Page:The Viaduct Murder (1926).pdf/236

had to be quick, though, for the train might move on at any moment. You removed his season-ticket, and substituted a third-class ticket for Paston Whitchurch. The train you were on did not stop at Paston Whitchurch; the ticket, then, would make people think that Brotherhood had fallen from the slow train that went past later. You changed the time of his watch, in order to confirm this impression. You put a wrist-watch on him, registering the same time, so as to make assurance doubly sure. There you over-reached yourself; there is no need to explain how.

"All this you did while your victim, I suppose, still breathed. And still the train was held up by the signals. There was time to search the pockets. Your cipher-letter was still in his pocket; you thought there was no need to destroy that, because its secret could not be penetrated. You forgot that on the back of the sheet of note-paper on which you sent the cipher message you had jotted down some references to anthems, mattins, and so on, which helped me ultimately to trace the crime to you. You also found a coupon for a sleeping-carriage; that, too, you did not destroy, but you altered the dates, because your quick brain saw that a sleeping-carriage coupon for Tuesday would not have been held by a man travelling in the later train, the 4.50.

"Then you took the living body and heaved it out of the carriage-window, over the viaduct. That was just as the train started, or when it had already started; it was a moment later that you saw you