Fay glanced at the train. The semaphore ahead was set for “go.� The steam plumed from the engine and merged with the fog at the end of the shed.
A bell rang as he thrust a cold finger out to MacKeenon, clutched the little black bag and sprang for the running-board of a first-class compartment. The train started, stopped, then lunged on through the clammy shed. Fay opened a door, tossed in his bag and stumbled aboard. He overlooked one trifle.
MacKeenon had drawn a white handkerchief from his coat pocket—where it was most conveniently handy—and had shown all the evidences of a man doubled up with Spanish influenza.
A little Scot—with a bundle and a hacking cough—passed the inspector and clutched wildly for a handrail on the car behind the first-class one. He hung there by grim strength, and finally succeeded in getting inside a compartment as the train roared out of the station shed and started to tunnel the murky night.
The inspector’s smile was that of a sly gray fox as he turned and hurried from the station. He crossed the bridge on a swift run, barked a surly order to the waiting driver of a two-wheeler, and settled back as the whip cracked smartly over the haunches of a perfectly good horse of the better order.
The driver knew his book. He drove northward and deposited MacKeenon at Liverpool Street Station, where a train was waiting by which a number of British North Sea ports could be reached.
Although he had overlooked it, Fay had company going to a certain neutral country, and company coming by a roundabout route.
CHAPTER VII
PASSENGERS FOR HOLLAND
The channel boat Flushing was waiting the boat train that left London Bridge Station at eight P.M. The grizzled skipper leaned from the bridge and watched the queue of travelers wind slowly along the quay, disappear into a little house and emerge somewhat ruffled in feelings.
A few of these travelers were turned back. One, at least, was bundled into a closed van, which climbed the hill and was swallowed by the night mist. This van bore the magic legend “H.M.S.� on its barred sides.