“Never had any,” he said.

The train was prompt, but between Shawport and Crewe it suffered delays, so that there was not an inordinate amount of time to spare at the majestic junction.

Heedless, fly-away creature that she was, Helen scurried from the North Stafford platform to the main-line platform without a thought as to her luggage.  She was apparently so preoccupied with her handbag, which contained her purse, that she had no anxiety left over for her heavy belongings.

As they hastened forward, he saw the luggage being tumbled out on to the platform.

The Glasgow train rolled grandiosely in, and the restaurant-car came to a standstill almost exactly opposite the end of the North Stafford platform.  They obtained two seats with difficulty.  Then, as there was five minutes to wait, Jimmy descended from the car to the asphalte and peeped down the North Stafford platform.  Yes, her luggage was lying there, deserted, in a pile.  He regained the carriage.

“I suppose the luggage will be all right?” Helen said, calmly, just as the guard whistled.

“Ay!” said he, with the mien of a traveller of vast experience.  “I saw ‘em bringing all th’ N.S. luggage over.  It were th’ fust thing I thought of.”

As a liar he reckoned he was pretty good.

He glanced from the window as the train slid away from Crewe, and out of the tail of his eye, in the distance, over the heads of people, he had a momentary glimpse of the topmost of Helen’s trunks safely at rest on the North Stafford platform.

He felt safe.  He felt strangely joyous.  He ate largely, and made very dry, humorous remarks about the novelty of a restaurant on wheels.

“Bless us!” he said, as the express flashed through Preston without stopping.  “It’s fust time as I’ve begun a bottle o’ Bass in one town and finished it in another.”

He grew positively jolly, and the journey seemed to be accomplished with the rapidity of a dream.

CHAPTER XIX

THE TOSSING

“You said you’d seen it into the van,” pouted Helen—­she who never pouted!

“Nay, lass,” he corrected her, “I said I’d seen ’em bringing all th’ luggage over.”

The inevitable moment of reckoning had arrived.  They stood together on the platform of St. Enoch’s, Glasgow.  The last pieces of luggage were being removed from the guard’s van under the direction of passengers, and there was no sign whatever of Helen’s trunks.  This absence of Helen’s trunks did not in the least surprise James Ollerenshaw; he was perfectly aware that Helen’s trunks reposed, at that self-same instant, in the lost luggage office at Crewe; but, of course, he had to act surprise.  In case of necessity he could act very well.  It was more difficult for him to act sorrow than to act surprise; but he did both to his own satisfaction.  He climbed into the van and scanned its corners—­in vain.  Then, side by side, they visited the other van at the head of the train, with an equal result.