o seriously digest them.
As I ate my meal, and drank my modest pint of claret, I gave them my
fullest consideration. As Kitwater had observed, there was no time to
waste if we desired to lay our hands upon that slippery Mr. Hayle. Given
the full machinery of the law, and its boundless resources to stop him,
it is by no means an easy thing for a criminal to fly the country
unobserved; but with me the case was different. I had only my own and
the exertions of a few and trusted servants to rely upon, and it was
therefore impossible for us to watch all the various backdoors leading
out of England at once. When I had finished my dinner I strolled down
the Strand as far as Charing Cross Station. Turner was to leave for St.
Petersburg that night by the mail-train, and I had some instructions to
give him before his departure. I found him in the act of attending to
the labelling of his luggage, and, when he had seen it safely on the
van, we strolled down the platform together. I warned him of the
delicate nature of the operation he was about to undertake, and bade him
use the greatest possible care that the man he was to watch did not
become aware of his intentions. Directly he knew for certain that this
man was about to leave Russia, he was to communicate with me by cypher,
and with my representative in Berlin, and then follow him with all speed
to that city himself. As I had good reason to know, he was a shrewd and
intelligent fellow, and one who never forgot any instructions that might
be given him. Knowing that he was a great votary of the Goddess
Nicotine, I gave him a few cigars to smoke on the way to Dover.

"Write to me immediately you have seen your man," I said. "Remember me
to Herr Schneider, and if you should see----"

I came to a sudden stop, for there, among the crowd, not three
carriage-lengths away from me, a travelling-rug thrown over his
shoulder, and carrying a small brown leather bag in his hand, stood
Gideon Hayle. Unfortunately, he had already seen me, and almost before I
realized what he was doing, he was making his way through the crowd in
the direction of the main entrance. Without another word to Turner, I
set off in pursuit, knowing that he was going to make his bolt, and that
if I missed him now it would probably be my last chance of coming to
grip with him. Never before had the platform seemed so crowded. An
exasperating lady, with a lanky youth at her side, hindered my passage,
porters with trucks