Chapter Sixteen: Certainty at LastThat night as French was writing up his diary the question he had asked Domlio recurred to him. “Tell me, Colonel,” he had said, “did it not strike you as strange that Mrs. Berlyn should stumble at just the point which ensured her falling into your arms?” He had asked it to test the colonel’s belief in the incident. Now it occurred to him that on its merits it required an answer.Had the incident stood alone it might well have passed unquestioned. But it was not alone. Two other matters must be considered in conjunction with it.First there was the coincidence that at the precise moment a watcher armed with a camera should be present. What accident should take a photographer to this secluded glen just when so compromising a tableau should be staged? Was there here an element of design?Secondly, there was the consideration that if suspicion were to be thrown on Domlio he must be made to take out his car secretly on the fatal night. And how better could this be done than by the story of the photograph? Once again, did this not suggest design?If so, something both interesting and startling followed. Mrs. Berlyn was privy to it. And if she were privy to it, was she not necessarily implicated in the murder? Could she even be the accomplice for whom he, French, had been searching?There was, of course, her alibi. If she had been at the party at her house at ten o’clock she could not have drugged Gurney’s tea. But was she at her house?Experience had made French sceptical about alibis. This one certainly seemed watertight, and yet was it not just possible that Mrs. Berlyn had managed to slip away from her guests for the fifteen or twenty minutes required?It was evident that the matter must be tested forthwith, and French decided that, having already questioned Mr. Fogden, he would interview the Dr. and Mrs. Lancaster whom Lizzie Johnston had mentioned as also being members of the party. They lived on the Buckland road half a mile beyond the Berlyns’, and next morning French called on them.Dr. Lancaster, he had learned from Daw, was a newcomer to the town, a young LL.D. who had been forced by a breakdown in health to give up his career at the bar. He received French at once.“I want to find out whether any member of the party could have left the house about ten o’clock for fifteen or twenty minutes,” French explained. “Do you think that you or Mrs. Lancaster could help me out?”“I can only speak for myself,” Dr. Lancaster smiled. “I was there all the time, and I’m sure so was Mrs. Lancaster. But I’ll call her and you can ask her.”“A moment, please. Surely you can speak for more than yourself? Were you not with the others?”“With some of them. You see, what happened was this. When we went in, Mrs. Berlyn said that she had been disappointed in that three London friends, who were staying at Torquay and whom she expected, had just telegraphed to say they couldn’t come. That made our numbers wrong. She had intended to have three tables of bridge, but now, as some of us played billiards, she suggested one bridge table and snooker for the other five. She and I and—let me see—Fogden and a Miss Pym, I think, and one other—I’m blessed if I can remember who the other was—played snooker. So I wasn’t with the other four between the time that we settled down to play and supper.”“What hour was supper?”“About half past ten, I think. We broke up when it was over—rather early, as a matter of fact. We reached home shortly after eleven.”“And you played snooker all the evening until supper?”“No. After an hour or more we dropped it and played four-handed billiards.”“Then some player must have stood out?”“Yes. Mrs. Berlyn said she must go and see how the others were getting along. She watched us play for some time, then went to the drawing room. She came back after a few minutes to say that supper was ready.”“Now, Dr. Lancaster, just one other question. Can you tell me at what time Mrs. Berlyn went into the drawing room?”“I really don’t think I can. I wasn’t paying special attention to her movements. I should say perhaps half an hour before supper, but I couldn’t be sure.”“That’s all right,” said French. “Now if I could see Mrs. Lancaster for a moment I should be done.”Mrs. Lancaster was a dark, vivacious little woman who seemed to remember the evening in question much more clearly than did her husband.“Yes,” she said, “I was playing bridge with Miss Lucy Pym, Mr. Cowls, and Mr. Leacock. I remember Mrs. Berlyn coming in about ten. She laughed and said: ‘Oh, my children, don’t be frightened. I couldn’t think of disturbing such a serious game. I’ll go back to our snooker.’ She went away, and presently came back and called us to the library to supper.”“How long was she away, Mrs. Lancaster?”