'
So far well. Next, a time-table. A train could be got in twenty
minutes--taking two hours over the journey. The only chance, but one not
to be missed; and the train was taken.
If he had been fidgety on the journey up, he was almost distracted on the
journey down. If he found Eldred, what could he say? That it had been
discovered that the book was a rarity and must be recalled? An obvious
untruth. Or that it was believed to contain important manuscript notes?
Eldred would of course show him the book, from which the leaf would
already have been removed. He might, perhaps, find traces of the
removal--a torn edge of a fly-leaf probably--and who could disprove, what
Eldred was certain to say, that he too had noticed and regretted the
mutilation? Altogether the chase seemed very hopeless. The one chance was
this. The book had left the library at 10.30: it might not have been put
into the first possible train, at 11.20. Granted that, then he might be
lucky enough to arrive simultaneously with it and patch up some story
which would induce Eldred to give it up.
It was drawing towards evening when he got out upon the platform of his
station, and, like most country stations, this one seemed unnaturally
quiet.
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