“I never lookit. Maybe it wasna a name. I never like to be impident, and didna look very close.”
I questioned her closely on the man’s appearance, and found that it tallied very closely with that of the sham coachman. Yet I was anything but hopeful of the result. The description might have suited fifty innocent men who might pass her little shop in the course of a forenoon. Still I resolved to follow the clue a little further, and directed the cabman to turn his horse off at the first bye-road, and make for a railway station two miles further on. It was quite a small place, a branch from the main line, and to my satisfaction I found the booking clerk who had been on duty on the day named by the woman. This lad recollected the red-haired man perfectly, but when I said, “Where did he book for?” he looked at me with a puzzled expression, then thought a moment, and said—
“Did he book for any place?”
It was now my turn to look puzzled.
“I don’t know—I suppose he did when he walked two miles to get to the station,” I said at last. “Why else would he come here?”
“He brought a parcel,” said the lad, turning to one of his ledgers and flapping over the leaves. “He booked it, I know, but I don’t think he took out a ticket or waited for the train.”
“What kind of a parcel?”
“A light box. I think he said it was to be kept dry, as there were artificial flowers and ribbons in it. Ah, here is the entry—it is not paid you see—he said we’d take greater care of it if it wasn’t prepaid—‘Sent by James Paterson, to Robert Marshall, Linlithgow. To lie at station till called for.’”
“Was the box big enough to have held a fiddle?”
“About that size, sir. I don’t think it would have held the fiddlestick too. The fiddlestick is longer, and would take more room.”