“About twenty minutes, I should think.”This seemed to French to be all that he wanted. However, he thought it wise to get the key of the Berlyns’ house and have a look at the layout. The drawing room was in front, with the library behind it, but between the two there was a passage with a side door leading into the garden. He felt satisfied as to the use to which that passage had been put on the night in question. He could picture Mrs. Berlyn fixing up the uneven number of guests, among whom would be some who played billiards and some who did not. The proposals for snooker and bridge would almost automatically follow, involving the division of the party in two rooms. Mrs. Berlyn as hostess would reasonably be the odd man out when the change was made from snooker to billiards. The result of these arrangements would be that when she slipped out to the works through the side door, each party would naturally assume she was with the other, while if any question as to this arose, her reëntry at supper-time would suggest to both that she had gone out to overlook its preparation.These discoveries justified French’s theory, but they did not prove it, and he racked his brains for some test which would definitely establish the point.At last an idea occurred to him which he thought might at least help.In considering Mrs. Berlyn as her husband’s accomplice he had been doubtful whether there would have been sufficient time for the various actions. If after Berlyn’s arrival at the works with the body Mrs. Berlyn had driven the car back to where it was found, changed the magneto, and made the footprints, he did not believe she could have walked home in time to wake the servants at the hour stated. Nor did he believe that Berlyn, after disposing of the body in the works, could have been able on foot to make Domlio’s in time to hide the clothes in the well before the sergeant’s call.He now wondered whether Mrs. Berlyn’s bicycle could have been pressed into the service. Could the lady have brought the machine to the works, lifted it into the tonneau of the car, carried it out on the moor, and ridden back on it to the works? And could her husband have used it to reach first Domlio’s and then Plymouth or some other large town from which he had escaped?To test the matter, French returned to Lizzie Johnston and asked her if she knew what had become of the bicycle.But the girl could not tell him. Nor could she recall when or where she had seen it last. She supposed it had been sold at the auction, but in the excitement of that time she had not noticed it.“Where did Mrs. Berlyn get it, do you know?”“From Makepeace’s. He has bicycles same as motors. He’ll tell you about it.”Half an hour later French was talking to Mr. Makepeace. He remembered having some five years earlier sold the machine to Mrs. Berlyn. He looked up his records, and after considerable trouble found a note of the transaction. The bicycle was a Swift, and number 35,721. It had certain dimensions and peculiarities of which he gave French details.French’s next call was on the auctioneer who had conducted the sale of the Berlyn effects. Mr. Nankivell appearedau faitwith the whole case and was obviously thrilled to meet French. He made no difficulty about giving the required information. A bicycle had not been among the articles auctioned, nor had he seen one during his visits to the house.This was all very well as far as it went, but it was negative. French wanted to find some one who could say definitely what had happened to the machine. He consulted with Sergeant Daw and at last came to the conclusion that if Peter Swann, the gardener-chauffeur, could be found, he might be able to give the information. Daw believed he had gone to Chagford, and he telephoned to the sergeant there, asking him to make enquiries.In the afternoon there was a reply to the effect that the man was employed by a market gardener near Chagford, and French at once took a car over to see him. Swann remembered the bicycle well, as he had had to keep it clean. He had seen it in the woodshed on the day before the tragedy, but next morning it was gone. He had looked for it particularly, as he wished to use it to take a message to the town and he had wondered where it could have got to. He had never seen it again. He had not asked about it, as he had not considered that his business.Once again French experienced the keen delight of finding his deductions justified by the event. In this whole case he had really excelled himself. On several different points he had imagined what might have occurred, and on a test being made, his idea had been proved correct. Some work that! As he did not fail to remind himself, it showed the highest type of ability.The next thing was to find the bicycle. He returned for the night to Ashburton, and next morning went down to see the superintendent of police at Plymouth. That officer listened with interest to his story and promised to have a search made without delay. When he had rung up and asked for similar enquiries to be made in the other large towns within a cycle ride of the moor, French found himself at a loose end.