‘Lisbon, Marseilles, Naples, Suez, Delagoa Bay and Durban.’ ‘I’ll get him at Lisbon. Show me the office.’ They hurried down to the East Africa Line Quay office. There Tanner interviewed the booking clerk and satisfied himself that Douglas really had sailed. He had booked under the name of Walter Donnell. ‘Lisbon is the first call?’ asked the Inspector. ‘Yes. She’s due there about six on Thursday morning.’ ‘And this is Tuesday. That’s about a fifty hour run?’ ‘About that.’ ‘I must get there before her. How am I to do it?’ The clerk stared. ‘I’m afraid you can’t,’ he answered slowly. ‘She’s not a specially fast boat, but there’s no other leaving soon enough to pass her.’ ‘Overland?’ ‘No. There’s not time. If you had caught the Havre boat last night you could have done it. You can’t now.’ ‘Let me see the time table.’ The clerk produced a Continental Bradshaw. ‘Here you are,’ he said, turning to the ‘Through Routes’ on page 6. ‘You see there are two trains a day from Paris to Lisbon. One, the ordinary, leaves Paris at 10.22 at night. It gets to Lisbon at 12.33 two nights later—that is, about a fifty hours’ run. That’s out of the question, and you’ll see the other is too. It’s a special fast train, the Sud Express, and it leaves Paris at 12.17 midday, and reaches Lisbon at 10.50 the following evening—that is thirty-four hours and a half. Now if you could catch that train today you’d be all right. But you couldn’t. Even if you could catch the 8.00 a.m. from Victoria, which you couldn’t. That would only bring you into Paris at 5.29—five hours late.’ ‘How long does your boat lie at Lisbon?’ ‘About four hours. She’s due away about ten on Thursday morning.’ Tanner felt he was up against it. So far as he could see it was impossible for him to reach Lisbon before 10.50 on the Thursday night, and by that time the man he wanted would already have left some twelve hours. And if he missed him at Lisbon, he would miss him for good. He could never get him once he was ashore at Tangier. Nor was it any more possible for another officer from the Yard to go in his place. Of course, there were the Portuguese police. Tanner had never been in Portugal, and knew nothing whatever about its police, but he had the not uncommon insular distrust of foreign efficiency. As he put it to himself, he would rather rely on himself any day than trust to any of these foreign chaps. But there seemed no other way. Absently thanking the clerk, he walked with the sergeant back to his car and drove to the police station. As he dismounted an idea shot suddenly into his mind. ‘Get the car ready for another run,’ he shouted and hurrying to the telephone, put through a call to Scotland Yard.