uld start from
Charing Cross Station with seventy-five thousand pounds worth of bullion
for the Bank of France. If Eustace Margraf succeeded in his enterprise,
it would reach Paris with the same weight of valueless shot in the
strong iron boxes.

Everything had been nicely and minutely arranged. The shot had been
carefully weighed to a quarter of a grain, and portioned into three
equal lots to match the cases of bullion, which would be weighed on
leaving London, again at Dover, once more at Calais, and finally on
arrival at Paris. A key to fit the cases had been secretly made from a
wax impression of the original, how obtained none but Margraf knew. This
key he would hand to his confederates this evening at Charing Cross
Station, after which he would go down by the seven o'clock train
preceding the mail.

The stoker of the mail, an old railway hand, had been bribed, together
with the guard in whose compartment the bullion would travel. It had
been thought desirable to deal differently with the front guard and the
driver; a specially prepared and powerful drug was to be given them in a
pint of beer just before starting, which would take effect about an hour
after administration and last till the sleepers should be aroused by
brandy. During their slumber the stoker would pull up at convenient
places on the line to allow the robbers to enter the guard's carriage
and leave it with their booty, when they would make off to where Margraf
had arranged to meet them; he would manage the rest. The front guard and
the driver, meanwhile, would for their own sakes be glad enough to say
nothing about their long slumber.

All these arrangements had been made with great nicety, and told over
twice; and yet Margraf was uneasy and nervous as he thought of all the
risk he ran. Twice he stretched out his hand for the bell-rope for
telegram forms to stay the whole business; once he went so far as to
ring the bell, but he altered his mind by the time the servant answered
it, and ordered hot brandy instead. It was now six o'clock; in another
hour he must hand over the duplicate key to his accomplices and board
the train for Dover.

Every moment he grew more nervous, his hand became so shaky that brandy
failed to steady it; his face grew pale and haggard; his nerves were
strung to a painful tension; and all sorts of possibilities of failure
in his scheme haunted him till he could have cried out from sheer
nervousness.

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