"Go on through!" urged my companion. "You don't need a ticket: does he?" He appealed to the guard at the barrier. "There's a big criminal trying to get away by this train — robbery — robbed the Chief Constable-"
The guard opened and shut his ticket-punch. Behind me an excited voice spoke. A hand, with a square grimy fingernail in wrinkled flesh, was poked past my shoulder and pointed through the barrier at the platform outside.
"Yes," said the voice, "and there he is now."
The train burst in, drowning the words, but we had all heard them. Full in the glare of the headlight, as though its reflection from the rails caught him up, a man stood by himself at the edge of the platform above the tracks. He was a tallish, weedy, limp man, a trifle stooped; his neck was craned round, and he was staring at us over his shoulder. He wore large spectacles, and had a long limp blue-chinned face. But if ever I saw an expression of fear on a human face, it was glazed there. He did not move, he only stared. For one bad moment I thought he was going to topple forward straight under the wheels of the train. But he recovered himself. The train went past with a slamming roar and a flashing of windows, slowing down with a dull kind of sigh; and, in a backwash of grit the man turned round and began to walk swiftly away.
A voice was already calling out to stop the man who had robbed somebody. I think even the ticket-taker deserted his post when we hurried through the barrier: I had to go along, because they all turned to look at me even as they took the first step. I could have given a healthy-sized groan at this further example of the cussedness of human affairs. Our quarry did not go far, or try to go far. A porter only touched him on the arm, and he turned shakily.
When we got up to where he stood, a couple of my companions I stopped in unbelief, and I almost blurted out an apology. The man in front of us was a clergyman — or was dressed like one. He had on the dark coat, the dickey, the clerical collar from which his weedy neck projected, and had a soft dark hat set squarely on his head. If he had kept his nerve at that moment, the hunters might have excused themselves, and I — should have been able to fade away. But he did not keep his nerve. His forehead was wet, and his eyes behind the spectacles had a fishy glaze.
"All right," he said, not much above a whisper. "All right, all right," he went on rapidly, with a faintly foreign intonation. "I'll go with you. I knew I couldn't get away with it. I knew I wouldn't have the luck to get away with it. I knew that damned Antrim woman saw me, just when I was going out to the car-"
I looked down at the black bag he was carrying, and knew something too.
"You're Mr. Joseph Serpos, aren't you?" I said.
"Y-yes. I — how did they find me in this?" He fumbled at the breast of his clerical outfit, in a sort of weak bewilderment and savagery. I thought the man was going to cry. "I — had it all arranged. These clothes. Passport. I-"