: I Visit A Cemetery

6: I Recover The Remains

7: I Am Delivered To The Undertakers

8: I Walk Out Of The Parlour

9: I Am Clothed In Purple

10: I Take The Plunge

11: I Meet The Old Woman Of Brentford

12: I Enter The Room Of Chains

13: I Stand To Attention

14: I Witness A Funeral

15: I Am Saddled With A Sister

16: I Spoil Her Evening Out

17: I Fail To Take Her Home

18: I Attend A Rehearsal

19: I Am Faced With A Bride

20: I Am Forcibly Married

21: I Am Content With My Estate

22: Epilogue

1

I Am Sent About My Business

I EMPTIED my stein, called for another and looked once more into the Platzl, The morning was warm and fine ; the season was late September, the 27th to be exact; and the air gave promise that St. Martin would not be cheated of his summer. Dust, chased in spirals by a light breeze, was dancing down the street and Munich was pleasant to look upon.

I was sitting in one of the arched windows of the Hofbrauhaus, in whose dark halls men had grasped beer-pots, and drunk and swore, and quarrelled and sung Lieder for four hundred years.

I had been at my table for some twenty minutes lookig through the local papers. Several farther bankruptcies were recorded ; the number of young men in the big cities who had never had any work to do and were unlikely ever to find their way to an office or factory, was steadily increasing― European statesmanship appeared to be as bankrupt as the private financiers who were shooting themselves daily. Finally, there had been another of the appalling accidents which had recently become so alarmingly frequent in the German public services, and it was openly suggested in more than one of the sheets at which I had looked that they must be the work of an organised gang of wreckers. For no apparent reason a big passenger plane flying from Munich to Berlin had crashed shortly after taking off from the aerodrome, and six passengers and the two pilots had been killed outright,

I discarded the newspapers and sat idle in the window.

I had come to the Hofbrauhaus for two reasons. First, I had an appointment. It was essential that I should not be late; but it was possible that the Fraulein Hilda von Esseling would not be early. Therefore I had chosen a place where waiting had its compensations. Secondly, I was suffering from an exaggerated sense of duty. Officially I was on leave; but no agent of the British Intelligence Service (Secret Branch) ever feels entirely his own master, and he is expected, though not absolutely bound, upon arrival in a new town to look in at monthly headquarters. There is one spot in every main city of Europe where he can meet his colleagues. It changes every month and is communicated to each one of us together with the code word in use. Ours is a lonely service, and we must perforce help each other how and when we can.

It was accordingly only right and proper, the Hofbrauhaus being our place of meeting for September, that I should have chosen it for my rendezvous. So far, however, none of my co-mates had shown face or given the signal whereby he might be recognised. I had pricked up an official ear when the pot-boy had started whistling "Love me Quick and Pass Along"— the tune of the month. But everybody whistled that particular air and he had omitted to sneeze in the middle of the fourth bar, which was the real crux of the matter.

My appointment, as I have mentioned, was with Hilda von Esseling, and I had something of such importance to say to her that at the mere thought of it my mouth went dry and the tongue clove. Suppose she would have none of me? What man in love can be sure or even entertain a reasonable hope as the fatal moment approaches?

How to begin? The direct attack or the gradual approach? Was it really wise to aim at paradise in broad daylight— in this September sunshine, with the common life of the old city streaming past ? Would it not be better perhaps to wait for moonlight and the quiet flow of the Isar through her father's park? Or perhaps some dewy morning as we rode together under great trees on shining turf?

Who was Ronald Briercliffe— for it is he that asks you to accept this tale as a serious contribution to current history — to imagine that Hilda von Esseling might be induced to consider him ? I could at least comfort myself — and cold comfort it was — that she knew the worst. I had made no secret of the fool I had been. Drunk on parade... disgraced on King's guard... flung from the regiment with ignominy. Was it really only two years ago all that had happened? But the shadow had been removed. For I had been offered, and I had taken, a second chance. That strange affair of the Three Fishers had set me right with the world, and that even more dreadful business of the Jesuit and the amethyst— the first case in which I had worked under Colonel Granby— had completed my apprenticeship. I was now committed to the perilous but obscure excitements of a new profession.

