“But how could they know me?”
“He would describe you closely enough for that; possibly he may have sent them over a photograph.”
Frank got up and went to a side table, on which a framed photograph that had been taken when he was at home at Christmas, usually stood. “You are right,” he said; “it has gone.” Then he opened an album. “The one here has gone, too, mother. Are there any more of them about?”
“There is one in my bedroom; you know where it hangs. It was there this morning.”
“That has gone, too, mother,” he said, when he returned to the room.
“So you see, Muriel, I was right. The one from the album may have been taken yesterday, and a dozen copies made of it; so that, even if you give them the slip here, Frank, you will be recognised as soon as you reach Paris.”
“Well, mother, it is of no use bothering any more about it. I have only to travel in carriages with other people, and they cannot molest me; at worst they can but search me, and they will find nothing. They cannot even feel sure that I have anything on me; for now that Beppo knows he is suspected of listening at doors, he will consider it possible that we may have changed our plans about where we shall hide the money. It is not as if they wanted to put me out of the way, you know; you and the signora agreed that that is certainly the last thing they would do, because there would be a tremendous row about it, and they would gain no advantage by it; so I should not worry any further, mother. I do not think there is the slightest occasion for uneasiness. I will just go by Calais, as I had intended, and by the train I had fixed on; that in itself will shake Beppo’s belief that I have the money with me, for he would think that if I had it I should naturally try some other way.”
“At any rate,” Mrs. Percival said, “you shall not go by the line that we had intended. You would be obliged to travel by diligence from Dole to Geneva, thence to Chambery, and again by the same method over the Alps to Susa. You shall go straight from Paris to Marseilles; boats go from there every two or three days to Genoa.”
“Very well, mother; I don’t care which it is. Certainly there are far fewer changes by that line; and to make your mind easy, I will promise you that at Marseilles, if I have to stop there a night, I will keep my bedroom door locked, and shove something heavy against it; in that way I can’t be caught asleep.”
“Well, I shall certainly feel more comfortable, my dear boy, than I should if you were going over the Alps. Of course, the diligence stops sometimes and the people get out, and there would be many opportunities for your being suddenly seized and gagged and carried off.”