I opened the gate on the opposite side to the platform and climbed down. Nobody was observing me. I could just see Suzanne standing where I had left her, looking up at the train and apparently chatting to me at the window. A whistle blew, the train began to draw out. Then I heard feet racing furiously up the platform. I withdrew to the shadow of a friendly bookstall and watched.
Suzanne turned from waving her handkerchief to the retreating train.
“Too late, Mr. Pagett,” she said cheerfully. “She’s gone. Is that the eau de cologne? What a pity we didn’t think of it sooner!”
They passed not far from me on their way out of the station. Guy Pagett was extremely hot. He had evidently run all the way to the chemist and back.
“Shall I get you a taxi, Mrs. Blair?”
Suzanne did not fail in her role.
“Yes, please. Can’t I give you a lift back? Have you much to do for Sir Eustace? Dear me, I wish Anne Beddingfeld was coming with us tomorrow. I don’t like the idea of a young girl like that travelling off to Durban all by herself. But she was set upon it. Some little attraction there, I fancy …”
They passed out of earshot. Clever Suzanne. She had saved me.
I allowed a minute or two to elapse and then I too made my way out of the station, almost colliding as I did so with a man—an unpleasant-looking man with a nose disproportionately big for his face.