Once before— not long after the business of the Three Fishers— I had almost screwed my courage to the sticking-place. For Hilda von Esseling had herself been involved in that affair, and, in talking over our several dealings with one Francis Wyndham— of whom more hereafter— we had been drawn together by adventures shared and dangers successfully overpast. I had even read a promise in her looks. Would she confirm it? In an hour I should be the happiest or most deject of men. Of one thing I might be reasonably sure. If Hilda would have me the Graf, her father, would not stand in our way. He had asked me— in terms so warm that they could not but be sincere— to spend a month at Konigstal. He smiled on my friendship with his daughter. Adoring her himself, he must have realised that I myself might also fall a victim; yet he had himself suggested in his letter to me that Hilda should pick me up in Munich and drive me to the castle.

I was tormenting myself with a final review of my chances, as I drank my beer and looked about me, when round the corner swung a well-worn two-seater at the wheel of which she sat. A light silk scarf floated about her throat, and from under a hat, perched at the back of her head, she smiled up at me where I sat in the window. The car pulled up with a scrunch of tyres as I jumped to my feet, but at the same instant appeared the inevitable policeman to warn her that parking was verboten. Hilda waved her hand at me, let in the clutch and disappeared round the corner. When she reappeared on foot, I was on the steps of the house awaiting her.

She gave me both her hands, and I led her to my table in the window.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting," she said, "but I knew it would be sorrow wasted."

She glanced down as she spoke at the foaming stein upon the table in front of me.

"Elevenses," I said. "An English custom."

"In our country," she retorted, "it is a custom that endures long after eleven o'clock. So it isn't too late for me."

She sat down and I beckoned to a passing waiter.

Then there fell a silence between us.

Hilda von Esseling was slim, not above medium height; her eyes were wide-set and blue; her hair flaxen; her nose very straight and fine. But items cannot do justice to the total. I will, therefore, omit the rest. It is of more consequence that, as I sat looking across at her that morning in the Hofbrauhaus, there was a shadow in her eyes, and she had ceased to smile.

"Worried?" I asked.

"My dear," she said, "who isn't?"

"Hard times," I admitted, "But is there a special reason?"

"Father takes things so much to heart. Don't forget, my dear, he is seventy-six next Tuesday. These terrible accidents... He is beginning to wonder whether they may not, after all, be somehow political."

She stretched out a hand across the table and touched mine lightly.

"I shall rely on you to brighten things up for him," she concluded.

"I am sorry he needs it."

"It has always been like that with father," she went on. "My country, oh, my country. He's feeling it terribly. It must be difficult for you to realise what it means to him or for that matter to any of us. Your England is still head-above- water, but here all is misery and depression and a sort of desperation. Don't forget that 17,000,000 people voted against having Hindenburg for President."

She paused and added:

"Then, too, there is Aunt Hilda."

"Aunt Hilda?" I echoed, and then perceived that Hilda— my Hilda— was wearing black. She read my thoughts and nodded.

"Yes," she said. "Aunt Hilda died only three days ago."

"Sorry," I began rather inadequately.

"Thank you, Ronald, but I can't pretend that it matters much to me. Aunt Hilda was over seventy and I hadn't seen her for fifteen years. But she was Daddy's sister, and has to be buried with the family like all the rest of them."

"She died at the castle?"

"No, that's the trouble. She died at her house near Baden-Baden. They have embalmed her and are sending the body down by train. The funeral will be to-morrow."

I looked at Hilda in dismay.

"Look here," I said, "hadn't I better come down after it is all over?"

"Nonsense," she responded firmly. "The funeral will take place in the morning and you can disappear. We still have one or two good horses left, if you'd care to ride."

"But your father— he won't be wanting strangers about the place."

"Strangers indeed! And in any case you're quite wrong. He needs taking out of himself."

"Was he very much devoted to bis sister?"

"It isn't that. It's politics... politics... with hardly a thought for anything else. Then, as I said, these terrible accidents... three train smashes in the last fortnight, four of our passenger planes crasliing for some unknown reason."

She pointed to the newspaper on the table.

"Another one this morning, as you see."

"Terrible indeed," came a voice from behind us.

I turned and saw standing beside my chair a small, spare man, with a lined, brown face in which were set two of the most piercing blue eyes in the world.

"I was never much of a hand at whistling," continued the small man, "but I can manage a sneeze."

"Granby," I exclaimed, and scrambled to my feet. "Colonel Granby," I stammered, "this is Fraulein von Esseling."

Granby bowed.

"Colonel Granby is my Chief, Hilda," I explained.

"May I sit down?" asked Granby, looking at Hilda. "I must have speech with this young man."