“You should have a look round the place,” the superintendent advised. “There’s a lot to see in Plymouth.”French took the advice and went for a stroll round the city. He was not impressed by the streets, though he admired St. Andrew’s Church, the Guildhall, and some of the other buildings in the same locality. But when, after wandering through some more or less uninteresting residential streets, he unexpectedly came out on the Hoe, he held his breath. The promenade along the top of the cliff was imposing enough, though no better than he had seen many times before. But the view of the Sound was unique. The sea, light blue in the morning sun, stretched from the base of the cliff beneath his feet out past Drake’s Island and the long line of the Breakwater to a clear horizon. On the right was Mount Edgcumbe, tree clad to the water’s edge, while far away out to the southwest was the faint white pillar of the Eddystone lighthouse. French gazed and admired, then going down to the Sutton Pool, he explored the older part of the town for the best part of an hour.When he presently reached the police station he was delighted to find that news had just then come in. The bicycle had been found. It had been pawned by a man, apparently a labourer, shortly after the shop opened on the morning of Tuesday, the 16th August; the morning, French reminded himself delightedly, after the crime. The man had stated that the machine was his daughter’s and had been given two pounds on it. He had not returned since, nor had the machine been redeemed.“We’re trying to trace the man, but after this lapse of time I don’t suppose we shall be able,” the superintendent declared. “I expect this Berlyn abandoned the machine when he reached Plymouth, and our friend found it and thought he had better make hay while the sun shone.”“So likely that I don’t think it matters whether you find him or not,” French returned.“I agree, but we shall have a shot at it, all the same. By the way, Mr. French, it’s a curious thing that you should call to-day. Only yesterday I was talking to a friend of yours—an ass, if you don’t mind my saying so, but married to one of the most delightful young women I’ve ever come across. Lives at Dartmouth.”“Dartmouth?” French laughed. “That gives me a clue. You mean that cheery young optimist, Maxwell Cheyne? He is an ass right enough, but he’s not a bad soul at bottom. And the girl’s a stunner. How are they getting along?”“Tip-top. He’s taken to writing tales. Doing quite well with them, too, I believe. They’re very popular down there, both of them.”“Glad to hear it. Well, Superintendent, I must be getting along. Thanks for your help.”French was full of an eager optimism as the result of these discoveries. The disappearance of the bicycle, added to the breakdown of the alibi, seemed definitely to prove his theory of Mrs. Berlyn’s complicity.But when he considered the identity of the person whom Mrs. Berlyn had thus assisted, he had to admit himself staggered. That Berlyn had murdered Pyke had seemed an obvious theory. Now French was not so certain of it. The lady had undoubtedly been in love with Pyke. Surely it was too much to suppose she would help her husband to murder her lover?Had it been the other way round, had Phyllis and Pyke conspired to kill Berlyn, the thing would have been easier to understand. Wife and lover against husband was a common enough combination. But the evidence against this idea was strong. Not only was there the identification of the clothes and birthmark, but there was the strong presumption that the man who disposed of the crate in Wales was Berlyn. At the same time this evidence of identification was not quite conclusive, and French determined to keep the possibility in view and test it rigorously as occasion offered.And then another factor occurred to him, an extremely disturbing factor, which bade fair to change his whole view of the case. He saw that even if Pyke had murdered Berlyn it would not clear up the situation. In fact, this new idea suggested that it was impossible either that Pyke could have murdered Berlyn or that Berlyn could have murdered Pyke.What, he asked himself, must have been the motive for such a crime? Certainly not merely to gratify a feeling of hate. The motive undoubtedly was to enable the survivor to claim Phyllis as his wife and to live with her in good social standing and without fear of his rival. But the crime, French reminded himself, had a peculiar feature. The staged accident on the moor involved the disappearance ofbothactors, the murderer as well as the victim. If, then, the murderer disappeared, he could not live with Phyllis. If either Berlyn or Pyke were guilty, therefore, he had carried out the crime in a way which robbed him of the very results for which he had committed it.French saw that he was up against a puzzling dilemma. If Berlyn had murdered Pyke, it was unlikely that Mrs. Berlyn would have assisted. If, on the other hand, Pyke had murdered Berlyn, Mrs. Berlyn’s action was clear, but not Pyke’s, for Pyke could get nothing out of it.French swore bitterly as he realised that in all probability his former view of the case was incorrect and that he was once again without any really satisfactory theory on which to work. Nor did some hours’ thought point the way to a solution of his problem.At least, however, he saw his next step. Mrs. Berlyn was the accomplice ofsome one. That some one was doubtless alive and biding his time until he thought it safe to join the lady. If so, she was pretty sure to know his whereabouts. Could she be made to reveal it?French thought that if in some way he could give her a thorough fright, she might try to get a warning through. It would then be up to him to intercept her message, which would give him the information he required.This meant London. He slept the night in Plymouth, and next day, which was Saturday, travelled up to Paddington.
