William Le Queux
The Temptress
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066236083
Table of Contents
Chapter Two.
The Charing Cross Mystery.
Two years later. A frosty evening, clear and starlit—one of those dry nights in early spring so delightful to the dweller in London, too familiar with choking fog, drizzling rain, and sloppy mire.
In the vicinity of Charing Cross the busy stream of traffic had almost subsided. At ten o’clock the Strand is usually half deserted—the shops are closed, foot passengers are few, and the theatres have not yet disgorged their crowds of pleasure-seekers anxious to secure conveyances to take them to the suburbs. For half an hour previous to eleven o’clock the thoroughfare, notwithstanding the glare of electricity at theatre entrances and the blaze of garish restaurants and public-houses, assumes an appearance of almost dismal solitude. Boys who have hitherto indefatigably cried “special editions,” congregate at corners to chat among themselves, the few loungers stroll along dejectedly, and cadgers slink into doorways to await the time when they can resume their importunities among returning playgoers.
A similar aspect was presented this calm, bright night, as one of the omnibuses plying between the Strand and Kilburn slowly crossed Trafalgar Square, mounted the short incline to Charing Cross at walking pace, and, turning into Duncannon Street, pulled up before the public-house which at that time was the starting-point for that route.
The driver, facetiously adjuring his colleague on the ’bus, which was just moving off, to get “higher up,” unfastened his waist-strap, and, casting aside his multifarious wraps, descended. Stamping his feet to promote circulation, he was about to enter the bar. Suddenly he remembered that the conductor, after collecting the fares, had left the vehicle at the corner of the Haymarket for the purpose of walking the remainder of the journey—a proceeding not unusual in cold weather, when one’s hands become numbed, and a walk proves a welcome exercise.
It occurred to him that some one might still be inside. His surmise proved correct for, ensconced in a corner in the front of the conveyance, sat a well-dressed, middle-aged man. His fur-trimmed overcoat was unbuttoned, his head had fallen forward upon his chest, and he was apparently slumbering soundly.
“Charin’ Cross, sir,” shouted the plethoric old driver, peering in at the door.
The man showed no sign of awakening.
Sleeping passengers, who at their journey’s end awake irate and in great consternation at finding themselves a mile or two past their destination, are the daily experience of every omnibus conductor;