"Ay," said the man, who was reading a grubby sheet of newspaper. "I'll wait as long as ye like, for it's you that pays."
Dickson left his pack in the cab and, oddly enough for a careful man, he did not shut the door. He re-entered the station, strolled to the bookstall and bought a Glasgow Herald. His steps then tended to the refreshment room, where he ordered a cup of coffee and two Bath buns, and seated himself at a small table. There he was soon immersed in the financial news, and though he sipped his coffee he left the buns untasted. He took out a penknife and cut various extracts from the Herald, bestowing them carefully in his pocket. An observer would have seen an elderly gentleman absorbed in market quotations.
After a quarter of an hour had been spent in this performance he happened to glance at the clock and rose with an exclamation. He bustled out to his taxi and found the driver still intent upon his reading. "Here I am at last," he said cheerily, and had a foot on the step, when he stopped suddenly with a cry. It was a cry of alarm, but also of satisfaction.
"What's become of my pack? I left it on the seat, and now it's gone! There's been a thief here."
The driver, roused from his lethargy, protested in the name of his gods that no one had been near it. "Ye took it into the station wi' ye," he urged.
"I did nothing of the kind. Just you wait here till I see the inspector. A bonny watch you keep on a gentleman's things."
But Dickson did not interview the railway authorities. Instead he hurried to the left-luggage office. "I deposited a small box here a short time ago. I mind the number. Is it there still?"
The attendant glanced at a shelf. "A wee deal box with iron bands. It was took out ten minutes syne. A man brought the ticket and took it away on his shoulder."
"Thank you. There's been a mistake, but the blame's mine. My man mistook my orders."
Then he returned to the now nervous taxi-driver. "I've taken it up with the station-master and he's putting the police on. You'll likely be wanted, so I gave him your number. It's a fair disgrace that there should be so many thieves about this station. It's not the first time I've lost things. Drive me to West George Street and look sharp." And he slammed the door with the violence of an angry man.