Then I got out an atlas and looked at a big map of the British Isles.

 

My notion was to get off to some wild district, where my veldcraft would be of

some use to me, for I would be like a trapped rat in a city. I considered that

Scotland would be best, for my people were Scotch and I could pass anywhere as

an ordinary Scotsman. I had half an idea at first to be a German tourist, for my

father had had German partners, and I had been brought up to speak the tongue

pretty fluently, not to mention having put in three years prospecting for copper

in German Damaraland. But I calculated that it would be less conspicuous to be a

Scot, and less in a line with what the police might know of my past. I fixed on

Galloway as the best place to go. It was the nearest wild part of Scotland, so

far as I could figure it out, and from the look of the map was not over thick

with population.

 

A search in Bradshaw informed me that a train left St Pancras at 7.10, which

would land me at any Galloway station in the late afternoon. That was well

enough, but a more important matter was how I was to make my way to St Pancras,

for I was pretty certain that Scudder’s friends would be watching outside. This

puzzled me for a bit; then I had an inspiration, on which I went to bed and

slept for two troubled hours.

 

I got up at four and opened my bedroom shutters. The faint light of a fine

summer morning was flooding the skies, and the sparrows had begun to chatter. I

had a great revulsion of feeling, and felt a God-forgotten fool. My inclination

was to let things slide, and trust to the British police taking a reasonable