Day after day, at four o’clock in the afternoon, three gentlemen came separately into London Bridge Station and strolled about.

They never spoke to each other in the station; they looked at the advertisements, perused the time-tables, and made themselves as little in the way as possible.

One evening, about five, Mr. Turvey, the guard of the Continental mail, came out of one of the offices and went across the road to a public-house.

One of the gentlemen had preceded him. He was a dark gentleman with a hook nose. He found himself accidentally standing by Turvey at the bar.

‘Fine afternoon, sir,’ said the guard.

‘Very,’ answered the gentleman.

They looked about them cautiously, to see that no one was listening to them or observing them, and then the guard whispered hurriedly:

‘We carry twenty thousand to-night.’

The dark man nodded his head. Two glasses of ale on the counter were rapidly emptied, the guard went back to the station, and the gentleman strolled across the bridge.

Singularly enough, the other two gentlemen had previously crossed the water.

The dark gentleman passed right between them, and muttered, ‘Twenty thousand pounds to-night.’

The ways of the three gentlemen evidently lay in opposite directions. They separated without remark. Their plans had long since been complete, and they had waited patiently until the stake was worth the hazard.

Their patience had been rewarded.

To-night the Continental mail would carry £20,000 worth of bullion, addressed to bankers in Paris.

Rushing along through the night, the swift train would bear a fortune down to the sea—a sum for which many a man would gladly slave and toil all his days.

This vast sum would travel safely, guarded by vigilant eyes, enclosed in massive safes, and secured by every precaution. Twice on the journey the safes would be weighed—at Folkestone and at Boulogne—so that the slightest difference in the weight of the precious packages would be detected.

Yet, if Messrs. Smith and Co., financial agents of London, could get their way, the gold would never reach its destination.

The three gentlemen who separated on London Bridge were, for the time, members of the firm in question.

The gentleman with the hook nose went off in the direction of the west; the other two were a pleasant-looking elderly gentleman, who hailed a cab and told the driver to take him to Camden Road, and a big, burly, grey-haired fellow, who went back to his lodgings in Southwark, and was greeted with some very bad language by a depraved parrot.

Messrs. Seth Preene, Brooks, and Josh Heckett had only a few hours to prepare for a railway journey which they proposed to take that evening.

It wants a few minutes to the departure of the Continental mail.

The station is a scene of bustle. Porters are rushing hither and thither with piles of heavy travelling trunks. Little groups of travellers dot the platform, affectionate farewells are being taken, and many an anxious eye is looking down the line where the lights gleam, and wondering what sort of weather it is out at sea.

The stolid English traveller, who, having bought half-a-dozen newspapers, and taken his seat in an empty carriage, considers he has done an act which entitles him to the whole of the compartment; the English lady, arrayed for travel in garments which are calculated to amaze the foreigner; the Frenchman, who raises his hat every time he passes a fellow-traveller, and spits on the floor of the carriage without apology; the Belgian, with his hideous black travelling-cap and funereal suit; the German, the Italian, and the Russian, speaking now in English now in their native language, all are here.

The train is a light one, and there is plenty of room for travellers who wish to be exclusive.

A few shillings to the guard on a slack night will generally reserve a compartment as far as Dover.

Two gentlemen evidently think privacy worth purchasing, for the guard has closed the door of a first-class compartment on them and is slipping a bright half-crown into his pocket.

They have handed their carpet-bags to a porter to put in the guard’s van.

The bell is ringing and the train is about to start.

There are a few people still bidding adieu to their friends.

Just at the last moment two gentlemen, who have not taken their seats, step into the guard’s van and crouch down behind the luggage.

A sharp whistle, a volume of steam, and the train glides out into the night.

Turvey, the guard, breathes freely. He has fulfilled his portion of the contract, and is entitled to his share.

Brooks and Heckett are alone with the massive safes of bullion, and everything now depends upon the use they make of the opportunity.

They are the workmen who are to carry out the scheme devised by the talented head of the firm of Smith and Co.

Slowly at first, but increasing in speed at every moment, the long train rushes like a fiery serpent through London out into the open country.

