Judge Comyn settled himself comfortably into the corner seat of his first-class compartment, unfolded his day's copy of the Irish Times, glanced at the headlines, and laid it on his lap.
There would be plenty of time for the newspaper during the slow four-hour trundle down to Tralee. He gazed idly out of the window at the bustle of Kingsbridge station in the last minutes before the departure of the Dublin- Tralee locomotive which would haul him sedately to his duties in the principal township of County Kerry. He hoped vaguely he would have the compartment to himself so that he could deal with his paperwork.
It was not to be. Hardly had the thought crossed his mind when the compartment door opened and someone stepped in. He forbore to look. The door rolled shut and the newcomer tossed a handgrip onto the luggage rack. Then the man sat down opposite him, across the gleaming walnut table.
Judge Comyn gave him a glance. His companion was a small, wispy man, with a puckish quiff of sandy hair standing up from his forehead and a pair of the saddest, most apologetic brown eyes. His suit was of a whiskery thornproof with a matching weskit and knitted tie. The judge assessed him as someone associated with horses, or a clerk perhaps, and resumed his gaze out of the window.
He heard the call of the guard outside to the driver of the old steam engine puffing away somewhere down the line, and then the shrill blast of the guard's whistle. Even as the engine emitted its first great chuff and the carriage began to lurch forward, a large running figure dressed entirely in black scurried past the window. The judge heard the crash of the carriage door opening a few feet away and the thud of a body landing in the corridor. Seconds later, to the accompaniment of a wheezing and puffing, the black figure appeared in the compartment's doorway and subsided with relief into the far corner.