That night as French was writing up his diary the question he had asked Domlio recurred to him. “Tell me, Colonel,” he had said, “did it not strike you as strange that Mrs. Berlyn should stumble at just the point which ensured her falling into your arms?” He had asked it to test the colonel’s belief in the incident. Now it occurred to him that on its merits it required an answer.
Had the incident stood alone it might well have passed unquestioned. But it was not alone. Two other matters must be considered in conjunction with it.
First there was the coincidence that at the precise moment a watcher armed with a camera should be present. What accident should take a photographer to this secluded glen just when so compromising a tableau should be staged? Was there here an element of design?
Secondly, there was the consideration that if suspicion were to be thrown on Domlio he must be made to take out his car secretly on the fatal night. And how better could this be done than by the story of the photograph? Once again, did this not suggest design?
If so, something both interesting and startling followed. Mrs. Berlyn was privy to it. And if she were privy to it, was she not necessarily implicated in the murder? Could she even be the accomplice for whom he, French, had been searching?
There was, of course, her alibi. If she had been at the party at her house at ten o’clock she could not have drugged Gurney’s tea. But was she at her house?
Experience had made French sceptical about alibis. This one certainly seemed watertight, and yet was it not just possible that Mrs. Berlyn had managed to slip away from her guests for the fifteen or twenty minutes required?
It was evident that the matter must be tested forthwith, and French decided that, having already questioned Mr. Fogden, he would interview the Dr. and Mrs. Lancaster whom Lizzie Johnston had mentioned as also being members of the party. They lived on the Buckland road half a mile beyond the Berlyns’, and next morning French called on them.
Dr. Lancaster, he had learned from Daw, was a newcomer to the town, a young LL.D. who had been forced by a breakdown in health to give up his career at the bar. He received French at once.
“I want to find out whether any member of the party could have left the house about ten o’clock for fifteen or twenty minutes,” French explained. “Do you think that you or Mrs. Lancaster could help me out?”
“I can only speak for myself,” Dr. Lancaster smiled. “I was there all the time, and I’m sure so was Mrs. Lancaster. But I’ll call her and you can ask her.”
“A moment, please. Surely you can speak for more than yourself? Were you not with the others?”
“With some of them. You see, what happened was this. When we went in, Mrs. Berlyn said that she had been disappointed in that three London friends, who were staying at Torquay and whom she expected, had just telegraphed to say they couldn’t come. That made our numbers wrong. She had intended to have three tables of bridge, but now, as some of us played billiards, she suggested one bridge table and snooker for the other five. She and I and—let me see—Fogden and a Miss Pym, I think, and one other—I’m blessed if I can remember who the other was—played snooker. So I wasn’t with the other four between the time that we settled down to play and supper.”
“What hour was supper?”
“About half past ten, I think. We broke up when it was over—rather early, as a matter of fact. We reached home shortly after eleven.”
“And you played snooker all the evening until supper?”
“No. After an hour or more we dropped it and played four-handed billiards.”
“Then some player must have stood out?”
“Yes. Mrs. Berlyn said she must go and see how the others were getting along. She watched us play for some time, then went to the drawing room. She came back after a few minutes to say that supper was ready.”
“Now, Dr. Lancaster, just one other question. Can you tell me at what time Mrs. Berlyn went into the drawing room?”
“I really don’t think I can. I wasn’t paying special attention to her movements. I should say perhaps half an hour before supper, but I couldn’t be sure.”
“That’s all right,” said French. “Now if I could see Mrs. Lancaster for a moment I should be done.”
Mrs. Lancaster was a dark, vivacious little woman who seemed to remember the evening in question much more clearly than did her husband.
“Yes,” she said, “I was playing bridge with Miss Lucy Pym, Mr. Cowls, and Mr. Leacock. I remember Mrs. Berlyn coming in about ten. She laughed and said: ‘Oh, my children, don’t be frightened. I couldn’t think of disturbing such a serious game. I’ll go back to our snooker.’ She went away, and presently came back and called us to the library to supper.”
“How long was she away, Mrs. Lancaster?”
“About twenty minutes, I should think.”