What was Colonel Granby doing in Munich? And why must he have speech with me? Could it be that there was work to do ? It was more than flesh and blood could bear. In another five minutes I should have been safely away with Hilda to the castle. I knew instinctively that the little man with the keen blue eyes, the lined face, and the neat, shabby clothes was about to spoil it all.

Even his clothes were ominous. He was dressed in old tweeds and he was wearing plus-fours— the sort of clothes in which English tourists, for some unknown reason, see fit to appear when they travel abroad, though they would sooner be seen dead in them on the Flying Scotsman, and Colonel Granby was usually particular in these matters. One of Mr. Baedeker's invaluable red volumes protruded from a side pocket.

He sat down and beckoned to a waiter.

"Hannibal," he said— "a pot of beer. And let it be capacious." Granby calls all waiters Hannibal.

He spoke in bad German, with an atrocious English accent. That, again, was ominous, though I was careful not to show surprise. For Colonel Granby was a German scholar of no mean reputation, and could, in fact, have passed for a German anywhere, had he wished to do so. Evidently he played a part and meant to play it to the life— a hearty British tourist, travelling back after a summer spent in the Bavarian highlands.

"I am sorry, Fraulein," he said, "but I simply have no choice in the matter. You must blame the profession."

Hilda smiled at him quaintly and rose from her chair.

"You have business to discuss," she said. "I will go and wait in the car."

But Granby put a hand on her wrist.

"No, don't go, Fraulein," he begged. "It isn't much that I have to say."

"But I suppose it means a job of work for me," I grumbled.

Granby nodded.

"Your own fault, Ronald. If you will be conscientious..." His eyes twinkled and he put a hand suddenly on my shoulder.

"Good lad," he said. "But where is the beer?"

"It's at your elbow," I answered coldly.

"But not for long," responded Granby and, seizing the heavy stone tankard, he poured the contents straight down his throat, German fashion, to the great and patriotic satisfaction of Hilda von Esseling.

"I learned to do that in the old days at Heidelberg," said Granby. "Wir werden einen Salamandar trinken."

"About these accidents," he went on, suddenly grave again. "I left Berlin the day before yesterday. The authorities are now convinced that they form part of a general plan; and I may tell you in confidence that the French and British Secret Services are co-operating with the German police in an effort to discover the criminals."

"The field is wide," said Hilda bitterly. "The time breeds everywhere the sort of men who stick at nothing."

"Your father also thinks that these crimes are political?" asked Granby.

"He can find no other explanation."

Granby was silent a moment.

"I saw to-day a gentleman who goes in for just such politics as these," he said at last.

He looked full at Hilda as he spoke.

"Francis Wyndham," he concluded abruptly.

Hilda went pale and then flushed with anger— as she always does at the mention of that evil name. We had suffered enough already at his hands, but that is an old story and there is now a new one to tell.

I had seized her hand under the table. It was not withdrawn. On the contrary, she grasped two of my fingers hard.

"Have you," I asked, "any reason to believe that Wyndham is mixed up in this devilish business?"

"No reason at all. But I don't mean to lose sight of him. That is why I came into this friendly house."

The sunshine seemed suddenly less golden and the room less kind. The shadow of Francis Wyndham — tall, fair-haired, aquiline, the mincing man of steel, implacable, vain and very dangerous — had fallen across the morning. That he should still be free to walk about the world was a monstrous anomaly. But Francis Wyndham had usually so laid his plans that even when they failed to place him in the dock where he properly belonged his arrest must endanger cabinets and even kings. He had always taken good care that, if caught and made to pay the penalty, he should not fall alone. So the penalty had never yet been paid.

"Well," I asked, "what do you want me to do?"

Granby was studying my face.

"Wyndham is my business," he said. "But I have need of someone to follow up another small matter. I am waiting for a communication that has failed to reach me, X.42 reported four days ago that I might expect to receive a D. message from him within twenty-four hours. That message has not yet arrived and I must know the reason."

I should perhaps explain that a D. message in the Service means that it is urgent and takes priority over all others.

"Where is X.42," I asked, "and what is he doing?"

"At Rheinau in Alsace," Granby replied. "He is acting as go-between for one of our agents who has been working in a cigarette factory— the big Sigma Works."

He slipped a hand into his pocket and produced the Baedeker.

"Here you are," he said. "Page 292. Study it in the train which you will catch in half an hour at the Central Station. Get as soon as possible into touch with X.42. Find out why he promised to send me a message and why it hasn't come. Bring me back the answer as soon as you can and, if you can't come, wire it in code. Then you will be free to continue your holiday, unless..." He paused "...unless the waters are deeper than I care to think."

