The Rival

The Rival
By Martin Armstrong

The train was about three-quarters of an hour from its destination and was travelling at a good sixty miles an hour when Mr. Harraby-Ribston, a prosperous businessman, rose from his seat, lifted his suitcase down from the rack and threw it out of the window. The only other occupant of the carriage, a small, thin man, a Mr. Crowther, had raised his eyes from his book when his travelling-companion stirred from his seat and had noticed the occurrence. Then the two men exchanged a sharp glance and immediately Mr. Crowther continued his reading, while Mr. Harraby-Ribston resumed his seat and sat for a while puffing a little and with a heightened colour as a result of his exertion. The glance that his companion had given him worried him extremely, for Mr. Crowther's glance had betrayed not the smallest emotion. It had shown no alarm, no surprise, not even a mild interest, and that, surely, was very extraordinary. Mr. Harraby-Ribston's curiosity was violently aroused. And not only that. He was by nature a sociable, chatty man and he had reckoned that his action would infallibly produce conversation. But no conversation had followed and, that being so, he had had no opportunity of explaining his behaviour and he began to feel that he had merely made a fool of himself in the eyes of his companion, or, worse, that his companion might conclude that the suitcase contained a corpse, in which event he would perhaps inform the police when they reached their destination and all sorts of troublesome and humiliating enquiries would follow. Such were the thoughts that buzzed round Mr. Harraby-Ribston, robbing him of the satisfaction and refreshment that were his due.
Mr. Crowther, for his part, had also suffered some distraction. Though he was pretending to read, he was actually unable to do so. For all his appearance of indifference, the sight of a well-to-do gentleman pitching a suitcase from the window of a moving train had surprised him very