vived. He was a business man, and
there was now something for him to do.

After a rapid farewell to the bagman, he found a porter and hustled his
box out of the van in the direction of the left-luggage office. Spies,
summoned by Dobson's telegram, were, he was convinced, watching his
every movement, and he meant to see that they missed nothing. He
received his ticket for the box, and slowly and ostentatiously stowed
it away in his pack. Swinging the said pack on his arm, he sauntered
through the entrance hall to the row of waiting taxi-cabs, and selected
the oldest and most doddering driver. He deposited the pack inside on
the seat, and then stood still as if struck with a sudden thought.

"I breakfasted terrible early," he told the driver. "I think I'll have
a bite to eat. Will you wait?"

"Ay," said the man, who was reading a grubby sheet of newspaper. "I'll
wait as long as ye like, for it's you that pays."

Dickson left his pack in the cab and, oddly enough for a careful man,
he did not shut the door. He re-entered the station, strolled to the
bookstall, and bought a Glasgow Herald. His steps then tended to the
refreshment-room, where he ordered a cup of coffee and two Bath buns,
and seated himself at a small table. There he was soon immersed in the
financial news, and though he sipped his coffee he left the buns
untasted. He took out a penknife and cut various extracts from the
Herald, bestowing them carefully in his pocket. An observer would have
seen an elderly gentleman absorbed in market quotations.

After a quarter of an hour had been spent in this performance he
happened to glance at the clock and rose with an exclamation. He
bustled out to his taxi and found the driver still intent upon his
reading. "Here I am at last," he said cheerily, and had a foot on the
step, when he stopped suddenly with a cry. It was a cry of alarm, but
also of satisfaction.

"What's become of my pack? I left it on the seat, and now it's gone!
There's been a thief here."

The driver, roused from his lethargy, protested in the name of his gods
that no one had been near it. "Ye took it into the station wi' ye," he
urged.

"I did nothing of the kind. Just you wait here till I see the
inspector. A bonny watch YOU keep on a gentleman's things."

But Dickson did not interview the railway authorities. Instead he
hurried to the left-luggage office. "I deposited a small box here a
short time ago. I mind the number