I rose slowly from the table with bitterness in my heart.

"Just one other thing," said Granby. "What will be your cover?"

"Mr. Percival Smooth," I responded without enthusiasm. "I shall be travelling in face cream."

Hilda looked at me suspiciously.

"What do you know of such things?" she asked.

"All about that schoolgirl complexion. And I've got a lovely album of pictures Before and After. And I'm running a really marvellous depilatory as a side-line."

"So you see," said Granby, "it's no use hiding things."

"To whom do I wire?" I asked.

"Wire to me here, poste restante— name of Ponsonby," he replied.

"Sorry, Hilda," I began, but she was already on her feet.

"I'll run you to the station," she said. "No need to waste good money on taxis."

I turned back to Granby.

"What are you doing about Wyndham?" I asked.

Granby smiled.

"That is my affair. I hope it will so remain."

I looked at them both, standing for a moment in silence. Then Hilda came quickly to me and put both her hands on my arms.

"I'll be waiting for you at Königstal," she said.

2

I Meet The Mighty Magistro

HALF AN hour later I was seated in the train on my way to Strassburg. The best I could do was to hope that my sudden return to duty had suitably impressed Hilda with the nobility of my disposition and my importance in the general scheme of things, for I wanted above everything else in the world to impress Hilda.

As Mr. Percival Smooth, the representative of Messrs. Denison & Company, I was travelling second class in the company of two despondent men also in commerce. We rolled diligently across Bavaria, making for Augsburg and Ulm. The train, fortunately enough, was fast and I expected to reach Strassburg at about half-past ten in the evening. I reckoned that it would be possible to meet X.42 early on the following morning, conclude my business with him and return in time to be again in Munich late the same night.

My spirits rose. After all, I might not be missing so much. For Hilda would be necessarily much preoccupied during my absence with the funeral of Aunt Hilda, and with any luck I should be with her again as soon as I could decently hope to claim her undivided attention.

I held in my hand the red-covered volume of Baedeker's Schwarzwald, open at page 292, So far I had done no more than glance at the neat notes pasted on the page, for my thoughts were still at Konigstal. The time had come, however, to concentrate upon the matter in hand. I must

forget Hilda, radiant and assured, and think instead of a wizened little Belgian, name of Monnier, if I remembered rightly. He had been a Belgian refugee in England and, growing enamoured of the country of his adoption, had applied for, and obtained, naturalisation. He was well known to the Service as a discreet, if somewhat unimaginative, member, his chief quality being an extreme precision. He had hardly ever failed to do what he promised— a fact which made the non-arrival of his message the more significant. There would seem to be no special difficulty in sending a communication from Strassburg to Munich in time of peace. He might, in fact, quite easily have posted it. Nevertheless, Granby had waited in vain for over forty-eight hours, with the result that here I was, rolling through the pleasant land of Bavaria to discover the reason.

Why, in any case, was X.42 taking an interest in the Sigma cigarette factory at Rheinau? I knew nothing of that seemingly respectable establishment, except that its products were to be obtained from any tobacco kiosk in Germany or for that matter in Europe. It was, I believed, a French concern, but Sigma cigarettes and Sigma cigars, advertised on huge posters in blue and gold lettering, were everywhere to be seen. Such an advertisement had, in fact, inevitably met my eye when I had stepped into the train at Munich. And there would certainly be another staring me in the face at Augsburg.

Granby's notes pasted in the Baedeker (page 292) were written in a thin, neat hand with very black ink and a mapping pen. X.42 was not actually employed in the Sigma factory, but was working outside in a local garage of which the proprietor— name of Burkhardt— was a retired member of the French Service and always willing to lend a hand. There was someone working in the factory, however— a person who went by the name of Françoise. She was not unknown to me— so that, as I read, my pulses quickened. I had dined with Françoise discreetly once or twice in London. She was one of our star turns— a lady of very definite allurement. I had a clear picture of her in my memory with the shaded lights of Kettner's shining on her yellow hair and upon her exquisitely formed hands, with a cigarette-holder between the fingers.

Françoise was the widow of one of our agents who during the war had been caught behind the lines and had suffered the penalty. Since his death her one passion had been to carry on her husband's work. She had joined our Service in his place and had worked brilliantly, steadily, with a dry, unwavering intensity of purpose. It was she who had unmasked the Swiss Federal Councillor who had been protecting the notorious Radich and his horde of Moscow Soviet agents. Her sorrow had not marred her physically. She looked always the same — not a year older than twenty-six or seven. That was Françoise. Her code name I had forgotten and her real name I had never known.

