Page:The Viaduct Murder (1926).pdf/235

elsewhere. You waited till the train got to the beginning of the Paston Oatvile viaduct, and there, as you expected, it was held up by the signals. That meant that you were just at the beginning of the viaduct, so that a body falling over must necessarily go to its destruction. It meant also, owing to the curve, that the other coaches were all but out of sight from yours; in any case, you were hardly visible in the fog.

"Then it was that you took out of your pocket a golf-ball⁠—a golf-ball of a very common kind, by which you could not be traced. Leaning out of the window on the left-hand side of the train, you threw the ball backwards, in such a way as to hit the further window of Brotherhood's carriage, the window on the side furthest from the engine, I mean. Your idea was that the ball, bouncing off with considerable speed, would fall into the valley below, where of course it would arouse no suspicion if it were found. As a matter of fact, it lodged at the top of the viaduct and was there found by me.

"Brotherhood was startled at the noise, and, as you had hoped, he put his head out of the window. As you had hoped, he looked backwards in doing so, because it was the back window that the ball had hit. At that moment you brought down your stick with a violent blow over his skull, and he must have fallen doubled up over the window-frame.

"It was not difficult, with the train stationary and the fog all around you, to climb along the footboard, still on the left-hand side of the train. You