"Ah! It is your duty," said the passenger magnanimously. "Good-night, monsieur."
Catching sight of Burton as he was passing on, he stopped.
"Ah! my friend, here you are," he said. "I give you vun of my announce. It has ze address. I see you to-morrow? Zat is quite right!"
Then he lifted his hat and went his way.
Burton thrust the slip of paper into his pocket without looking at it. He felt horribly disconcerted. The fluid in the bottle was certainly not Micklewright's explosive; that was a crystalline solid. He had made an egregious mistake. It was more than disappointing; it was humiliating. He had been engaged in a wild-goose chase indeed. His stratagem was wasted; his suspicions were unfounded; his deductions utterly fallacious. While he was dogging this innocent Frenchman, the real villain was no doubt on the other side of the sea, waiting for the night boat from Dover or perhaps Newhaven. He had made a fool of himself.
Despondent and irritated, he was about to find his way to the nearest hotel for the night, when he suddenly noticed a second portly figure approaching the shed among the file of passengers. The man was hatless; he was bald; he carried a brown leather hand-bag. His collar was limp; his face was clammy, and of that pallid greenish hue which betokens beyond possibility of doubt a severe attack of sea-sickness.
At the first glance Burton started; at the second he flushed; then, on the impulse of the moment, he sprang forward, and reaching the side of the flabby passenger at the moment when he placed his bag upon the counter, he laid his hand upon it, and cried--
"My bag, monsieur!"
The bald-headed passenger glanced round in mere amazement, clutching his bag.
"Excuse me, monsieur," he said quietly, "it is mine."