Later in a hired car Geoffrey drove to the little town of Helston, and took train to the terminus of that winding branch-line which ends at Gwinear Road, on the main line from Penzance to Paddington. From the stationmaster there he learnt that Martin had joined the night mail to Paddington. He also learnt something further--namely, that he had despatched a telegram to a person named Meyer at an address in Hertford Road, Bayswater. The words were: “Thursday at eleven.”
At once Geoffrey decided to return to London. Therefore, he telephoned to Hamilton at Poldhu asking him to tell Mrs. Beverley that he was called to town, and promising to be back very soon.
An hour later he was in the slow train for Plymouth, and that night, the night of Wednesday, he was back in London.
At midnight he passed the house in Hertford Road, Bayswater. It was in darkness, but was evidently a place where apartments were let, quite a respectable house of the usual Bayswater type.
He slept at the Great Western Hotel at Paddington, without even a clean collar, be it said, and just before eleven o’clock next day he stood looking idly into a shop window in Westbourne Grove, at the corner of Hertford Road, pretending not to be interested in any passer-by.
At about a minute before eleven the mysterious Mr. Martin, smartly-dressed and walking jauntily, turned the corner behind Falconer, and passing up Hertford Road, rang at the door of the house which the young wireless engineer had examined on the previous night.
In a few seconds the door was opened by a maid, and Mr. Martin disappeared within.
A girl of about eighteen, who looked like a dressmaker from one of the several establishments in “The Grove,” was the only person in the road at the moment. Geoffrey noticed her. She was rather poorly-dressed, and seemed to be searching for some house, the description of which she did not recognise.
Gaining the corner of Westbourne Grove, she was met by a quietly-dressed, middle-aged man, to whom she spoke a few words hurriedly. The man replied, apparently telling her something. Then with a smile they parted, the girl going in the direction of Queen’s Road, and the man, who seemed to be an idler, calmly filling his pipe and lighting it as he stood at the junction of the two thoroughfares.