There were two columns about the Portland Place Murder, as it was called. My man

Paddock had given the alarm and had the milkman arrested. Poor devil, it looked

as if the latter had earned his sovereign hardly; but for me he had been cheap

at the price, for he seemed to have occupied the police for the better part of

the day. In the latest news I found a further instalment of the story. The

milkman had been released, I read, and the true criminal, about whose identity

the police were reticent, was believed to have got away from London by one of

the northern lines. There was a short note about me as the owner of the flat. I

guessed the police had stuck that in, as a clumsy contrivance to persuade me

that I was unsuspected.

 

There was nothing else in the paper, nothing about foreign politics or

Karolides, or the things that had interested Scudder. I laid it down, and found

that we were approaching the station at which I had got out yesterday. The

potato-digging station-master had been gingered up into some activity, for the

west-going train was waiting to let us pass, and from it had descended three men

who were asking him questions. I supposed that they were the local police, who

had been stirred up by Scotland Yard, and had traced me as far as this one-horse

siding.

 

Sitting well back in the shadow I watched them carefully. One of them had a

book, and took down notes. The old potato-digger seemed to have turned peevish,

but the child who had collected my ticket was talking volubly. All the party

looked out across the moor where the white road departed. I hoped they were

going to take up my tracks there.