Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/277

Rh his extraordinary career less than two months ago, and during all that time has been pillaging travellers steadily and securely under the very noses of our police, is now on board with us, and must continue with us till we land, you will appreciate the situation which faces us upon this ship.

"For Mr. Manling has as yet, as the Graphic well put it, become known to the police only as a series of extraordinarily simple, audacious, and successful robberies; not as a man.

"In the single instance at Plymouth last week, when he was thought to have slipped at last and exposed himself, in some incomprehensible and clever way he had so confused his identity with another that he tricked the police into arresting a man who had an incontestable alibi. The police then were back where they were before.

"They have been able to name him Manling only because that is the name which he himself has preferred to give when he addresses his impertinent communications to them.

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