“It is significant of my state of mind at this time that, before starting, I considered what weapon I should take with me.  Formerly I should no more have thought of arming myself for a simple railway journey than of putting on a coat of mail; but now a train suggested a train robber—­a Lefroy, with a very unsubmissive Mr. Gold—­and the long tunnel near Strood was but the setting of a railway tragedy.  My ultimate choice of weapon, too, is interesting.  The familiar revolver I rejected utterly.  There must be no noise.  My quarrel with the criminal was a personal one in which no outsiders must be allowed to meddle.  I should have preferred the concussor, which I now handled with skill, but it was hardly a portable tool, and my choice ultimately fell on a very fine swordstick, supplemented by a knuckle-duster which had been bequeathed to me by one of my clients after trial on my own countenance.

And after all, nothing happened.  I got into an empty first-class compartment and when, just as the train was starting, a burly fellow dashed in and slammed the door, I eyed him suspiciously and waited for developments.  But there were none.  The fellow sat huddled in a corner, watching me and keeping an eye on the handle of the alarm over his head; but he made no sign.  When we emerged from the long tunnel he was as white as a ghost and he hopped out on to Strood platform almost before the train had begun to slow down.

“I reached my bag down from the rack and got out after him, smiling at my own folly.  The criminal was becoming an obsession of which I must beware if I would not end my days in an asylum; a fact which was further impressed on me when I saw my late fellow-passenger, who had just caught sight of me, ‘legging it’ down the station approach like a professional pedestrian and looking back nervously over his shoulder.  Resolving firmly to put the subject out of my mind, I walked slowly into the town and betook myself to the London Road; and though, as I passed the Falstaff Inn and crossed Gad’s Hill, fleeting reminiscences of Prince Henry and the men in buckram came unsought, with later suggestions of a stagecoach struggling up the hill in the dark and masked figures creeping down the banks into the sunken road, I kept to my good resolution.  The bag was a little cumbersome—­it contained a large parcel of bulbs from Covent Garden that Grayson had asked me to bring—­and yet it was pleasant to break off from the high road and stray by well-remembered tracks and footpaths across the fields.  It was all familiar ground; for in years gone by, when Grayson was in practice, we would come down together for weekends to his little demesne, and often I would stay on alone for a week or so and ramble about the country by myself.  So I knew every inch of the country side and was so much interested in renewing my acquaintance with it that I was twenty minutes late for lunch.

“I had a most agreeable day with Grayson (who was working at the historical aspects of disease), and would have stayed later than I did.  But at about half-past eight—­we had dined at seven—­Grayson began to be restless and fidgetty and at last said apologetically: