“Here is an advertisement which will interest you,” said he. “It appeared in all the papers about a year ago. Listen to this:

“Lost, on the 9th inst., Mr. Jeremiah Hayling, aged twenty-six, a hydraulic engineer. Left his lodgings at ten o’clock at night, and has not been heard of since. Was dressed in —

etc., etc. Ha! That represents the last time that the colonel needed to have his machine overhauled, I fancy.”

“Good heavens!” cried my patient. “Then that explains what the girl said.”

“Undoubtedly. It is quite clear that the colonel was a cool and desperate man, who was absolutely determined that nothing should stand in the way of his little game, like those out-and-out pirates who will leave no survivor from a captured ship. Well, every moment now is precious, so if you feel equal to it we shall go down to Scotland Yard at once as a preliminary to starting for Eyford.”

Some three hours or so afterwards we were all in the train together, bound from Reading to the little Berkshire village. There were Sherlock Holmes, the hydraulic engineer, Inspector Bradstreet, of Scotland Yard, a plain-clothes man, and myself. Bradstreet had spread an ordnance map of the county out upon the seat and and was busy with his compasses drawing a circle with Eyford for its centre.

“There you are,” said he. “That circle is drawn at a radius of ten miles from the village. The place we want must be somewhere near that line. You said ten miles, I think, sir.”

“It was an hour’s good drive.”

“And you think that they brought you back all that way when you were unconscious?”

“They must have done so I have a confused memory, too, of having been lifted and conveyed somewhere.”

“What I cannot understand,” said I, “is why they should have spared you when they found you lying fainting in the garden. Perhaps the villain was softened by the woman’s entreaties.”

“I hardly think that likely. I never saw a more inexorable face in my life.”

“Oh, we shall soon clear up all that,” said Bradstreet. “Well, I have drawn my circle, and I only wish I knew at what point upon it the folk that we are in search of are to be found.”

“I think I could lay my finger on it,” said Holmes quietly.

“Really, now!” cried the inspector, “you have formed your opinion! Come, now, we shall see who agrees with you. I say it is south, for the country is more deserted there.”

“And I say east,” said my patient.

“I am for west,” remarked the plain-clothes man. “There are several quiet little villages up there.”

“And I am for north,” said I, “because there are no hills there, and our friend says that he did not notice the carriage go up any.”

“Come,” cried the inspector, laughing; “it’s a very pretty diversity of opinion. We have boxed the compass among us. Who do you give your casting vote to?”

No, he had forgotten. So when he went to look for it, it was occupied by a stout man who was just taking off his collar and wrapping a white kerchief round his neck. The third class carriages were packed. For those were early days after the war, while men still had pre–war notions and were poor. Ten months would steal imperceptibly by, and the mysterious revolution would be effected. Then, the second class and the first class would be packed, indescribably packed, crowded, on all great trains: and the third class carriages, lo and behold, would be comparatively empty. Oh, marvellous days of bankruptcy, when nobody will condescend to travel third!

However, these were still modest, sombre months immediately after the peace. So a large man with a fat neck and a white kerchief, and his collar over his knee, sat in Aaron’s seat. Aaron looked at the man, and at his own luggage overhead. The fat man saw him looking and stared back: then stared also at the luggage overhead: and with his almost invisible north–Italian gesture said much plainer than words would have said it: “Go to hell. I’m here and I’m going to stop here.”

There was something insolent and unbearable about the look—and about the rocky fixity of the large man. He sat as if he had insolently taken root in his seat. Aaron flushed slightly. Francis and Angus strolled along the train, outside, for the corridor was already blocked with the mad Bologna rush, and the baggage belonging. They joined Aaron as he stood on the platform.

“But where is YOUR SEAT?” cried Francis, peering into the packed and jammed compartments of the third class.

“That man’s sitting in it.”

“Which?” cried Francis, indignant.

“The fat one there—with the collar on his knee.”

“But it was your seat—!”

Francis’ gorge rose in indignation. He mounted into the corridor. And in the doorway of the compartment he bridled like an angry horse rearing, bridling his head. Poising himself on one hip, he stared fixedly at the man with the collar on his knee, then at the baggage aloft. He looked down at the fat man as a bird looks down from the eaves of a house. But the man looked back with a solid, rock–like impudence, before which an Englishman quails: a jeering, immovable insolence, with a sneer round the nose and a solid–seated posterior.

“But,” said Francis in English—none of them had any Italian yet. “But,” said Francis, turning round to Aaron, “that was YOUR SEAT?” and he flung his long fore–finger in the direction of the fat man’s thighs.

“Yes!” said Aaron.

“And he’s TAKEN it—!” cried Francis in indignation.

“And knows it, too,” said Aaron.

“But—!” and Francis looked round imperiously, as if to summon his bodyguard. But bodyguards are no longer forthcoming, and train–guards are far from satisfactory. The fat man sat on, with a sneer–grin, very faint but very effective, round his nose, and a solidly–planted posterior. He quite enjoyed the pantomime of the young foreigners. The other passengers said something to him, and he answered laconic. Then they all had the faint sneer–grin round their noses. A woman in the corner grinned jeeringly straight in Francis’ face. His charm failed entirely this time: and as for his commandingness, that was ineffectual indeed. Rage came up in him.