The Sleuth of St. James's Square by Melville Davisson Post (black authors fiction txt) 📕

Warfield. I've seen a train go over into a canal and one coach lodge against a tree that was standing exactly in the right place to save it. And I've seen a passenger engine run by a signal and through a block and knock a single car out of a passing freight-train, at a crossing, and that car be the very one that the freight train's brakeman had just reached on his way to the caboose; just like somebody had timed it all, to the second, to kill him. And I've seen a whole wreck piled up, as high as a house, on top of a man, and the man not scratched.”

“I do not mean the coincidence of accident,” said Marion, “that is a mystery beyond us; what I mean is that there must be an organic difference in the indicatory signs of a thing as it happens in the course of nature, and as it happens by human arrangement.”

The trackman was a person accustomed to the reality and not the theory of things.

“I don't see how the accident would have been any different,” he said, “if somebody had put that tree in the right spot to catch the coach; or timed the minute with a stop-watch to kill that brakeman; or piled that wreck on the man so it wouldn't hurt him. The result would have been just the same.”

“The result would have been the same,” replied Marion, “but the arrangement of events would have been different.”

“Just what way different, Miss Warfield?” said the man.

“We cannot formulate an iron rule about that,” replied Marion, “but as a general thing catastrophes in nature seem to lack a motive, and their contributing events are not forced.”

The big trackman was a person of sound practical sense. He knew what Marion was after, but he was confused by the unfamiliar terms in which the idea was stated.

“It's mighty hard to figure out,” he said. “Of course, when you find an obstruction on the track or a crowbar under a rail, or some plain thing, you know.”

Then he added:

“You've got to figure out a wreck from what seems likely.”

“There you have it exactly,” said Marion. “You must begin your investigation from what your common experience indicates is likely to happen. Now, your experience indicates that the rails of a track sometimes spread under these heavy engines.”

“Yes, Miss Warfield.”

“And your experience indicates that this is more likely to happen at the first rise of the synclinal on a grade than anywhere on a straight track.”

“Yes, Miss Warfield.”

“Good!” said Marion, “so far. But does not your experience also indicate that such an accident usually happens when the train is running at a high rate of speed?”

“Yes, Miss Warfield,” said the man. “It's far more likely to happen then, because the engine strikes the rails at the first rise of the grade with more force. Naturally a thing hits harder when it's going... But it might happen with a slow train.”

Marion made a gesture as of one rejecting the man's final sentence.

“When you turn that way,” she said, “you at once leave the lines of greatest probability. Why should you follow the preponderance of common experience on two features here, and turn aside from it on the third feature?”

“Because the thing happened,” replied the man, with the directness of those practical persons who drive through to the fact.

“That is to say an unlikely thing happened!” Marion made a decisive gesture with her clenched fingers. “Thus, the inquiry, beginning with two consistent elements, now comes up against one that is inconsistent.”

“But not impossible,” said the man.

“Possible,” said Marion, “but not likely. Not to be expected, not in line with the preponderance of common experience; therefore, not to be passed. We have got to stop here and try to find out why this track spread under a slow train.”

“But we see it spread, Miss Warfield,” said the trackman with a conclusive gesture.

“True,” replied Marion, “we see that it did spread, under this condition, but why?”

The old woman sitting beside the track seemed to realize what was under way; for she rose and came over to where I stood. “Contessa,” she whispered, in those quaint, old world words, “do not reveal, what I have tol'. I pray you!”

And she followed me across the few steps to where the others stood.

I did not answer. I stood like one in some Hellenic drama, between two tragic figures. The love of woman lay in the solution of this problem—in the beginning and at the end of life.

Marion and the big track boss continued with this woman looking on.

I feared to speak or move; the thing was like a sort of trap, set with ghastly cunning, by some evil Fate. The ruin of a woman it would have. And perhaps on the vast level plain where it evilly dwelt, through its hard all-seeing eyes, the ruin and the sorrow either way would be precisely equal. How could I, then, lay a finger on the scale.

“Now,” said Marion, “when the engine reached this point on the track, one of the rails gave way first.”

The big workman looked steadily at her.

“How do you know that, Miss Warfield?” he said.

“Because,” replied Marion, “the marks of the wheels of the locomotive on the ties are found, in the beginning, only on one side of the track, showing that the rail on that side gave way, when the engine struck it, and the other rail for some distance bore the weight of the train.”

She illustrated with her hands.

“When the one rail was pushed out, the wheels on that side went down and continued on the ties, while the wheels on the other side went ahead on the firm rail.”

The workman saw it.

“That's true, Miss Warfield,” he said, “one rail sometimes spreads and the other holds solid.”

Marion was absorbed in the problem.

“But why should the one rail give way like this and its companion hold?”

“One of the rails might not be as solid as the other,” said the man.

“But it should have been nearly as solid,” replied Marion. “This piece of track, you tell me, was examined to-day; the ties are equally sound on both sides, the rail is the same weight. We have the right to conclude then that each of these rails was about in the same condition. I do not say precisely in the same condition. Now, it is true that under these conditions one of the rails might have been pushed out of alignment before