rse of the afternoon. He went about the town; he was in and out of
the Town Hall; he kept calling in at the police-station; he became
certain towards evening that no suspicion attached to himself--as yet.
But--only as yet. He knew something would come out. The big question
with him as he went home in the evening was--was he safe until the
afternoon of the next day? While he ate and drank in his lonely
dining-room, he decided that he was; by the time he had got through his
after-dinner cigar he had further decided that when the next night came
he would be safely away from Highmarket.

But there were things to do that night. He spent an hour with a Bradshaw
and a map. While he reckoned up trains and glanced at distances and
situations his mind was busy with other schemes, for he had all his life
been a man who could think of more than one thing at once. And at the
end of the hour he had decided on a plan of action.

Mallalieu had two chief objects in immediate view. He wanted to go away
openly from Highmarket without exciting suspicion: that was one. He
wanted to make it known that he had gone to some definite place, on some
definite mission; that was the other. And in reckoning up his chances he
saw how fortune was favouring him. At that very time the Highmarket Town
Council was very much concerned and busied about a new water-supply.
There was a project afoot for joining with another town, some miles off,
in establishing a new system and making a new reservoir on the adjacent
hills, and on the very next morning Mallalieu himself was to preside
over a specially-summoned committee which was to debate certain matters
relating to this scheme. He saw how he could make use of that
appointment. He would profess that he was not exactly pleased with some
of the provisions of the proposed amalgamation, and would state his
intention, in open meeting, of going over in person to the other town
that very evening to see its authorities on the points whereon he was
not satisfied. Nobody would see anything suspicious in his going away on
Corporation business. An excellent plan for his purpose--for in order to
reach the other town it would be necessary to pass through Norcaster,
where he would have to change stations. And Norcaster was a very big
city, and a thickly-populated one, and it had some obscure parts with
which Mallalieu was well-acquainted--and in Norcaster he could enter on
the first important stage of his flight.

And so,