‘Just one thing more,’ urged Mr. Brooks. ‘What will the job be worth’
‘Unless I can make it a big figure I shan’t touch it,’ answered Marston. ‘Its my last business transaction previous to retiring into private life; so I want it to be a profitable one. I shan’t think of making the attempt till I know that at least £20,000 is going down the line. That’s a sum that often goes from London to the Continent, and it is by the Continental mail we shall have to travel whenever the coup comes off.’
Brooks looked at Marston with such an admiring glance that the latter couldn’t help laughing.
‘We’d better get ashore,’ he said, presently. ‘You must take plenty of time, and have everything ready when you apply this afternoon for a box of bullion as Mr. John Dawson.’
Marston rowed towards the shore, giving his companion a few parting instructions, and, having landed, they separated. Marston went to the Lord Warden, where he was staying in first-class style, and Mr. Brooks walked quietly to his less pretentious but equally comfortable hotel, the Dover Castle.
All that afternoon Mr. Barker, a clerk in the traffic superintendent’s office at Dover, rather neglected his business. He had too sharp an eye on the parcels office to be thinking of anything else.
About three o’clock a train was due in. Just before it arrived an elderly gentleman stepped into the parcels office and asked if a box of bullion, forwarded from London to John Dawson, Dover, had arrived.
‘Yes, it has,’ said the clerk.
‘I am Mr. Dawson,’ said the gentleman, handing in a letter from the sender, advising its despatch to him. ‘I’ll take it, please.’
The clerk went to where the safe stood securely locked. The box of bullion was inside it.