This seemed to French to be all that he wanted. However, he thought it wise to get the key of the Berlyns’ house and have a look at the layout. The drawing room was in front, with the library behind it, but between the two there was a passage with a side door leading into the garden. He felt satisfied as to the use to which that passage had been put on the night in question. He could picture Mrs. Berlyn fixing up the uneven number of guests, among whom would be some who played billiards and some who did not. The proposals for snooker and bridge would almost automatically follow, involving the division of the party in two rooms. Mrs. Berlyn as hostess would reasonably be the odd man out when the change was made from snooker to billiards. The result of these arrangements would be that when she slipped out to the works through the side door, each party would naturally assume she was with the other, while if any question as to this arose, her reëntry at supper-time would suggest to both that she had gone out to overlook its preparation.
These discoveries justified French’s theory, but they did not prove it, and he racked his brains for some test which would definitely establish the point.
At last an idea occurred to him which he thought might at least help.
In considering Mrs. Berlyn as her husband’s accomplice he had been doubtful whether there would have been sufficient time for the various actions. If after Berlyn’s arrival at the works with the body Mrs. Berlyn had driven the car back to where it was found, changed the magneto, and made the footprints, he did not believe she could have walked home in time to wake the servants at the hour stated. Nor did he believe that Berlyn, after disposing of the body in the works, could have been able on foot to make Domlio’s in time to hide the clothes in the well before the sergeant’s call.
He now wondered whether Mrs. Berlyn’s bicycle could have been pressed into the service. Could the lady have brought the machine to the works, lifted it into the tonneau of the car, carried it out on the moor, and ridden back on it to the works? And could her husband have used it to reach first Domlio’s and then Plymouth or some other large town from which he had escaped?
To test the matter, French returned to Lizzie Johnston and asked her if she knew what had become of the bicycle.
But the girl could not tell him. Nor could she recall when or where she had seen it last. She supposed it had been sold at the auction, but in the excitement of that time she had not noticed it.
“Where did Mrs. Berlyn get it, do you know?”
“From Makepeace’s. He has bicycles same as motors. He’ll tell you about it.”
Half an hour later French was talking to Mr. Makepeace. He remembered having some five years earlier sold the machine to Mrs. Berlyn. He looked up his records, and after considerable trouble found a note of the transaction. The bicycle was a Swift, and number 35,721. It had certain dimensions and peculiarities of which he gave French details.
French’s next call was on the auctioneer who had conducted the sale of the Berlyn effects. Mr. Nankivell appearedau faitwith the whole case and was obviously thrilled to meet French. He made no difficulty about giving the required information. A bicycle had not been among the articles auctioned, nor had he seen one during his visits to the house.
This was all very well as far as it went, but it was negative. French wanted to find some one who could say definitely what had happened to the machine. He consulted with Sergeant Daw and at last came to the conclusion that if Peter Swann, the gardener-chauffeur, could be found, he might be able to give the information. Daw believed he had gone to Chagford, and he telephoned to the sergeant there, asking him to make enquiries.
In the afternoon there was a reply to the effect that the man was employed by a market gardener near Chagford, and French at once took a car over to see him. Swann remembered the bicycle well, as he had had to keep it clean. He had seen it in the woodshed on the day before the tragedy, but next morning it was gone. He had looked for it particularly, as he wished to use it to take a message to the town and he had wondered where it could have got to. He had never seen it again. He had not asked about it, as he had not considered that his business.
Once again French experienced the keen delight of finding his deductions justified by the event. In this whole case he had really excelled himself. On several different points he had imagined what might have occurred, and on a test being made, his idea had been proved correct. Some work that! As he did not fail to remind himself, it showed the highest type of ability.
The next thing was to find the bicycle. He returned for the night to Ashburton, and next morning went down to see the superintendent of police at Plymouth. That officer listened with interest to his story and promised to have a search made without delay. When he had rung up and asked for similar enquiries to be made in the other large towns within a cycle ride of the moor, French found himself at a loose end.
“You should have a look round the place,” the superintendent advised. “There’s a lot to see in Plymouth.”
French took the advice and went for a stroll round the city. He was not impressed by the streets, though he admired St. Andrew’s Church, the Guildhall, and some of the other buildings in the same locality. But when, after wandering through some more or less uninteresting residential streets, he unexpectedly came out on the Hoe, he held his breath. The promenade along the top of the cliff was imposing enough, though no better than he had seen many times before. But the view of the Sound was unique. The sea, light blue in the morning sun, stretched from the base of the cliff beneath his feet out past Drake’s Island and the long line of the Breakwater to a clear horizon. On the right was Mount Edgcumbe, tree clad to the water’s edge, while far away out to the southwest was the faint white pillar of the Eddystone lighthouse. French gazed and admired, then going down to the Sutton Pool, he explored the older part of the town for the best part of an hour.