Françoise, then, was working in the Sigma cigarette factory and, from time to time, she was handing over information to Monnier. That was all I could gather. Of the nature of her information or of her reasons for working in the factory there was not a word. Granby's notes were entirely non-committal — a circumstance which was not unusual. It is our invariable rule that, when more than one man is employed on a job, each is allowed to know no more than just enough to carry out his part of the business.

The pieces are fitted together in London, the risks of betrayal or discovery being thereby reduced to a minimum.

At Augsburg I decided, not without misgiving, to try the Speisewagen. Food on German railway trains, especially since the crisis, is not to be lightly undertaken. But I have always maintained the heresy that bad food is better than no food. So when the attendant's bell had sounded I walked down the corridor, through several coaches full of third-class passengers consuming Wurst and other national delicacies. The Speisewagen, to my annoyance, was crowded. I had hoped to sit alone where I might gaze at the scenery, watch for the spires of Ulm and dream sweetly of Hilda, There was but one seat left in the car, however, and into that I promptly inserted myself.

I found myself sitting at a table for two. Opposite me was a large man, dressed in a grey suit of extravagant cut. His face was full ; his eyes black and arrogant ; about his chin there curled a magnificent Assyrian beard. He was examining the menu as though it had been some grave contract to which he had been asked to put his signature. He looked up as I took my seat.

"Is thy servant a pig?" he asked.

"I beg your pardon," I stammered in some confusion.

Then I realised that he was referring to the meal which we were about to share.

"Is it as bad as that?" I ventured, more from politeness than any desire for conversation.

"They have but one eatable dish in this country," he continued. "It is a saddle of wild boar served with chocolate and raisin sauce. I do not perceive it on the menu."

He paused for comment but, receiving none, continued unabashed.

"Eating," he declared, "is one of the true measures of civilisation. The chronicler who portrayed the spectacular and tremendous fall of a mighty king chose precisely this criterion. Nebuchadnezzar in his glory was driven forth to eat the grass of the field,"

The waiter stood beside us, offering the semblance of an omelette aux fines herbes, and the stranger paused to regard it with a pained astonishment.

"Well," he said, dipping nevertheless plentifully into the dish, "if we cannot eat, at least we can drink. The white wine of Germany has no equal, even in France. You will perhaps honour me, sir, by sharing a bottle of whatever they may have of Rhenish or Moselle,"

"You are too kind," I murmured.

He waved a capable and delicate hand.

" A Piesporter, perhaps, would best effect our purpose― or, on second thoughts, a Liebfraumilch."

He summoned the waiter and made known his desires. The wine was brought and poured into green glasses. He raised his own and bowed.

"To your good health, sir."

"To yours," I answered.

"A glass of wine," continued the stranger, "in the interior of a holy man is as a nightingale that sings in a cathedral. We are now in autumn, and the winter will soon be upon us. Yet here, imprisoned in this glass, is eternal spring."

I set down my glass.

"The wine, sir," I said, "does full justice to your opinion."

"The Rhine wines," recited the stranger rapidly, "may be classed under three main heads: those of the Rheingau, Hochheim and Rheinhessen districts. Of the Rheingau proper, the growths of the Rauenthal, Erbach, Marcobrunn, Hattenheim, Steinberg, Oestrod, Schloss Vollrads-Winkel, Johannisberg, Geisenheim and Rudesheim are the most renowned. Nor are the wines of the Palatinate— the Rheinpfalz— where the vine grows close to the ground, to be despised. These latter wines, however..."

But I was not to hear the rest of this discourse, for suddenly, without warning, the entire contents of a plate of Wiener Schnitzel struck against my chest. There was a wild screeching of brakes under my feet. I was thrown violently back against my seat and a second later the whole world crashed and splintered about me. For a moment I must, I think, have lost consciousness, I came to myself to find that I was jammed between the remains of the seat on which I had been sitting, with the steel side of the coach bulging towards me and the remains of the table hanging somehow from the crumpled roof above my head. I was wedged helpless in a welter of broken glass, spoiled napery, spilt wine and food. The air was filled with steam, flapping cloths and, more terribly, with human cries. I feared to look about me, but, after one glimpse at the immediate ruin within reach of my arms, shut my eyes and ears.

