"The catches are in perfect order," the conductor said trying them, "and very stiff. One goes up, the other down. If the door opened, it was opened. And how could two men fall out? The affair will be inquired into thoroughly. And how about thy cap and coat?" The guard turned to the ticket collector.
That official's story was that taking them off to enjoy his supper more at his ease, he had hung them on a nail outside the compartment. He had just discovered their absence when the alarm signal was pulled.
Pointer felt sure that he could have got him twisted up in his own statements in no time, had his Italian been as his English. What he felt sure had happened was a bribe, unless the man belonged to the same organisation. The soldier was left to guard the compartment, bayonet fixed, "in case of any more accidents," as the conductor said grimly. Pointer resolutely refused to show his papers, and he and O'Connor were marched off at once on arrival at Milan to the chief of the station police's room.
When the short stop of the express was nearly over, two figures dressed in Pointer and O'Connor's travelling coats and caps got into their compartment, but as the train started they strolled down to the end and dropped off with the ease of railwaymen. Pointer had decided to wait over a train. Being a night express, their absence might not be noticed, for the officials on the train were instructed to keep their compartment locked, and the blinds drawn after the two temporary substitutes had left. As for Pointer and his friend, they spent the night in the apologetic station-master's office, which he put at their disposal, together with his dog Wolf. When they unobtrusively slipped into the buffet early next morning for a cup of coffee, and some of Milan's famous panetone, they were told of an accident which had happened to last night's express. It was a singular accident, too. Just after the frontier tunnel was left behind, the express ran past a goods' train between two Swiss stations. A slight shock was felt, and the whole side of a first-class coach was ripped open, as though by something suddenly protruded from the goods' train. Only one coach was damaged. It was the one in which the two Englishmen had been sitting. All the occupants in it were severely injured, one man being killed. The express was delayed at the next station, where the injured were attended to by some doctors who happened to be waiting at the station for another train.
"'Happened to be waiting,' is good," was Pointer's only comment to his friend, when they took their seats next morning in an empty carriage. They were joined by other travelers who now got in, now got out, till they were left at Lausanne with a quiet, ill-looking young man, and a doctor, his anxious, attentive companion. They were French, and judging by his talk, the younger man was a consumptive back from a "cure" in the mountains which had not cured. He fell into an uneasy slumber after the train started on again, tossing and turning. Pointer and O'Connor occupied the two middle seats. The least comfortable, but the safest. Should the window seats be taken, they had arranged to stand in the corridor.
During the war, O'Connor had come across an eye-signal language hailing from America. He and Pointer had practised it, and changed it, till they were masters of its capabilities. It was undetectable.
Pointer occasionally glanced up from the paper which he was reading, generally looking out of the window, but sometimes at O'Connor, and sometimes at his fellow-travellers. O'Connor was equally at his ease. But they were talking hard, and this is what they were saying to each other:
Pointer: "The right hand of the young man beside me seems to get more and more out of sight. Watch it."
O'Connor: "I am. His companion's feet beside me look a bit braced. How about it?"
Pointer: "When you see that right arm move forward again, give a sniff and duck. You're right. His companion next you is getting ready for a jump. I'll tackle his feet if he does."
O'Connor: "And I'll see to—"
Pointer and he ducked simultaneously. A shot rang out. The young man with a wild white face was shouting, "Tirez! Tirez donc! Passeront pas! Passeront pas!"
The shot would have gone through Pointer's head from ear to ear had that essential part of his body been where it was expected to be, instead of down near his boots.
It was charming to see how Pointer and O'Connor worked together. Never getting in each other's way, however cramped the space. Like the swing of a couple of navvies' hammers, what Thornton insisted on in life and in art, rhythm and harmony were never lost sight of. First, Pointer pulled the feet from under the pale young man. O'Connor did the same with the young man's companion. Pointer laid his kicking and screaming captive on top of O'Connor's, where they started pummelling each other. O'Connor sat on their chests, Pointer on their feet, while the occupants of the other compartments flocked to the door and tried to pull it open.
"Third party locked it when he stood with his back to us just now. Look out for him," Pointer warned.
But it was the genuine conductor who unlocked it with loud requests to know the meaning of this.
"Passeront pas! Passeront pas!" shrieked the young man, trying to get his revolver.
"Without doubt wounded in the war, and not recovered even yet!" murmured sympathetic voices in the corridor.
"Possibly," Pointer said, getting up, "but he swore in another tongue altogether when his friend kicked him in the eye just now."
"Here, don't claw down me socks like that," O'Connor protested indignantly; "where's your manners." He gave the young man a tap as he only sat the harder.
"Why this treatment?" shrieked the man used as a mattress by all the three. "I am this gentleman's medical attendant. I cannot understand—I demand explanations, and—"
"Reparations," added O'Connor under his breath. Three railway officials freed the under-dog. Pointer spoke to him reproachfully.
"But, monsieur, your patient would have shot you! My friend and I saved your life. In the mêlée it was a little difficult, I own, to distinguish friend from foe."
The younger man was led away. The elder, literally foaming at the mouth, was helped to his feet.
Pointer and O'Connor strolled into another compartment, and roared with delight as they reconstructed the scene.
When the time came for lunch, they had only two Englishwomen with them, of the usual badly-dressed, over-smiling, over-toothed kind that seems to live exclusively abroad.
"First service!" bawled the dining-car attendant. "First service!"
"Are you going?" asked one of the ladies of the other.
"I think not, dear; I've something here with me." She patted a little wicker case, and after the other had passed out, spread a napkin and took out some rolls and a thermos flask.
Pointer and O'Connor were smoking in the corridor.
The lady inside leant out and asked if one of them would be so kind as to close the window for her, she found it too hard to lift. It was a very stiff window. O'Connor entered to help her, while Pointer stood looking on, not suspicious, but watchful. The woman bent forward again and said something to the Scotland Yard man, picking up her thermos flask and a little glass as she did so.
He did not catch what she said, and leant down. As he bent, her fingers tightened around the flask which was in the hand nearest him. He had already noticed that she held it under the bottom. Her forearm muscles stiffened, too. Pointer's one hand held the strap of the door, his other jogged her elbow, the elbow nearest him. Jogged it accurately. Not so hard as to deluge her with the contents, but sufficient to let him have an idea of what the thermos held. A straw-coloured liquid spurted up, a couple of drops touching her cheek. She shrieked, and rising, would have flung the contents wildly at him. A sharp tap from O'Connor lamed her arm, and the bottle fell on the floor, the liquid running over her very stout boots. A little must have penetrated the eyelet holes, for she screamed horribly as she tried to tear off boots and stockings.
Once more their compartment became the scene of the day. People crowded into the corridor.