The car hired to take them to Brighton conveyed them only as far as Redhill, where they dismissed it. The Red Widow, having already alighted at Sutton, in Surrey, and returning to Victoria by train, claimed her two trunks. Then, by the aid of her false passport, and adding age and shabbiness to her appearance, she managed to travel third-class from Folkestone to Boulogne and, passed by the police and passport officer there, went on to Paris, where already she had a safe asylum awaiting her.
At Redhill Boyne and his wife halted at an hotel, and after being inside for ten minutes the fugitives came out, paid the man, gave him a handsome douceur and said that they had changed their minds. Thus dismissed the man returned to London well satisfied.
The pair separated half an hour later, Boyne returning as far as Clapham Junction, where he changed and went on to Waterloo. His idea was to get away by Southampton that evening to the Channel Islands, and thence, after a few days, across to Havre. He knew too well that the game was up and that his only chance was to get abroad.
On arrival he went into the refreshment room at Waterloo, for he had a full hour to wait for the next train to Southampton. Having leisurely drunk a cup of tea, he was just about to emerge when three men near the door dashed out and pounced upon him.
In an instant he fought like a tiger, but just as quickly the men gripped him, though not a word was spoken, except that a terrible imprecation escaped the assassin's lips.
He was a master-criminal, and the detectives had not gauged the extent of his wily cleverness.
"Very well," he laughed grimly at last. "You needn't hurt my arm. Really, this is all extremely annoying."
A crowd had at once assembled at the first sign of a struggle, but the detectives hurried him unceremoniously to a taxi, into which they bundled him. Of that very act Bernard Boyne was swift to take advantage, for ere they could prevent him he had managed to slip his hand to his mouth and swallowed something—so quickly, indeed, that the detectives who sat with him could scarcely realise his action.
Then, as the taxi sped across Waterloo Bridge on its way to Bow Street, Boyne, turning to his captors with a gay laugh of defiance, said:
"Gentlemen, you have done your duty, but you've bruised my arm very badly. Yet I forgive you. Bernard Boyne has had a long life and a merry one. But"—he gasped, his face suddenly changed—"but he cheats—he cheats you—after—after all!"