“I’m going up the line with you. If anything’s happened to Grit, whatever hole Van Bleit sneaks into, I’ll see he pays.”
Chapter Twenty Eight.
Colonel Grey flung a suit of pyjamas and a few toilet accessories into a handbag and started out for the station. He was very much perturbed. Against his judgment he was greatly affected by Mrs Lawless’ forebodings of the previous night; her softly uttered, prophetic—they seemed to him prophetic—words: “I have always felt those letters would cost another life.”
And as a foundation for this belief, Tom Hayhurst had turned up with his tale of suspicion and his unreserved misgivings that had insensibly given rise to similar doubts in his own mind. What a finish to a life of failure! ... If this, indeed, should prove the end! He recalled his recently formulated plans for the man’s future... the chance he had thought to give him; and a hard look came into his eyes, his lips tightened. Those ashes in the grate had indeed cost dear!
Tom Hayhurst was already on the platform when he made his appearance from the direction of the booking-office. He came forward quickly to meet him, his boyish face grave and concerned.
“I saw Van Bleit come out of the shipping-office when I passed on my way here,” he said. “I tried to stop him, but he eluded me, and I daren’t give chase for fear of missing the train. I take it he was booking his passage to England. He means clearing out... Looks queer, eh?”
Colonel Grey nodded briefly.
“It’ll take a bigger world than this for him to lose himself in, if he’s killed Grit,” the young man said.