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of men.
He had some bad minutes as the train passed through the suburbs and along the
grimy embankment by which the southern lines enter the city. But as it rumbled
over the river bridge and slowed down before the terminus his vitality
suddenly revived. He was a business man, and there was now something for him
to do.
After a rapid farewell to the bagman, he found a porter and hustled his box
out of the van in the direction of the left-luggage office. Spies, summoned by
Dobson's telegram, were, he was convinced, watching his every movement, and he
meant to see that they missed nothing. He received his ticket for the box, and
slowly and ostentatiously stowed it away in his pack. Swinging the said pack
on his arm, he sauntered through the entrance hall to the row of waiting
taxi-cabs, and selected the oldest and most doddering driver. He deposited the
pack inside on the seat, and then stood still as if struck with a sudden
thought.
"I breakfasted terrible early," he told the driver. "I think I'll have a bite
to eat. Will you wait?"
"Ay," said the man, who was reading a grubby sheet of newspaper. "I'll wait as
long as ye like, for it's you that pays."
Dickson left his pack in the cab and, oddly enough for a careful man, he did
not shut the door. He re-entered the station, strolled to the bookstall, and
bought a Glasgow Herald. His steps
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t then tended to the refreshment-room, where he ordered a cup of coffee and
two Bath buns, and seated himself at a small table. There he was soon immersed
in the financial news, and though he sipped his coffee he left the buns
untasted. He took out a penknife and cut various extracts from the Herald,
bestowing them carefully in his pocket. An observer would have seen an elderly
gentleman absorbed in market quotations.
After a quarter of an hour had been spent in this performance he happened to
glance at the clock and rose with an exclamation. He bustled out to his taxi
and found the driver still intent upon his reading. "Here I am at last," he
said cheerily, and had a foot on the step, when he stopped suddenly with a
cry. It was a cry of alarm, but also of satisfaction.
"What's become of my pack? I left it on the seat, and now it's gone! There's
been a thief here."
The driver, roused from his lethargy, protested in the name of his gods that
no one had been near it. "Ye took it into the station wi' ye," he urged.
"I did nothing of the kind. Just you wait here till I see the inspector. A
bonny watch YOU
keep on a gentleman's things."
But Dickson did not interview the railway authorities. Instead he hurried to
the left-luggage office. "I deposited a small box here a short time ago. I
mind the number. Is it here still?"
The attendant glanced at the shelf. "A wee deal box with iron bands. It was
took out ten minutes syne. A man brought the ticket and took it away on his
shoulder."
"Thank you. There's been a mistake, but the blame's mine. My man mistook my
orders."
Then he returned to the now nervous taxi-driver. "I've taken it up with the
station-master and he's putting the police on. You'll likely be wanted, so I
gave him your number. It's a fair disgrace that there should be so many
thieves about this station. It's not the first time I've lost things. Drive me
to West George Street and look sharp." And he slammed the door with the
violence of an angry man.
But his reflections were not violent, for he smiled to himself. "That was
pretty neat.
They'll take some time to get the kist open, for I dropped the key out of the
train after we left
Kirkmichael. That gives me a fair start. If I hadn't thought of that, they'd
have found some way to grip me and ripe me long before I got to the Bank." He
shuddered as he thought of the dangers he had escaped. "As it is, they're off
the track for half an hour at least, while they're rummaging among Auntie
Phemie's scones." At the thought he laughed heartily, and when he brought the
taxi-cab to a standstill by rapping on the front window, he left it with a
temper apparently restored. Obviously he had no grudge against the driver, who
to his immense surprise was rewarded with ten shillings.
Three minutes later Mr. McCunn might have been seen entering the head office
of the
Strathclyde Bank and inquiring for the manager. There was no hesitation about
him now, for his foot was on his native heath. The chief cashier received him
with deference in spite of his unorthodox garb, for he was not the least
honoured of the bank's customers. As it chanced he had been talking about him
that very morning to a gentleman from London. "The strength of this city,"
he had said, tapping his eyeglasses on his knuckles, "does not lie in its
dozen very rich men, but in the hundred or two homely folk who make no parade
of wealth. Men like Dickson McCunn, for example, who live all their life in a
semi-detached villa and die worth half a million." And the
Londoner had cordially assented.
So Dickson was ushered promptly into an inner room, and was warmly greeted by
Mr. Mackintosh, the patron of the Gorbals Die-Hards.
"I must thank you for your generous donation, McCunn. Those boys will get a
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little fresh air and quiet after the smoke and din of Glasgow. A little
country peace to smooth out the creases in their poor little souls."
"Maybe," said Dickson, with a vivid recollection of Dougal as he had last seen
him. Somehow he did not think that peace was likely to be the portion of that
devoted band. "But I've not come here to speak about that."
He took off his waterproof; then his coat and waistcoat; and showed himself a
strange figure with sundry bulges about the middle. The manager's eyes grew
very round. Presently these excrescences were revealed as linen bags sewn on
to his shirt, and fitting into the hollow between ribs and hip. With some
difficulty he slit the bags and extracted three hide-bound packages.
"See here, Mackintosh," he said solemnly. "I hand you over these parcels, and
you're to put them in the innermost corner of your strong room. You needn't
open them. Just put them away as they are, and write me a receipt for them.
Write it now."
Mr. Mackintosh obediently took pen in hand.
"What'll I call them?" he asked.
"Just the three leather parcels handed to you by Dickson McCunn, Esq., naming
the date."
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