“He’ll not get far,” the angry man growled, as he prepared to follow. But, thinking a moment or two would now make little difference, he turned his steps instead to the kitchen. There on a shelf, as he had expected, were three or four pairs of boots. Drawing from his pocket a tracing of the marks on the Cranshaw River bank, he eagerly compared it with the soles. Those of the first pair he took up corresponded! Here was proof, if proof were required. William Douglas had been at the Luce Manor boathouse on !
Seizing a small handbag he had noticed in the sitting room, the Inspector packed the boots, then, after closing the windows, and locking the yard gates and the house doors, he hurried back along the road towards Yelverton. Inquiring for the local telephone call office, he rang up the Plymouth police authorities, describing, so far as he was able, the man and the car, and asking them to have a ring formed round the locality. Hastening on to the Yelverton police station, he told the sergeant what had occurred, and handing him the keys of the cottage, instructed him to take charge, and to make a thorough search of the premises.
He learned that a train left for Plymouth in a few minutes, and travelling by it, he soon reached the police headquarters of that city. Here he was met by a superintendent, and the two men discussed the affair in detail.
“I have done, I think, everything possible,” the Superintendent concluded. “All the stations at a radius of about twenty miles or more have been advised, and the roads will be watched from Looe and Liskeard round by Launceston, Okehampton, and Moreton Hamstead, to Newton Abbott. All trains and steamers, as far as possible, will be examined before departure, and the railway people at the smaller stations will be advised. I don’t think he’ll make for Cornwall, you know. It’s too much of a dead end. He will either go east in his car, or come to Plymouth and try the trains, or even more likely, the steamers.”
“That is my own view,” Tanner returned. “I suppose there’s nothing to be done now but wait for information?”
“I think we’ll hear something before long. If you haven’t had a meal, I should get it while you have the chance. The Dartmoor Arms, a few doors away, is quite good, and I’ll send for you if there is news.”
As this seemed sound advice, Tanner followed it. But he had not finished his hastily served dinner when he was sent for. News had come in.
“I have a wire from the Tavistock men,” the Superintendent explained. “A car answering your description has just been found abandoned in a lane about quarter of a mile on the Yelverton side of Tavistock. Evidently your man wouldn’t risk taking it through the town.”
“Then he must be there himself.”
“Unless he got away by rail. What time did you say he left Yelverton?”
“About , or slightly later.”
“From Yelverton to Tavistock is not more than about five miles. He would do it easily in fifteen minutes. Say he would reach Tavistock between and .” The Superintendent picked up a Bradshaw. “Here we are. By the Great Western there’s a for Plymouth and a for Launceston. Now for the South-Western. There’s a , and a for Exeter. He’s gone either by that to Plymouth or the to Exeter, and I should say the latter.”
“It seems likely. Would your men have reached the stations before those trains left?”
The Superintendent shook his head.
“It’s just possible,” he answered, “but I hardly think so. Your phone was received at”—he referred to a paper—“. Orders were issued immediately, but considering telegraphic delays, they were probably not received at Tavistock till or slightly after. The men would then have to be collected and instructed. They might have seen those trains out, but it’s unlikely.”
“Well, I’ll go on to Tavistock now anyway,” Tanner decided. “I presume you will have those trains searched?”
“Of course. I issued a new set of orders immediately. Both trains will be carefully examined, and the country all about Tavistock will be scoured. We are well accustomed to that,” the Superintendent added with a grim smile.
“The Princetown convicts? I suppose you are,” answered Tanner, as with a brief word of farewell he withdrew.
There being no train by either line for some little time, Tanner took a car. As they climbed the long, slow incline to Yelverton, out of the relaxing, enervating Plymouth air, he felt himself growing fresher and more energetic. He was grimly determined not to rest till he had laid his hands on the man who had duped him. From merely professional, the matter had become personal. Tanner’s pride was involved. No one, he swore, should play him such a trick and get off with it.
They slipped quietly through the fifteen or sixteen miles of charmingly wooded country, dropping into Tavistock as the shadows began to lengthen across the road. The sergeant had been advised of Tanner’s arrival, and was expecting him. Together they ran back and examined the abandoned car. Though they found nothing directly helpful, Tanner felt sure it was the one he had seen from the sitting room at Myrtle Cottage.
He turned to his companion.
“Did you hear about this in time to examine the Plymouth and Exeter trains at and ?” he asked.
The other shook his head.
“No, sir, I’m sorry to say we did not. But I have since made inquiries. No one with a grey beard was seen at either station. At the Great Western Station four persons booked, all third single to Plymouth, but the
