I looked and saw a man, with reddish hair and beard, and a brown bag in his hand, leave the hotel and turn to the left in the direction of the station. “Don’t know,” I said. “I can’t say I recognise him; but there is something--I don’t know what--about him that seems familiar. Anyhow, we’ll shadow him. He is going to the station, I expect, to catch the 10.12 up. I’ll hail that closed carriage passing by. You jump in and drive to station. You must get there before him. Book to town, and get in fore part of train. I’ll follow on behind him and get in back part. Wait in the train till he has passed your carriage at Fenchurch, and join me as I go by.” Grant’s reply was to jump into the cab with the words “London and Tilbury railway. Fast as you can,” and I soon had the satisfaction of seeing him whirled past the man with the red beard, and disappear round the corner which led to the station. “The man _may_ go by the other line--the Great Eastern,” I said to myself as I followed at a respectful distance, “in which case I must do the same, and shan’t see Grant at the other end, which is awkward, as we haven’t arranged a meeting-place. But I hadn’t time to think of everything, and as the 10.12 will be starting directly it _does_ look as if he was going by that. Ah! he _has_ turned the Tilbury line corner, so it’s all right after all.” I waited at the door a moment while the red-bearded man was taking his ticket. “Fenchurch--third single,” he said briskly. “Fenchurch--third single,” I repeated as soon as he had passed the barrier, and, hurrying after, was just in time to see him enter a third smoker in the centre of the train. I slipped quietly into a carriage in the rear, and in another couple of minutes we were puffing out of Southend. Although the man I was shadowing had booked to Fenchurch Street, I thought it wise at every stoppage to keep an eye upon the passengers who left the train; and so we journeyed on, making calls at Westcliff, Leigh, Benfleet, Pitsea Laindon, East Horndon, Upminster and Hornchurch. At the last-named stopping-place a burly farmer, with a body like a bullock, leant half out of the window of my carriage to carry on a conversation with a friend upon the platform, and in doing so blocked my view completely. “Will you allow me to get a paper, please?” I said, fuming with impatience at not being able to obtain a peep outside, although the train was already moving. “So I tould ’im I’d give ’im five pun’ ten,” continued the yokel leisurely, but interpolating a surly “Yer can’t get one ’ere,” which he threw at me over his shoulder without turning his head or attempting to withdraw from the window; “I tould ’im I’d give ’im five pun’ ten”--this to the friend who was running along the platform beside the now quickly-moving train--“and he sez, sez he, ‘I’d rather give ’im to yer.’ Ha, ha, ha!”