Page:The Viaduct Murder (1926).pdf/84

"I find myself unaccountably unable to recollect whether the 7.30 from Euston stops at Wigan. However, it will do for the sake of argument.

"At Wigan an anonymous passenger, Davenant, of course, would ask the sleeping-car attendant whether he had a vacant berth. And the man was bound to have a vacant berth—Brotherhood's. There was one person in the world whom nobody would suspect of being Brotherhood—the stranger who had been accommodated, quite accidentally, with Brotherhood's berth."

"It's wonderful!" said Marryatt.

"But of course, all that is only speculation. Now we come to something of which we can give a more accurate account—the plans which this Brotherhood-Davenant made for the act of metamorphosis. I take it this was his difficulty—Brotherhood and Davenant (naturally enough) do not know one another. If Davenant walks out of Brotherhood's office in London, it will create suspicion—the change, then, must not happen in London. If Davenant is suddenly seen walking out of Brotherhood's bungalow, that again will create suspicion; the change, then, must not take place at Paston Whitchurch. The thing must be managed actually on the journey between the two places. That is why Brotherhood-Davenant wears such very non-committal clothes—hosiery by which, in case of accident, he cannot be traced; the very handkerchief he takes with him is one belonging