clear over at the other side of town from Valley Road, and she'd miss the train for sure. She'll meet you at the station with plenty of money, and one of Charters's coats if you're so goddam sartorially fussy. And there you are. Hey?'
'That's fine. What if she misses the train?'
'Now, now,' growled H.M. soothingly. 'You can find a way to Bristol if she does. We got to hurry, Ken. Bye- bye.'
The line went dead.
Even that little thread of communication was cut off. In vain I jiggled the hook. In vain I pointed out to unresponsive carbon that I had never before been in Moreton Abbot in my life, and had no notion as to where the railway-station might be — except the encouraging fact that it was on the other side of town. Under the circumstances, I should probably have to ask a policeman.
However, it would not do to remain in an illuminated box on a street corner, open to any inspection. I stepped out into a grateful cool after the thick heat of that box, and still the gloomy streets seemed deserted. At random I chose a turning (it had high hedges on either side, and was sufficiently ill-lighted), where I leaned back against the hedge to consider the position.
To get to that station there was only one course I could safely employ, but it was the best one. I still had my Compleat Policeman's outfit. There were still plenty of motor-cars abroad. I could put on the outfit again, stop some car with official stateliness, and ask to be driven to the station in order to head off a wanted man whom we believed to be escaping by the 11.20 train.
It did no good merely to stand and swear. My wench, with her usual taste for devilment, had insisted on walking straight into the middle of this tangle: and now it appeared that I must see her through it. I should have been warned by Evelyn's chortle of pleasure that afternoon, and her suspicious meekness when I had ordered her to stay behind. It occurred to me to wonder what her father, the major-general, might be thinking at that moment. Of course, our being together made it a little better, but it did not improve the hare-brained course. It is all very well to talk of the open road, the bright eyes of danger, and similar cliches, but I am a Scot and I have a Scot's caution.
For I couldn't make any sense of the puzzle: I wondered most of all what H.M. made of it. In the matter of expressing opinions about anything, it is usually almost impossible to stop him. But he had said nothing. Of course, it may have been the telephone. Like myself, H.M. dislikes talking at length over the telephone: he prefers talking face to face: and protracted conversations on a wire make him fidget. We were both inclined to throw the facts at each other quickly and disjointedly. Yet I had not even been able to learn what it was Serpos had stolen out of the safe, something which seemed to be so valuable and over which so much fuss had been made.
And that was nothing compared to the curious circumstances of the murder. Back at 'The Larches' in Valley Road, a man sat dead of strychnine poisoning. The centre of the puzzle was clear enough — obviously he had mixed the dose himself, mistaking it for bromide, in a glass of particularly nauseous mineral-water — but the edges were clouded. We had a series of events like this:
This morning, at breakfast, Hogenauer told Bowers he was going to Bristol, that he had made certain Keppel would be out, and that he meant to pay a secret visit to Keppel's hotel. He also warned Bowers to expect a visitor at 'The Larches' that night, presumably Keppel himself. During the morning, Hogenauer wrote a letter to someone he addressed as 'Your Excellency,' beginning at one fragment with a reference to 'fast planes,' mentioning that he would 'make the attempt to-night' on an envelope in Keppel's desk, and breaking off with a remark about valuable knowledge. Keppel was now believed to be in Moreton Abbot. On the same morning, he came to see Hogenauer, and when he left — according to Bowers — Hogenauer gave him something which locked like 'an envelope folded in half.' Hogenauer was last seen alive by Bowers at six o'clock, when Bowers left the house. At this time Hogenauer warned Bowers of a prospective visitor that night, adding that Bowers would probably not see him. Hogenauer drank the poison about a quarter to nine o'clock. His body was discovered, a little over a half an hour afterwards, by Mrs. Antrim. The door of the room was locked on the inside. Inside the room (a) a number of articles of furniture had been changed round, (b) a light placed on the mantelshelf indicated a gap in the shelves from which two books on aeronautics were missing, and (c) on Hogenauer's desk were four pairs of cuff-links.
At this point I realized that I must stop puzzling and get to business. It would not do to delay too long in getting to the station. I unwrapped my bundle. I put on waistcoat and tie again, and commenced buttoning up the policeman's tunic for the second stage of my adventures. My watch, still safe in the waistcoat pocket, said that it was now fifteen minutes past eleven. Over the top of a rise appeared the
head-lamps of a car, crawling leisurely, and it was now time to act. I tossed away the newspaper — which had served several purposes that night since Mrs. Antrim said she had found it in the scullery-and, as it flopped wide in the hedge, it served its last purpose. Something white fluttered
out of the now loose pages, and fell on the pavement.
I picked it up. It was a ? 100 bank-note.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Devil in the Bag
'To the railway-station?' said the man in the car. 'Yes, certainly: glad to take you. Jump in. As a matter of fact, I'm going there myself.'
He was a fat, comfortable, chuckling sort of fellow in a brown tweed cap, peering out from an ancient touring-car which had dusty side-curtains flopping at the back. He hospitably held open the door of the front seat, but I got into the back instead.
'If you don't mind,' I said. 'This crook I told you about will be on the watch. If he sees a policeman, it'll be all up. I'd better keep back here out of sight. You said you were going to the station. Er — are you taking the 11.20 train?'
'Me? Oh, no; no, no, no, no, no,' declared the other, with a broad wave of his hand. The car moved away, taking a direction well opposite to Valley Road. 'I'm meeting it. My wife gets back from the States to-night. It's a boat-train; at least, it meets the Queen Victoria at Plymouth. Probably won't be on time. Those boat-trains seldom are.'
This was good news, although hanging about the station in the open was not a part I cared for My companion took a great deal of interest in the villain who had robbed the Chief Constable, questioning me closely about it, and working himself up into a towering rage over the state of British justice. I was well protected by the dusty side- curtains, and did not fear observation when we passed through the central part of the town. But the station was much further off than I had expected. We dawdled along, while my companion talked genially, and I could almost hear the watch ticking under the Law's coat. Meantime, I was puzzling and stumbling over the question of that ?I00 note, thrust away in the leaves of a discarded newspaper. Mrs. Antrim bad said she found it in the scullery — apparently this tallied, for it was a Daily Telegraph dated four days back-but you seldom find people treating ?100 notes in this fashion. Therefore Mrs. Antrim had not found the paper in the place she said, or the note had not been in it when she found it, and therefore what?
'By George, she's on time!' said my companion.
We had swung round into the open space before the long, low, dun-roofed station, and the hands of a clock in a low tower pointed to half a minute before 11.20. From some distance away we could hear the whistle of a train, that flying sound which is torn away in the next instant, and the roar behind it. Along the front of the station a few taxicabs — but no Evelyn. Between the two wings of the building, a folding iron gate to the station platform was being rattled open, and a ticket-porter stood in the entrance. - I had not even a penny which would get the ticket entitling me to go out on the platform: still, that did not matter if Evelyn failed to arrive. The great danger was that there might be a real policeman prowling round the station. What I wanted to do was remain in the shelter of the car until I could reconnoitre. But my companion gave me no chance.'
'Is he here?' he whispered hoarsely.
'No. I think'
'Then he's probably out on the platform,' said the other. His stout legs, in plus-fours and brown stockings, seemed to twinkle as he hopped out of the car. 'I say, this is something to tell the wife and kids!' He threw open
