“Personally I knew what was coming before the Scotch stockbroker spoke.

“I could have jotted down the graphic and lifelike description he would give of a probable murderer.  It would have fitted equally well the man who sat and had luncheon at this table just now; it would certainly have described five out of every ten young Englishmen you know.

“The individual was of medium height, he wore a moustache which was not very fair nor yet very dark, his hair was between colours.  He wore a bowler hat, and a tweed suit—­and—­and—­that was all—­Mr. Campbell might perhaps know him again, but then again, he might not—­he was not paying much attention—­the gentleman was sitting on the same side of the carriage as himself—­and he had his hat on all the time.  He himself was busy with his newspaper—­yes—­he might know him again—­but he really could not say.

“Mr. Andrew Campbell’s evidence was not worth very much, you will say.  No, it was not in itself, and would not have justified any arrest were it not for the additional statements made by Mr. James Verner, manager of Messrs. Rodney & Co., colour printers.

“Mr. Verner is a personal friend of Mr. Andrew Campbell, and it appears that at Farringdon Street, where he was waiting for his train, he saw Mr. Campbell get out of a first-class railway carriage.  Mr. Verner spoke to him for a second, and then, just as the train was moving off, he stepped into the same compartment which had just been vacated by the stockbroker and the man in the tweed suit.  He vaguely recollects a lady sitting in the opposite corner to his own, with her face turned away from him, apparently asleep, but he paid no special attention to her.  He was like nearly all business men when they are travelling—­engrossed in his paper.  Presently a special quotation interested him; he wished to make a note of it, took out a pencil from his waistcoat pocket, and seeing a clean piece of paste-board on the floor, he picked it up, and scribbled on it the memorandum, which he wished to keep.  He then slipped the card into his pocket-book.

“‘It was only two or three days later,’ added Mr. Verner in the midst of breathless silence, ’that I had occasion to refer to these same notes again.

“’In the meanwhile the papers had been full of the mysterious death on the Underground Railway, and the names of those connected with it were pretty familiar to me.  It was, therefore, with much astonishment that on looking at the paste-board which I had casually picked up in the railway carriage I saw the name on it, “Frank Errington."’

“There was no doubt that the sensation in court was almost unprecedented.  Never since the days of the Fenchurch Street mystery, and the trial of Smethurst, had I seen so much excitement.  Mind you, I was not excited—­I knew by now every detail of that crime as if I had committed it myself.  In fact, I could not have done it better, although I have been a student of crime for many years now.  Many people there—­his friends, mostly—­believed that Errington was doomed.  I think he thought so, too, for I could see that his face was terribly white, and he now and then passed his tongue over his lips, as if they were parched.