During dinner that evening I had plenty to think about.  The various events of the day had been so absorbing, and had followed so thick and fast upon each other, that I had little time to 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 piled with luggage barred the way just when I was getting along nicely; while, as I was about to make my way out into the courtyard, and idiotic Frenchman seized me by the arm and implored me to show him “ze office of ze money-changaire.”  I replied angrily that I did not know, and ran out into the portico, only to be in time to see Gideon Hayle take a seat in a hansom.  He had evidently given his driver his instructions, for the man whipped up his horse, and went out of the yard at a speed which, at any other hour, would certainly have got him into trouble with the police.  I called up another cab and jumped into it, promising the man a sovereign as I did so, if he would keep the other cab in sight, and find out for me its destination.