Adventure stories; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Mystery fiction; Travel -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Whatever happened, we must strain every nerve to reach Scotland in
safety, and then to get married, in order that Harold might immediately
surrender himself.
[Illustration: HE TOOK A LONG, CARELESS STARE AT ME.]
At York, I noticed with a thrill of terror that a man in plain clothes,
with the obtrusively unobtrusive air of a detective, looked carefully
though casually into every carriage. I felt sure he was a spy, because
of his marked outer jauntiness of demeanour, which hardly masked an
underlying hang-dog expression of scrutiny. When he reached my place,
he took a long, careless stare at me--a seemingly careless stare, which
was yet brim-full of the keenest observation. Then he paced slowly along
the line of carriages, with a glance at each, till he arrived just
opposite the Maharajah's compartment. There he stared hard once more.
The Maharajah descended; so did Harold and the Hindu attendant, who was
dressed just like him. The man I took for a detective indulged in a
frank, long gaze at the unconscious Indian prince, but cast only a hasty
eye on the two apparent followers. That touch of revelation relieved my
mind a little. I felt convinced the police were watching the Maharajah
and myself, as suspicious persons connected with the case; but they had
not yet guessed that Harold had disguised himself as one of the two
invariable Rajput servants.
We steamed on northward. At Newcastle, the same detective strolled, with
his hands in his pockets, along the train once more, and puffed a cigar
with the nonchalant air of a sporting gentleman. But I was certain now,
from the studious unconcern he was anxious to exhibit, that he must be a
spy upon us. He overdid his mood of careless observation. It was too
obvious an assumption. Precisely the same thing happened again when we
pulled up at Berwick. I knew now that we were watched. It would be
impossible for us to get married at Edinburgh if we were thus closely
pursued. There was but one chance open; we must leave the train abruptly
at the first Scotch stopping station.
The detective knew we were booked through for Edinburgh. So much I could
tell, because I saw him make inquiries of the ticket examiner at York,
and again at Berwick, and because the ticket-examiner thereupon entered
a mental note of the fact as he punched my ticket each time: 'Oh,
Edinburgh, miss? All right'; and then stared at me suspiciously. I could
tell he had heard of the Ashurst will case. He also lingered long about
the Maharajah's compartment, and then went back to confer with the
detective. Thus, putting two and two together, as a woman will, I came
to the conclusion that the spy did not expect us to leave the train
before we reached Edinburgh. That told in our favour. Most men trust
much to just such vague expectations. They form a theory, and then
neglect the adverse chances. You can only get the better of a skilled
detective by taking him thus, psychologically and humanly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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