Page:The Duke Decides (1904).djvu/156

 though, that I could have ignored what purported to be an appeal for assistance from a woman in distress—leaving aside my personal relations with her.”

“Don’t kick, laddie. I’m to blame for leaving our precious vanishing nobleman in the hands of a man in love. What next?’

“I hurried back to St. Pancras, and, just missing the fast train which afterwards picked up the 8.45 passengers at the scene of the accident, had to kick my heels until the last train started. But it was no accident, Uncle Jem. A big baulk of timber had been placed across the rails, they told me at Harpenden.”

The General knitted his brows and pondered the problem, presently suggesting tentatively that there was no proof that the Duke had after all gone in the 8.45. He might, on finding himself suddenly deprived of his companion, have got out before it started. But this theory was at once knocked on the head by Forsyth’s assertion that the train had begun to move before he left the platform, and that Beaumanoir, still seated in the “engaged” compartment, had waved him farewell. If the Duke had not got out at an intermediate station, he must have disappeared at the place