It appeared that he had been at St David’s Station when Douglas’s train had come in. He was engaged by a small, elderly, clean-shaven man with grey hair, dressed in a tweed overcoat and a cloth cap. The man seemed nervous and excited, and told him to drive to any ready-made clothes store which would be open at that hour. He took him to a shop in the poorer part of the town. The man went in, returning in a few minutes dressed in a soft, grey felt hat and a khaki coloured waterproof, and carrying a bundle. He re-entered the taxi and told the driver ‘Queen Street Station as quick as you can.’ He drove there, and the man paid him and hurried into the station, and that was all he knew.
‘What time did you reach Queen Street?’ asked Tanner.
‘Going on to half-past seven.’
‘We’d better go to Queen Street and find out what trains leave about that hour.’
Their visitor’s car was waiting outside, and engaging it, they drove rapidly off.
For those who do not know Exeter, it may be explained that the Great Western and London and South-Western Railways, both running from London to Plymouth, form a gigantic figure 8, the centre where the lines cross being St David’s Station, Exeter. In the same town, but a mile nearer London on the South-Western, is Queen Street Station. While therefore St David’s is joint between the two Companies, Queen Street is South-Western only, and these facts seemed to indicate to Tanner the probability that Douglas was going for a South-Western train bound Londonwards.
A glance at the time table at Queen Street supported this view. A train left for London at 7.32.
‘Your constable saw the booking-clerk, I suppose?’ Tanner asked.
‘Yes, sir. But of course he gave the wrong description. He did not know the man had changed his cap and coat.’
‘That’s true,’ Tanner assented. ‘We had better see him again.’