Weighford is a straggling, unpleasant town, which seems to cast a blight on the road as it passes through, and they were mercilessly bumped. More than once, too, they had to slow down; and finally, to crown their disappointment, they saw the gates of a level-crossing shut against them. Then, just as Reeves was slowing down, the gates began to swing open, and the sergeant suddenly crowed with delight. “That’s him, sir! Got held up at the level crossing, and now he’s only half a minute’s start of us.” The remainder of the race was a thing only to be remembered in nightmares—the children that only just got out of the way in time, the dog that didn’t; the lorry that wanted to turn in the middle of the road. . . . But they had their man marked now, and could see that he was making for the railway; could hear, too, the whistle of the express and the grinding of the brakes as it slowed down into the station. At the further platform a quiet, rural train with the label BINVER was sitting on its haunches and panting after the exhaustion of its last five-mile crawl. The station-master was fortunately found, and the progress of the express held up in the interests of a police search. The fugitive had left the side-car standing at the entrance and lost himself among the passengers before his pursuers could alight. The search, laboriously and muddle-headedly carried on with the aid of the station officials, lasted some five minutes without any result. Fussy passengers might have been paid by the criminal to delay operations, so ready were they with helpful advice. At last an inspector pointed to a door on the non-platform side of an empty first-class carriage, which was unfastened. “Got through on to the six-foot way, that’s what he’s done, and slinking round on the other platform maybe.” “Wrong!” shouted Reeves in a flash of inspiration; “he got through into the Binver train just as it went off, and hadn’t time to shut the door properly. Sergeant, it’s us for the road again!” The sergeant hesitated, then allowed himself to be fascinated by the theory. The station staff was left with orders to go on searching; the side-car was entrusted to the Weighford police, and, within a quarter of an hour of their arrival, Reeves and the two Binver policemen were tearing back along the main road as fast as they had come down it.