I did so, and we examined it together. The last page had not been added
up, and two of the lines had not been filled out with the amounts in the
money column. Oddly enough, when the two cancelled cheques were looked
at they were found to amount to L21.
"We must go thoroughly into this," said the manager. "It looks worse
and worse. What's this?"
It was a torn piece of paper between two of the leaves of the book, part
of a memorandum in McCrane's handwriting. It read thus:
[A scrap of paper is illustrated here.]
"What do you make of that?" asked the manager. A light dawned on me.
"I wonder if it means Euston, 1:30? Perhaps he's going by that train."
The manager looked at me, then at the clock, and then went to his desk
and took up a Bradshaw.
"1:30 is the train for Rugby, Lancaster, Fleetwood. Samuels!"
"Sir," said I.
"You had better take a cab to Euston, you have just time. If he is
there stop him, or else follow him, and bring him back. If necessary,
get the police to help you, but if you can bring him back without, so
much the better. I'm afraid the L23 is not all; it may turn out to be a
big robbery when we go through his book. I must trust to your judgment.
Take some money with you, L20, in case of emergency. Be quick or you
will be late. Telegraph to me how you succeed."
It was a word and a blow. A quarter of an hour later my hansom dashed
into the yard at Euston just as the warning bell for the 1:30 train was
sounding.
"Where for, sir?" asked a porter. "Any luggage?"
I did not know where I was for, and I had no luggage.
I rushed on to the platform and looked anxiously up and down. It was a
scene of confusion. Groups of non-travellers round the carriage doors
were beginning to say a last good-bye to their friends inside. Porters
were hurling their last truck-loads of luggage into the vans; the guard
was a quarter of the way down the train looking at the tickets; the
newspaper boys were flitting about shouting noisily and inarticulately;
and the usual crowd of "just-in-times" were rushing headlong out of the
booking-office and hurling themselves at the crowded train.
I was at a loss what to do. It was impossible to say who was there and
who was not. McCrane might be there or he might not. What was the use
of my--
"Step inside if you're going," shouted a guard.
I saw a porter near the booking-office door advance towards the bell.
At the same moment I saw, or fancied I saw, at the window of a third-
class carriage a certain pale face appear momentarily, and, with an
anxious glance up at the clock, vanish again inside.
"Wait a second," I cried to the guard, "till I get a ticket."
"Not time now," I heard him say, as I dashed into the booking-office.
The clerk was shutting the window.
"Third single--anywhere--Fleetwood!" I shouted, flinging down a couple
of sovereigns.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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