‘We have no ticket to recover them with, you see. And I can’t use any official means. But I know most of the men on duty at the big terminuses, and can probably wangle our way behind the scenes. It will be up to you to spot the cases. Was Bill a labeller by nature, would you say?’
‘I expect he’d label things he was going to leave behind like that. Why, do you think, did he not have the left-luggage ticket in his pocket-book?’
‘I did think that someone else may have deposited those cases for him. The person who saw him off at Euston, for instance.’
‘The Martin guy?’
‘It might be. If he had borrowed papers for this odd masquerade, he would have to return them. Perhaps Martin was going to meet him at the airport, or at Victoria, or wherever it was that he had planned to leave England from, with the cases and collect his own papers.’
‘Yeah. That makes sense. I suppose we couldn’t Agony-advertise for this Martin?’
‘I don’t think that this Martin would be very willing to answer, having lent his papers for a piece of sharp practice and being now without identity.’
‘No. Perhaps you’re right. He wasn’t anyone who was staying at that hotel, anyway.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Grant, surprised.
‘I looked through the book: the register. When I was identifying Bill’s signature.’