When he presently reached the police station he was delighted to find that news had just then come in. The bicycle had been found. It had been pawned by a man, apparently a labourer, shortly after the shop opened on the morning of Tuesday, the 16th August; the morning, French reminded himself delightedly, after the crime. The man had stated that the machine was his daughter’s and had been given two pounds on it. He had not returned since, nor had the machine been redeemed.
“We’re trying to trace the man, but after this lapse of time I don’t suppose we shall be able,” the superintendent declared. “I expect this Berlyn abandoned the machine when he reached Plymouth, and our friend found it and thought he had better make hay while the sun shone.”
“So likely that I don’t think it matters whether you find him or not,” French returned.
“I agree, but we shall have a shot at it, all the same. By the way, Mr. French, it’s a curious thing that you should call to-day. Only yesterday I was talking to a friend of yours—an ass, if you don’t mind my saying so, but married to one of the most delightful young women I’ve ever come across. Lives at Dartmouth.”
“Dartmouth?” French laughed. “That gives me a clue. You mean that cheery young optimist, Maxwell Cheyne? He is an ass right enough, but he’s not a bad soul at bottom. And the girl’s a stunner. How are they getting along?”
“Tip-top. He’s taken to writing tales. Doing quite well with them, too, I believe. They’re very popular down there, both of them.”
“Glad to hear it. Well, Superintendent, I must be getting along. Thanks for your help.”
French was full of an eager optimism as the result of these discoveries. The disappearance of the bicycle, added to the breakdown of the alibi, seemed definitely to prove his theory of Mrs. Berlyn’s complicity.
But when he considered the identity of the person whom Mrs. Berlyn had thus assisted, he had to admit himself staggered. That Berlyn had murdered Pyke had seemed an obvious theory. Now French was not so certain of it. The lady had undoubtedly been in love with Pyke. Surely it was too much to suppose she would help her husband to murder her lover?
Had it been the other way round, had Phyllis and Pyke conspired to kill Berlyn, the thing would have been easier to understand. Wife and lover against husband was a common enough combination. But the evidence against this idea was strong. Not only was there the identification of the clothes and birthmark, but there was the strong presumption that the man who disposed of the crate in Wales was Berlyn. At the same time this evidence of identification was not quite conclusive, and French determined to keep the possibility in view and test it rigorously as occasion offered.
And then another factor occurred to him, an extremely disturbing factor, which bade fair to change his whole view of the case. He saw that even if Pyke had murdered Berlyn it would not clear up the situation. In fact, this new idea suggested that it was impossible either that Pyke could have murdered Berlyn or that Berlyn could have murdered Pyke.
What, he asked himself, must have been the motive for such a crime? Certainly not merely to gratify a feeling of hate. The motive undoubtedly was to enable the survivor to claim Phyllis as his wife and to live with her in good social standing and without fear of his rival. But the crime, French reminded himself, had a peculiar feature. The staged accident on the moor involved the disappearance ofbothactors, the murderer as well as the victim. If, then, the murderer disappeared, he could not live with Phyllis. If either Berlyn or Pyke were guilty, therefore, he had carried out the crime in a way which robbed him of the very results for which he had committed it.
French saw that he was up against a puzzling dilemma. If Berlyn had murdered Pyke, it was unlikely that Mrs. Berlyn would have assisted. If, on the other hand, Pyke had murdered Berlyn, Mrs. Berlyn’s action was clear, but not Pyke’s, for Pyke could get nothing out of it.
French swore bitterly as he realised that in all probability his former view of the case was incorrect and that he was once again without any really satisfactory theory on which to work. Nor did some hours’ thought point the way to a solution of his problem.
At least, however, he saw his next step. Mrs. Berlyn was the accomplice ofsome one. That some one was doubtless alive and biding his time until he thought it safe to join the lady. If so, she was pretty sure to know his whereabouts. Could she be made to reveal it?
French thought that if in some way he could give her a thorough fright, she might try to get a warning through. It would then be up to him to intercept her message, which would give him the information he required.
This meant London. He slept the night in Plymouth, and next day, which was Saturday, travelled up to Paddington.