Eaton started on toward the rear of the train.
Eaton halted. The conductors confronted him.
Connery wrote down the answer. "Your address?"
"No, I have none. I was going to a hotel in Chicago--which one I hadn't decided yet."
"I can give you no address abroad. I had no fixed address there. I was traveling most of the time. You could not reach me or place me by means of any city or hotel there. I arrived in Seattle by the Asiatic steamer and took this train."
Connery made note of this, as he had made note of all the other questions and answers. Then he said something to the Pullman conductor, who replied in the same low tone; what they said was not audible to Eaton.
"You can tell us at least where your family is, Mr. Eaton," Connery suggested.
"I say that I can refer you to no friends."
Connery pondered for several moments. "The Mr. Hillward--Lawrence Hillward, to whom the telegram was addressed which you claimed this morning, your associate who was to have taken this train with you--will you give me his address?"
"I thought you had decided the telegram was not meant for me."
"I am asking you a question, Mr. Eaton--not making explanations. It isn't impossible there should be two Lawrence Hillwards."
"Give me the address, then, of the man who sent the telegram."
Connery spoke again to the Pullman conductor, and they conversed inaudibly for a minute. "That is all, then," Connery said finally.
He signed his name to the sheet on which he had written Eaton's answers, and handed it to the Pullman conductor, who also signed it and returned it to him; then they went on to the passenger now occupying Section Four, without making any further comment.
Eaton abandoned his idea of going to the rear of the train; he sat down, picked up his magazine and tried to read; but after an instant, he leaned forward and looked at himself in the little mirror between the windows. It reassured him to find that he looked entirely normal; he had been afraid that during the questioning he might have turned pale, and his paleness--taken in connection with his inability to answer the questions--might have seriously directed the suspicions of the conductors toward him. The others in the car, who might have overheard his refusal to reply to the questions, would be regarding him only curiously, since they did not know the real reasons for the examination. But the conductors--what did they think?