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 ,' met one of them coastguards. 'Oh,' says he, 'so you're moving?' 'Who's a-moving?' I says to him. 'Well,' he says to me, 'I seen your Mr. Ukridge and his missus get into the three o'clock train for Axminster. I thought as you was all a-moving.' 'Ho!' I says, 'Ho!' wondering, and I goes on. When I gets back, I asks the missus did she see them packing their boxes, and she says, 'No,' she says, they didn't pack no boxes as she knowed of. And blowed if they had, Mr. Garnet, sir."

"What, they didn't pack!"

"No, sir."

We looked at one another.

"Beale," I said.

"Sir?"

"Do you know what I think?"

"Yes, sir."

"They've bolted."

"So I says to the missus, sir. It struck me right off, in a manner of speaking."