"Very good. You had better communicate with them at once, and tell them to hold themselves in readiness for I may want them at any moment. On Friday night I shall probably attempt the job, and they can get back to town when and how they like.
"Very good sir. I'll see about them this afternoon without fail."
Next morning, Belton left London for Liverpool, with the photograph of the mysterious Rooney in his pocket-book. Carne had spent the afternoon with a fashionable party at Hurlingham, and it was not until he returned to his house that he received the telegram he had instructed his valet to send him. It was short, and to the point.
Friends arrived. Reach Euston nine o'clock.
The station clocks wanted ten minutes of the hour when the hansom containing a certain ascetic-looking curate drove into the yard. The clergyman paid his fare, and, having inquired the platform upon which the Liverpool express would arrive, strolled leisurely in that direction. He would have been a clever man who would have recognized in this unsophisticated individual either deformed Simon Carne of Park Lane, or the famous detective of Belverton Street.
Punctual almost to the moment the train put in an appearance and drew up beside the platform. A moment later the curate was engulfed in a sea of passengers. A bystander, had he been sufficiently observant to notice such a thing, would have been struck by the eager way in which he looked about him, and also by the way in which his manner changed directly he went forward to greet the person he was expecting. To all appearances they were both curates, but their social positions must have been widely different if their behavior to each other could have been taken as any criterion. The new arrival, having greeted his friend, turned to two gentlemen standing beside him, and after thanking them for their company during the journey, wished them a pleasant holiday in England, and bade them good-bye. Then, turning to his friend again, he led him along the platform towards the cab rank.
During the time Belton had been speaking to the two men just referred to, Carne had been studying their faces attentively. One, the taller of the pair, if his red hair and watery blue eyes went for anything, was evidently Maguire, the other was Rooney, the man of the photograph. Both were big, burly fellows, and Carne felt that if it ever came to a fight, they would be just the sort of men to offer a determined resistance.
Arm in arm the curates followed the Americans towards the cab rank. Reaching it, the latter called up a vehicle, placed the bags they carried upon the roof, and took their places inside. The driver had evidently received his instructions, for he drove off without delay. Carne at once called up another cab, into which Belton sprang without ceremony. Carne pointed to the cab just disappearing through the gates ahead.
"Keep that hansom in sight, cabby," he said: "but whatever you do don't pass it."
"All right, sir," said the man, and immediately applied the whip to his horse.