“Why, Ferriby’s not in the town at all,” he exclaimed after he had studied it for some moments. “It’s up the river—must be seven or eight miles up by the look of it; the North-Eastern runs through it and there’s a station. We’d better go out there and prospect.”
Merriman agreed, they called for a timetable, found there was a train at 10.35, and going down to Paragon Station, got on board.
After clearing the suburbs the line came down close to the river, and the two friends kept a good look-out for the depot. About four and a half miles out they stopped at a station called Hassle, then a couple of miles farther their perseverance was rewarded and they saw a small pier and shed, the latter bearing in large letters on its roof the name of the syndicate. Another mile and a half brought them to Ferriby, where they alighted.
“Now what about walking back to Hassle,” Hilliard suggested, “and seeing what we can see?”
They followed the station approach road inland until they reached the main thoroughfare, along which they turned eastwards in the direction of Hull. In a few minutes they came in sight of the depot, half a mile off across the fields. A lane led towards it, and this they followed until it reached the railway.
There it turned in the direction of Hull and ran parallel to the line for a short distance, doubling back, as they learned afterwards, until it reached the main road half-way to Hassle. The railway tracks were on a low bank, and the men could just see across them to the syndicate’s headquarters.
The view was not very good, but so far as they could make out, the depot was a replica of that in the Landes clearing. A timber wharf jutted out into the stream, apparently of the same size and construction as that on the River Lesque. Behind it was the same kind of galvanized iron shed, but this one, besides having windows in the gables, seemed the smaller of the two. Its back was only about a hundred feet from the railway, and the space between was taken up by a yard surrounded by a high galvanized iron fence, above which appeared the tops of many stacks of pit-props. Into the yard ran a siding from the railway. From a door in the fence a path led across the line to a wicket in the hedge of the lane, beside which stood a “Beware of the Trains” notice. There was no sign of activity about the place, and the gates through which the siding entered the enclosure were shut.
Hilliard stopped and stood looking over.
“How the mischief are we to get near that place without being seen?” he questioned. “It’s like a German pill-box. There’s no cover anywhere about.”