La Touche took up his Bradshaw again. Where would a traveller by the 2.20 p.m. from Charing Cross be at eight o’clock? And then like a flash he understood. The boat arrived at Ostend at 7.30 p.m. and the Brussels train did not leave until 8.40. He had telephoned from Ostend! So that was it! A simple plan, but how ingenious! And then La Touche remembered that Lefarge had been quite unable to confirm the statement that Boirac had dined at the café in the Boulevard Anspach, or had been present at _Les Troyens_ in the Théâtre de la Monnaie. No. He was on the right track at last. The Wednesday was now accounted for, but there still remained the terrible difficulty of the Tuesday. What about the café at Charenton? And then La Touche got another of his inspirations. He had solved the Wednesday telephone trick. Could that on Tuesday be explained in the same way? He had already noted that a traveller by the train leaving Paris at 12.00 noon and arriving at Victoria at 7.10 could just reach Waterloo Road by 7.30. Thinking again over the point, he suddenly saw the significance of the hour of the call at the carting establishment. It was late. A man wishing to do business there would have gone earlier, had he been able. But this man was not able. He had only reached the city at 7.10. He turned back to the telephone calls. Where, he asked himself with growing excitement, would a passenger by the 12.00 noon from Paris be at 2.30? And then he was dashed with disappointment. That train did not reach Calais till 3.31 p.m., and at 2.30 it must have been running at full speed somewhere between Abbeville and Boulogne. Boirac could not have telephoned from the train. Therefore he could not have travelled by it. La Touche had hoped to find that, adopting the same manœuvre on each day, the manufacturer had telephoned from some station _en route_, presumably Calais. But that apparently was not so. At the same time, the detective could not but feel he was getting near the truth. He looked at the time table again. The train in question reached Calais at 3.31 and the boat left at 3.45. That was a delay of 14 minutes. Would there be time, he wondered, to make two long-distance calls in 14 minutes? Hardly, he thought. He considered what he himself would do if confronted with Boirac’s problem. And then suddenly he saw it. What could be more obvious than to go by an earlier train and to break the journey at Calais? How would this time table work? Paris dep. 9.50 a.m. Calais arr. 1.11 p.m. Calais dep. 3.45 p.m. Victoria arr. 7.10 p.m. If Boirac had done that he would have had over two and a half hours in Calais, which would have given him the opportunity he required. La Touche believed he had reached the solution at last.