In sudden panic I wondered whether I was badiy hurt. The pain, they said, came after. I opened my eyes. That was blood on the table-cloth. God be praised, it was coming from my wrist. I put the wound to my mouth and sucked it. It was indeed nothing―the merest scratch.

I next made an effort to move. Should I have to lie there listening to the hiss of escaping steam and the cries of those less fortunate than myself until the rescue party came to cut me free? Then again a deadly fear struck at my heart as I cought the smell of burning timber. Had the coach taken fire, and we were all to be pinned down and roasted? I moved a little wildly and something gave way — nothing less than the whole side of the coach — and the next moment I was falling. There was a light pelting of small objects and fragments of wood upon gravel and, a second later, I was crawling on all-fours upon the permanent way.

I got shakily to my feet and looked about me. I found that I had fallen through the shattered window of the compartment, which was lying at a perilous angle on the summit of the coach in front of it. A light wind touched my face. I thought suddenly of my companion. What had become of him and of the other inmates of the dining-car? I must climb back into the coach and bear them a helping hand. To climb back, however, was easier said than done. It reared itself aloft, perched precariously; and I felt that at any moment it might come crashing down to earth.

I scrambled with difficulty towards the ragged gap from which I had fallen and put my head into the coach. The first thing I saw was the bottle of Liebfraumilch, miraculously unbroken, lying amidst the ruins of the table. But of the bearded stranger there was no sign. He, too, had escaped with most of the occupants through a hideous tangle of ripped steel and twisted furnishings. In the far corner, in positions that no live creature could assume, lay three bodies.

I dropped back again to the permanent way. A railway official, his face streaked with sweat, his uniform hanging in ribbons from his right shoulder, was running down the track. Men and women stood or sat about in groups, some dazed and silent, others talking excitedly to their companions—not a few, men as well as women, sobbing with horror or from the shock to their nerves. Perhaps the worst sight of all was a little girl, quite unhurt, with streaming flaxen hair, darting aimlessly about and screaming desperately for her mother.

I moved in the wake of the railway official who was calling for volunteers: "Freiwillige... Freiwillige."

I came up with him and asked him what I could do, and he was joined, as I spoke, by three or four other men, one of them in his shirt-sleeves. The railway official pointed to the coach upon which the Speisewagen was reared.

"We shall start here," he said. "We must get the axes first... in the guard's van."

I turned about and ran into another attendant of some kind. He, too, appeared to be uninjured. He took me forcibly by the arm and poured speech into my ear... another ghastly accident... appalling... outrageous... incredible... The words streamed from his lips and, as he spoke, there slid into my mind the memory of Granby in the pleasant halls of the Hofbräuhaus with his serious face and his grave talk of these inexplicable acts.

I shook myself free of the man and ran on down the track. Only the two end coaches were left standing on the rails and, as we approached them, a party of men bearing axes came from the last coach.

"No more axes," they shouted.

I turned back. I saw now what had really happened. We had collided, head on, with another train and the two locomotives were reared up on end like two dogs upon their hind-legs. Something must have gone wrong with the signalling. The up train had crossed to the down line, an incredible thing.

I found myself opposite one of the coaches of the train into which we had run. It was beginning to crawl with broken life, the moans which came from it seeming to transform it into a primeval monster stricken to death. I tore at the splintered door of a third-class compartment. The wooden seats were in shreds and its occupants lying in every posture of fantastic death. With difficulty I penetrated into the remains of the coach, and, as I did so, heard in utter astonishment a faint voice calling me by name. I climbed over a shattered seat and, to my right, saw a vaguely familiar form lying on its back, a great curly beard sprouting upwards from the chin and the eyes closed. This was my stranger of the dining car. How had he found his way in there ? The thought just brushed my consciousness. Had he called ? How did he know my name ? I looked again. Was he dead? A thin stream of blood was trickling across his forehead.

Again a voice from somewhere to the right and below me called my name... "Mr. Briercliffe... Mr. Briercliffe!" Somehow the formal prefix added to the horror of the appeal.

I turned from my stranger with the beard and found at last the person who was calling me. The voice came from a little man wedged between two of the seats almost immediately beneath me. One arm was pinioned behind his back and a portion of the side of the coach had fallen upon his legs. His eyes stared up at me and beads of sweat stood from his forehead.

For a moment I did not recognise him and then, with a leap of the heart, I saw who it was... Monnier... X.42.

"My God, man!" I said as I bent down and put my hands on one of the seats in a futile effort to remove it.

He shook his head.