Seated in his original place, he took out his white cambric handkerchief, and with it delicately wiped his fingers, having an uncomfortable notion that something disagreeable had adhered to them which it would be better to remove. Then he set himself to consider the position. A great smoker of cigarettes, absent-mindedly and as a matter of course he took out his case, and was about to light one when it occurred to him that it might be a dangerous thing to do. It was not a smoking carriage; if, when the discovery was made, it smelt strongly of smoke--and nothing lingers like a cigarette--it might be shown that his uncle had not been smoking, and the question might arise--who had? He returned the case to his pocket. As he did so the train rushed past a signal-box. He remembered reading of the strange things which signalmen see in trains as they rushed past them. When his uncle was found, exhaustive inquiries would be set on foot. Quite conceivably some signalman had seen them struggling, or something which had piqued his curiosity as it had caught his eye. His uncle would be found alone. The signalman's story might suggest that at one period of the journey someone had been in the carriage with him. What had become of that someone? The mere question might start a hue and cry. Rodney recalled, with quite a little sense of shock, that his uncle had been partly pushed into the carriage by an official on the Brighton platform. Graham Patterson was a noticeable-looking person; he must have presented a striking spectacle as he had come hurrying along the platform. When discovery came about, the official would recollect the incident and recognise him beyond a doubt. Had he noticed that somebody was already in the carriage when he was thrusting the fat man in? Rodney was compelled to admit that the probabilities were that he had. So far as he himself was concerned, Rodney recalled the whole sequence of events. How he had rushed up to the ticket inspector just as the Pullman was moving; how the man, slamming the gate in his face, had informed him that another train was due to start in ten minutes. The young gentleman had a suspicion that the fellow had looked him up and down as he was explaining. There were others about who might also have looked him up and down. Rodney had an uneasy feeling that, in his way, he was perhaps as noticeable a figure as his uncle--so tall, so upright, so well groomed, so handsome, with something about his appearance which almost amounted to an air of distinction. He had walked a few paces to another platform, as directed; the man at the gate, in his turn, had looked him up and down as he clipped his ticket; he had strolled leisurely along the platform, which he had had almost entirely to himself; when he reached a carriage which he thought would suit him, he stood for a second or two at the open door--as he remembered, right in front of the official who, later, had helped his uncle in.