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Page 142
"What I should do?"
"What would you do, then?"
"Engage a special."
"But it must be late."
"By no means. This train stops at Canterbury; and
there is always at least a quarter of an hour's delay
at the boat. He will catch us there."
"One would think that we were the criminals. Let us
have him arrested on his arrival."
"It would be to ruin the work of three months. We
should get the big fish, but the smaller would dart
right and left out of the net. On Monday we should
have them all. No, an arrest is inadmissible."
"What then?"
"We shall get out at Canterbury."
"And then?"
"Well, then we must make a cross-country journey to
Newhaven, and so over to Dieppe. Moriarty will again
do what I should do. He will get on to Paris, mark
down our luggage, and wait for two days at the depot.
In the meantime we shall treat ourselves to a couple
of carpet-bags, encourage the manufactures of the
countries through which we travel, and make our way at
our leisure into Switzerland, via Luxembourg and
Basle."
At Canterbury, therefore, we alighted, only to find
that we should have to wait an hour before we could
get a train to Newhaven.
I was still looking rather ruefully after the rapidly
disappearing luggage-van which contained my wardrobe,
when Holmes pulled my sleeve and pointed up the line.
"Already, you see," said he.
Far away, from among the Kentish woods there rose a
thin spray of smoke. A minute later a carriage and
engine could be seen flying along the open curve which
leads to the station. We had hardly time to take our
place behind a pile of luggage when it passed with a
rattle and a roar, beating a blast of hot air into our
faces.
"There he goes," said Holmes, as we watched the
carriage swing and rock over the points. "There are
limits, you see, to our friend's intelligence. It
would have been a coup-de-maitre had he deduced what
I would deduce and acted accordingly."
"And what would he have done had he overtaken us?"
"There cannot be the least doubt that he would have
made a murderous attack upon me. It is, however, a
game at which two may play. The question now is
whether we should take a premature lunch here, or run
our chance of starving before we reach the buffet at
Newhaven."
We made our way to Brussels that night and spent two
days there, moving on upon the third day as far as
Strasburg. On the Monday morning Holmes had
telegraphed to the London police, and in the evening
we found a reply waiting for us at our hotel. Holmes
tore it open, and then with a bitter curse hurled it
into the grate.
"I might have known it!" he groaned. "He has
escaped!"
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