A statement of simple truths was out of the question.
This was not the time to tell the conductor and the young man named Dow that the lipstick hunt at which they assisted was actually an interlude of intrigue, during which a beautiful girl swiped a package containing a gun and a pair of handcuffs from the base of a water cooler, where it had been thrust by a mousy frightened woman with a braid. This was not the time to mention cracks from revolver butts, or inert bodies under blankets.
Such a recital would inspire more than an ambulance. Swayed by only the most humane motives, Leonidas thought, they would whisk him at once into a strait jacket.
But as he listened to Mr. Dow’s chatty explanation of what knocked him out, he began to regret his caution.
For Mr. Dow said it was a snow plow.
“That’s what gave you the bump, Shakespeare. Just a snow plow.”
Leonidas made a thwarted sound in the back of his throat.
“That is,” Mr. Dow continued, “it was basically a snow plow. Our train almost bumped it, or we almost were bumped by it—that part is one of those moot points. Anyway, brakes got put on hard, and a bump ensued, and it apparently pitched you head first into the drawing room beyond here. The door must have been unlatched, and in you flew with the greatest of ease, and then apparently the door slammed shut behind you. But you’re nowhere near as badly off as a fellow in Car Seven. They’re afraid his skull’s fractured, and the doctor’s rushed him off to the hospital. And you should see the lady with the goose eggs in Car Ten.”
Leonidas sighed, and took off his pince-nez. To think that he had balked at telling this group a simple incident involving a mousy woman and a brown paper package, and the group retaliated with a yarn about snow plows and goose eggs!
“No, Mr. Dow,” Leonidas said politely. “No. I can’t take the goose eggs, even from an old Meredith boy.”
“That’s a fact, Shakespeare,” the young man assured him. “Two dozen goose eggs. She got ’em in New York, and was taking ’em home to her children to color for Easter. Car Ten’s a vast omelet.”
The group agreed that Car Ten was a mess.
“Er—tell me,” Leonidas interrupted their descriptive efforts, “how did I come to light, Mr. Dow?”
“I found you just now. The drawing room door popped open as we pulled out of Back Bay. I happened to be going by, and spotted you, or you’d be there yet. Now, Shakespeare, if you—”
“One moment,” Leonidas said. “I was on the floor of the empty drawing room? Er—alone?”
“That’s right,” the conductor said. “That girl we hunted the lipstick for—remember her? It was her drawing room. She and her aunt had it.”
His tone implied that it was pretty fortunate of Leonidas to have picked that particular drawing room for his accident.
“M’yes,” Leonidas said. “The aunt who was going to sleep as long as the law allowed? That aunt? Er— where were they when I pitched in headlong?”
“The aunt changed her mind all of a sudden,” the conductor explained. “Decided all of a sudden she wanted to get off at Back Bay, and then hurry across and catch a Camavon local out of Trinity Place Station. The girl asked me how they could make it, so I told ‘em to go up to the coach ahead, so they wouldn’t lose time waiting for the porter here to take bags out. See?”
“Frankly,” Leonidas said, “no.”
“Why, they’d left the drawing room, see? The girl hunted me up just after we stopped for the plow, and asked me how they could get off quick at Back Bay, because her aunt changed her mind all of a sudden and decided she wanted to catch a Camavon local, see? So I took ‘em both to the coach—”
“To sum it all up, Shakespeare,” Mr. Dow said, “Beautiful and her aunt had beaten it before you dropped in. Does it really matter? I mean, do you really care? Because I told the doctor I’d take you home in cotton wool, and call your family physician, and I see the wheel chair’s waiting for you out on the platform—that means the ambulance’s ready, doesn’t it, conductor?”
“That’s right. But he’s got to see our other doctor,” the conductor said, “and Mr. Clancy, and Mr. Delaney, and Mr. O’Brien and the rest. They’re going through getting names of anyone that got hurt—”
“Whyn’t you whip along and bring ’em in here?” Mr. Dow suggested. “Then we can get the red tape over with, and get poor Mr. Witherall home. Okay? And maybe a couple of you,” he appealed to the surrounding group, “would see to his bags and coat and stuff, and sort of get ’em collected? Drawing Room A in Car Ten. Get some porters for the bags, and bring his coat and hat here. I’ll stay here with him.”
The group dispersed.
“There,” Mr. Dow said. “Now we’re making progress. A brief trundle in a wheel chair, and a cosy dash in the ambulance, and you’ll be home in Dalton in no time, Mr. Witherall—”
“How did you know I lived in Dalton?” Leonidas asked.
Mr. Dow smiled his infectious smile.
“I picked your pocket while you were in no condition to protest,” he said. “I pulled out your wallet, and learned you were Leonidas Witherall, Forty Birch Hill Road, Dalton Centre. I say, sir, I hope you don’t think I’ve been too fresh, mixing myself up in this, and calling you Shakespeare, and all. But honestly, I never knew you to be called anything but Bill Shakespeare!”
“I’m resigned to that. But, Mr. Dow, I should—”
“And I really was worried about you at first,” Mr. Dow went on earnestly. “You looked awful. Then when that doctor said you’d be all right—”
“What doctor?”
“The one that looked at you. He went off with the fellow from Car Seven they thought had the fractured skull. When
