“We’ll try the various shipping-offices first,” I said.  “I feel positively certain that he came down here by the nine o’clock train.”

We drove from shipping-office to shipping-office, and made the most careful inquiries, but in every case without success.  Once we thought we had discovered our man, only to find, after wasting a precious hour, that the clerk’s description was altogether a wrong one, and that he resembled Hayle in no sort of way.  We boarded the South African mail-boat, but he was not among her passengers; we overhauled the American liner, with an equally barren result.  We paid cursory visits to the principal hotels, but could hear no tidings of him in any one of them.  As a matter of fact, if the man had journeyed to Southampton, as I had every reason to suppose he had done, he must have disappeared into thin air when he got there.  The whole affair was most bewildering, and I scarcely knew what to think of it.  That the boots at the hotel had not been hoodwinking me I felt assured in my own mind.  His anger against the man was too real to allow any doubt upon that point.  At last, having exhausted all our resources, and not seeing what I could do further, I returned to my subordinate’s lodgings, where it had been arranged that telegrams should be addressed to me.  On my arrival there a yellow envelope was handed to me.  I tore it open eagerly and withdrew the contents.  It proved to be from Dickson, and had been sent off from Dover.  I took my codebook from my pocket and translated the message upon the back of the telegraph-form.  It ran as follows—­

“Man with triangular scar upon left cheek, brown bag and travelling rug, boarded train at Herne Hill, went through to Dover, and has booked to Paris.  Am following him according to instructions.”

“Then he slipped me after all,” I cried.  “He must have gone on to Waterloo, crossed to Cannon Street, then on to London Bridge.  The cunning scoundrel!  He must have made up his mind that the biggest bluff he could play upon me was to tell the truth, and by Jove! he was not very far wrong.  However, those laugh best who laugh last, and though he has had a very fair innings so far, we will see whether he can beat me in the end.  I’ll get back to Town now, run down to Bishopstowe to-morrow morning to report progress, and then be off to Paris after him on Monday.”

At 8.45 that night I reached London.  At the same moment Mr. Gideon Hayle was sitting down to a charming little dinner at the Cafe des Princes, and was smiling to himself as he thought of the success that had attended the trick he had played upon me.

CHAPTER VII

When I reached the charming little Surrey village of Bishopstowe, I could see that it bore out Kitwater’s description of it.  A prettier little place could scarcely have been discovered, with its tree-shaded high-road, its cluster of thatched cottages, its blacksmith’s shop, rustic inn with the signboard on a high post before the door, and last but not least, the quaint little church standing some hundred yards back from the main road, and approached from the lych-gate by an avenue of limes.