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himself among the passengers before his pursuers could alight.

The search, laboriously and muddle-headedly carried on with the aid of the station officials, lasted some five minutes without any result. Fussy passengers might have been paid by the criminal to delay operations, so ready were they with helpful advice. At last an inspector pointed to a door on the non-platform side of an empty first-class carriage, which was unfastened.

"Got through on to the six-foot way, that's what he's done, and slinking round on the other platform maybe."

"Wrong!" shouted Reeves in a flash of inspiration; "he got through into the Binver train just as it went off, and hadn't time to shut the door properly. Sergeant, it's us for the road again!" The sergeant hesitated, then allowed himself to be fascinated by the theory. The station staff was left with orders to go on searching; the side-car was entrusted to the Weighford police, and, within a quarter of an hour of their arrival, Reeves and the two Binver policemen were tearing back along the main road as fast as they had come down it.

Local trains waste most of their time waiting at stations and chatting to the signalman. When they are on the move, they are not really easy to catch even with a fast motor, especially when they have nearly ten minutes' start. There was no stop, so far as this train was concerned, between Weighford and Paston Oatvile. Paston Oatvile had, of