He was an
intelligent and deductive servant.
The traveler was some noted English lord who had come to
Bleiberg to shoot the famed golden pheasant, and had secured a
second-class compartment in order to demonstrate his incognito.
Persons who traveled second-class usually did so to save money;
yet this tall Englishman, since the train departed from Vienna,
had almost doubled in gratuities the sum paid for his ticket.
The guard stood respectfully at the door of the cab, doffed his
cap, into which a memento was dropped, and went along about his
business.
The Englishman slammed the door, the jehu cracked his whip, and
a moment later the hoarse breathings of the motionless engines
became lost in the sharper noises of the city carts. The unknown
leaned against the faded cushions, curled his mustache, and
smiled as if well satisfied with events. It is quite certain
that his sense of ease and security would have been somewhat
disturbed had he known that another cab was close on the track
of his, and that its occupant, an officer of the city
gendarmerie, alternately smiled and frowned as one does who
floats between conviction and uncertainty.
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