Tales of Terror and Mystery Story 9 - The Man with the Watches

**Arthur Conan Doyle** (0:00)
Tales of Terror and Mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle The Man with the Watches This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit librivox.org. Recording by Marta Garnowska Tales of Terror and Mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle The Man with the Watches There are many who will still bear in mind the singular circumstances which under the heading of the Rugby mystery filled many columns of the Daily Press in the spring of the year 1892 Coming as it did, at a period of exceptional dullness, it attracted perhaps rather more attention than it deserved, but it offered to the public that mixture of the whimsical and the tragic which is most stimulating to the popular imagination. Interest drooped, however, when, after weeks of fruitless investigation, it was found that no final explanation of the facts was forthcoming, and the tragedy seemed from that time to the present to have finally taken its place in the dark catalogue of inexplicable and unexplained crimes. A recent communication, the authenticity of which appears to be a both question, has however thrown some new and clear light upon the matter.
Before laying it before the public, it would be as well perhaps that I should refresh their memories as to the singular facts upon which this commentary is founded. These facts were briefly as follows. At five o'clock on the evening of the 18th of March, in the year already mentioned, a train left Euston Station for Manchester. It was a rainy, squally day, which grew wilder as it progressed, so it was by no means the weather in which anyone would travel, who was not driven to do so by necessity.
The train, however, is a favorite one among Manchester businessmen, who are returning from town, for it does the journey in four hours and 20 minutes, with only three stoppages upon the way. In spite of the inclement evening it was, therefore fairly well filled upon the occasion of which I speak. The guard of the train was a tried servant of the company, a man who had worked for 22 years without a blemish or complaint. His name was John Palmer. The station clock was upon the stroke of five and the guard was about to give the customary signal to the engine driver when he observed two belated passengers hurrying down the platform. The one was an exceptionally tall man, dressed in a long black overcoat with a stricken collar and caps. I have already said that the evening was an inclement one, and the tall traveler had the high warm collar turned up to protect his throat against the bitter march wind.
He appeared as far as the guard could judge by so hurried an inspection to be a man between 50 and 60 years of age, who had retained a good deal of the vigor and activity of his youth. In one hand, he carried a brown leather gladstone bag. His companion was a lady, tall and erect, walking with a vigorous step, which outpaced the gentleman beside her. She wore a long, fawn-colored dust cloak, a black clothes-fitting toque, and a dark veil which concealed the greater part of her face. The two might very well have passed as father and daughter. They walked swiftly down the line of carriages, glancing in at the windows until the guard John Palmer overtook them.
Now, dancer, look sharp, the train is going, said he. First class, the man answered. The guard turned the handle of the nearest door. In the carriage which he had opened, there sat a small man with a cigar in his mouth. His appearance seemed to have impressed itself upon the guard's memory, for he was prepared afterwards to describe or to identify him.
He was a man of 34 or 35 years of age, dressed in some gray material, sharp-nosed, alert, with a ruddy weather-bitten face and a small, closely cropped black beard. He glanced up as the door was opened. The tall man posed with his foot upon the step.
This is a smoking compartment. The lady dislikes smoke, said he, looking round at the guard. All right, here you are, sir, said John Palmer. He slammed the door of the smoking carriage, opened that of the next one, which was empty, and thrust the two travelers in. At the same moment, he sounded his whistle, and the wheels of the train began to move. The man with the cigar was at the window of his carriage and said something to the guard as he rolled past him, but the words were lost in the bustle of the departure. Palmer stepped into the guard's van as it came up to him and thought no more of the incident. Twelve minutes after his departure, the train reached Willsden Junction, where it stopped for a very short interval. An examination of the tickets has made it certain that no one either joined or left it at this time, and no passenger was seen to alight upon the platform. At 5.14, the journey to Manchester was resumed, and rugby was reached at 6.50, the express being five minutes late. At rugby, the attention of the station officials was drawn to the fact that the door of one of the first-class carriages was open. An examination of that compartment and of its neighbor disclosed a remarkable state of affairs. The smoking carriage in which the short, red-faced man with the black bird had been seen was now empty. Safe for a half-smoked cigar, there was no trace whatever of its recent occupant. The door of this carriage was fastened. In the next compartment, to which attention had been originally drawn, there was no sign either of the gentleman with the astrakhan collar or of the young lady who accompanied him. All three passengers had disappeared. On the other hand, there was found upon the floor of this carriage, the one in which the tall traveller and the lady had been, a young man, fashionably dressed and of elegant appearance. He lay with his knees drawn up and his head resting against the farther door, an elbow upon either seat. A bullet had penetrated his heart and his death must have been instantaneous. No one had seen such a man enter the train, and no railway ticket was found in his pocket. Neither were there any markings upon his linen, nor papers, nor personal property which might help to identify him.