Directly the train is clear of the station Brooks and Heckett commence operations. The rehearsal has been perfect, the performance seems likely to go off without a hitch.

Brooks has the keys prepared with so much skill and labour, and the safe opens in a moment. Then Heckett with a hammer and chisel wrenches off the iron clasps from the first box, and, forcing the lid up carefully, reveals the treasure that lies within.

Never did a miner’s eyes gleam more brightly as he came upon the priceless nugget than did Heckett’s as he saw the bars of gold at his mercy. Quick as thought the box was emptied and filled with shot from the carpet bags in the van.

This shot had all been carefully weighed and prepared in parcels, so that it would represent the exact weight of the abstracted gold.

To light some wax with a taper, reseal the box with a seal brought for the purpose, refasten the iron clasps and drive the nails in again was the work of a very short time, and when the train stopped at Redhill half the stupendous task was completed.

Here Preene, who was travelling with Marston, managed to alight and take a full bag of gold from Brooks, then he slipped it into the carriage where Marston was, and got back again in time to jump into the guard’s van as the train started.

Directly the train was in motion again the other boxes were attacked, and now Brooks, Preene, and Heckett filled their carpet bags with gold, and also large courier bags which they wore across their shoulders, and which were quite concealed by their heavy travelling cloaks.

When the train stopped at Folkestone the work was done. The boxes had been reclosed and filled with shot of the exact weight of the abstracted gold, the safes were relocked, and there was nothing to tell that the guard’s van had been the scene of a daring and gigantic robbery. At Folkestone the three accomplices slipped out of the van and entered the nearest carriages, carrying their spoil with them, its great weight, however, rendering it anything but an easy task.

Here the safes were carefully taken out and handed to the authorities for shipment to Boulogne, and the train sped on its way to Dover.

It was with intense relief that Marston put his head out of window as the train rattled out of Folkestone station, and saw the safes on the platform, zealously guarded by the porters, who little imagined that they were keeping watch over a quantity of shot while the gold was divided among four first-class passengers comfortably seated in the fast-vanishing train.

At Dover the conspirators alighted, each carrying his own bag, and politely declining the offers of the porters, who were anxious to assist them.

Making their way to one of the hotels in the neighbourhood they succeeded in getting refreshments served in a private room, and here, putting their heavy bags under the table, they discussed the return journey.

To avoid the suspicion which such a short stay might have aroused, they had provided themselves with return tickets from Ostend, and it was by the Ostend mail, which leaves Dover shortly after two, that they proposed to return to town with their precious burden.

Paying their bill they got outside. There was an uneasy feeling on them all the time they were within four walls. Even the fact that the waiter remained out of the room some time before he returned with the change filled them with alarm.

They had every hope that the weight had been so accurately replaced that the exchange of shot for precious metal would not be discovered until the safes were opened in Paris, but there was the chance that something might have happened at Folkestone before they were shipped.

Once outside they separated, but all made for the pier. Marston stood and looked out over the sea, watching for the lights of the Ostend packet.

The night was not very dark, and the water was comparatively still. As he looked out over the wide expanse of waters, dotted here and there with the light of a fishing vessel at anchor his thoughts wandered away over the past.

As he stood there, clutching his bag of gold, he thought of each succeeding step he had taken in crime, until he had come to look upon a robbery such as he had just been the prime mover in in much the same light as a merchant looks upon a successful speculation on ‘Change.’

Thinking of his wild life, and glancing almost unconcernedly at the panorama of his evil deeds which unfolded itself at the bidding of the great showman Memory, something seemed to come suddenly between him and the canvas. The gentle face of a beautiful girl rose up before him; her eyes looked pleadingly into his. Suddenly it vanished, and the panorama was unrolled swiftly. Scene alter scene he saw, where all was wickedness and he was the central figure.

‘Bah!’ he exclaimed, as he caught himself sighing. ‘What the deuce is the matter with me to-night?’

He lit a cigar and moved away from the pier side, strolling up towards the head. He looked around for his companions. A feeling of loneliness had come upon him, and he wanted some one to speak to.

