"Didn't you ask! When you saw them packing up and going to the station, didn't you do anything?"
"No, sir."
"Why on earth not?"
"I didn't see them, sir. I only found out as they'd gone after they'd been and went, sir. Walking down by the Net and Mackerel, met one of them coastguards. 'Oh,' says he, 'so you're moving?' 'Who's a-moving?' I says to him. 'Well,' he says to me, 'I seen your Mr. Ukridge and his missus get into the three o'clock train for Axminster. I thought as you was all a-moving.' 'Ho,' I says, 'Ho,' wondering, and I goes on. When I gets back, I asks the missus did she see them packing their boxes, and she says, No, she says, they didn't pack no boxes as she knowed of. And blowed if they had, Mr. Garnet, sir."
"What! They didn't pack!"
"No, sir."
We looked at one another.
"Beale," I said.
"Sir?"
"Do you know what I think?"