o' o' much
use here."

They had left the station and reaching a street where Foster made some
inquiries, waited in the door of an office building until a tram-car
came up. Getting in, they were carried through the wet and smoky
streets towards the city's western outskirts.

XVII

THE LETTERS

The sky had cleared when Foster left the car at the end of the line and
headed towards open country. On the whole, he thought he was fortunate
to get out of Newcastle safe, because there were grounds for believing
that Graham had found out the trick. If this were so, he would
certainly try to recover the documents. On the surface, it seemed
strange that the fellow had let him take them away; but, when one came
to think of it, as soon as he had written and sealed the letters he was
helpless.

In order to keep them, he would have had to overpower Foster, for which
he had not the physical strength, while any noise they made in the
struggle might have brought in help. Then supposing that Graham had by
some chance mastered him, he would not have gained much, because Foster
would have gone to the police when he got away. It was, of course,
absurd to think that Graham might have killed him, since this would
have led to his arrest. He had accordingly given up the letters, but
Foster felt he was not safe yet. He might be attacked in some cunning
way that would prevent his assailants being traced. It depended upon
whether the documents were worth the risk, and he would know this soon.

In the meantime he was entering a belt of ugly industrial country. Now
and then the reflected glare of a furnace quivered in the sky; tall
chimney-stacks and mounds of refuse showed faintly in the dark, and he
passed clusters of fiercely burning lights and dull red fires. He
supposed they marked pithead banks and coke-ovens; but pushed on
steadily towards the west. He wanted to put some distance between
himself and Newcastle before he stopped.

After a time a row of lights twinkled ahead and, getting nearer, he saw
chimneys, dark skeleton towers of timber, and jets of steam behind the
houses. It was a colliery village, and when he passed the first lamps
he vacantly noticed the ugliness of the place. The small, grimy houses
were packed as close as they could be got, the pavement was covered
with black mud, and the air filled with acrid smoke. Presently,
however, he came to a pretentious hotel, built of glaring red brick and
orname