But it bad been agreed that they should not rejoin each other until the packet was in sight, so Marston buttoned his overcoat up found his throat, and whistled a tune to relieve his feelings.

He could not shake them off. In a few minutes he found himself musing again. What should he do now if this coup came off with complete success?

Once safe back in town he could snap his fingers at detection. He would have ample opportunity of destroying the scent if the hounds of the law ever got on it. He knew that he would have an early intimation if there was any necessity for him to take precautions. His companions might peach, but it was almost impossible. It wouldn’t pay them. They were as deep in the mud as he was in the mire, and he had the whip hand of them all.

Still he felt uncomfortable, almost for the first time in his life, he kept thinking of Ruth Adrian, and that upset him. The old love, fanned into a flame, was burning brightly in his breast once more, and it seemed to unnerve him. The wealth which was his now would open the gates of fortune to him. He knew it. He knew that, with the capital soon to be at his command, he could make money legitimately and without risk. That was his intention. He had no vulgar ambition to be a criminal. His desire was, having secured the foundation of a fortune, to live cleanly and respectably for the future. But in all the dreams in which he indulged, Ruth Adrian was always his wife.

Apart from his really sincere regard for her, he had the gambler’s idea that she would bring him luck. She was to be one means to an end, as the precious metal in his bag was to be another.

But the more he thought of her, the more he pictured a happy home in which she reigned as a sort of good fairy and guardian angel, the more he felt a strange, undefined sense of fear in connexion with this evening’s adventure.

It was such a daring and gigantic deed that it was bound to cause a sensation. It would be in every man’s mouth by-and-by. He would hear of it everywhere. The efforts made to discover the perpetrators would be superhuman. Would he not, as the days went on, and he settled down into the happy life he pictured for himself with Ruth, be constantly reminded of the perils which he ran? He flung his half-smoked cigar away pettishly. He was annoyed with himself for worrying about the future at all.

‘Only let me get safe out of this,’ he thought to himself, and I’ll make a fresh start. This is the last little business Smith and Co. will transact so far as I am concerned. Preene and Brooks and Heckett can take their share and do as they like; Turvey is squared, and daren’t speak for his own sake; and the old Ned Marston will disappear for ever. The phoenix that will rise from his ashes will be a very different person indeed.’

Standing at the pier-head, Edward Marston looked far away over the waves into his future life.

His dreams were interrupted by a voice at his elbow.

‘Stand aside there!’

Marston looked up with a start.

The harbour officials were busy with ropes and landing-stages. The Ostend packet had crept up and he had not even seen it.

In a moment it was alongside. A stream of passengers flowed up the gangways on to the pier, and trickled gently towards the station.

Four gentlemen, carrying heavy bags, dropped into the crowd at different points and went up with it, as though they had just come from the boat.

In the early morning the Belgian mail from Dover steamed into London and discharged her sleepy freight at the terminus.

There the four fellow-travellers separated, each going his own way.

Marston was not afraid to trust his companions with the share of the plunder they carried. Without him they would not be able to dispose of it. In its present shape it could only be put on to the market by a capitalist with machinery for its distribution at his command.

The distribution and realization of £20,000 of stolen bullion was to be the last official act of the eminent firm of Smith and Co., of which Mr. Edward Marston was the directing genius.

In the grey light of the morning Marston let himself into Eden Villa with his latch-key. He went upstairs quietly into his room and disposed of his precious burden, and then crept down again to the dining-room to get some brandy from the chiffonier, for he was tired and faint. In the room on the table he found the letters which had arrived during his absence.

He sat down in the easy-chair, opened them and read them.

About half-past seven Cherry Ribbons, the housemaid came banging about with brooms, blacklead-brushes, and dust-pans.

She came bustling into the dining room and then stopped suddenly as though she had seen a ghost.

Her master had fallen off to sleep in the easy-chair. He was smiling in his sleep, and in his hand he held an open letter.

Cherry Ribbons, who was not behind the door when the bump of curiosity was served out, crept gently up behind him and read its contents over his shoulder.

Two words only were written on the fair white sheet, and they were in a lady’s hand:

“Hope. Ruth.”