They might have purposely broken their journey at Exeter or at Plymouth. Therefore, he met three other possible trains from London, yet each time he was doomed to disappointment. That they had taken tickets to Truro was no evidence that they intended to alight there. They might have got out at some wayside station.
So after the arrival of the half-past ten train that night there was nothing to do but hire a car, and, accompanied by Benfield, he returned to Poldhu, arriving there half an hour after midnight.
The wireless station was brilliantly lit. The great generators were going, ready for the commencement of the night’s heavy traffic, for real work commences there at one o’clock in the morning, because, as all wireless men know, daylight interferes with the strength of wireless signals, so most of the cross-Atlantic traffic and that to distant ships is carried on from that remote corner of England between nightfall and dawn.
Falconer, after a chat with Hamilton, went back to the hotel, where he slept till six, and then, after an early breakfast, drove by car back to the Red Lion at Truro. For three days he remained there, eagerly watching the arrival of every train, but he saw nothing of the men who had so cleverly evaded his watchfulness. It now became quite evident that Truro was not the real destination of Martin and his companions.
On the fourth day, however, at sundown, as he was passing out of the smoking-room of the old-fashioned hotel through the lounge into the busy street, it being market day, he chanced to glance to the left at the crowd of farmers standing at the public bar, when suddenly he caught sight of a man whom he instantly recognised as having been one of Martin’s companions at the Café Royal. In broken English the man was inquiring of the barmaid the way to Tregoney, and she was telling him that it was about six miles out on the Plymouth road, and that he could get a taxi at the garage opposite the hotel.
Falconer held his breath, and paused.
It was evident that the stranger had only just arrived in Truro. Tregoney—the young man recollected the name. Ten minutes later he learnt that the place was a small village on the main road to Plymouth, between Truro and St. Austell. So he allowed the foreigner to go, and waited in impatience till night fell, when he hired a car, and, with a little flash-lamp in his pocket, drove to the outskirts of the remote village. There he ordered the taxi-driver to wait for an hour, and then went on to seek what information he could.
Halfway along the village street, where lights showed in the windows of most of the cottages, he came to a small inn, which he entered and ordered some cold beef and a bottle of beer. Landlords of inns are proverbially talkative to their good customers, and from the burly Cornish host Geoffrey, as he ate his meal, was not long in ascertaining that a strange foreign gentleman, whose description tallied exactly with Martin, had taken a large house at the farther end of “the town.” He was a stranger who had come over to England for his health, and he had rented the place furnished from old Miss Trethowen, who had gone to live in London for six months.
The foreign gentleman had only arrived three days before, and as far as the landlord knew had not yet engaged any servants, except a deaf old woman named Grey, who had acted as Miss Trethowen’s caretaker. Nobody in the village had ever seen the foreign gentleman before. He had arrived with a companion, a tall, thin-faced young man, and they had but little luggage except two large wooden boxes.
Having ascertained these facts, Geoffrey finished his meal and walked along the high road until he came to a large, old-fashioned house, standing back in the darkness from the road, along which ran many telegraph wires. A carriage-drive led up to the place, which seemed very lonely and neglected.