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 hu
