Gilead, after parting with the young gentleman, grew so restless over the non-reappearance of his other friend, that in the end he left a message for him with the chauffeur, and, stopping a taxicab, drove back to the office. Arrived there, he instantly despatched in the same vehicle a member of his staff to Gospel Oak, with directions to the man to make exhaustive enquiries. He was already quite prepared for the result, and expressed no surprise when informed that there was no such place in Gospel Oak as Garden Lane, and consequently no Myrtle Villa, and, by inference, no Mrs Nightingale. Her ‘complaint,’ it was evident, dated from other and less righteous groves. He prepared, very stern and quietly wrathful, to act upon that assumption. Fortunately for his purpose the weather, though it did not yet rain, was sufficiently threatening to justify a waterproof. He selected one with a very high turn-up collar, in which he muffled the lower part of his face. A cap pulled low down over his eyes completed a sort of disguise which he had no doubt would prove efficient. A quarter to four that same afternoon saw him posted in Threadneedle Street at a point whence, from amidst the hurrying throng, he could easily watch the movements of the woman and child, who were still stationary in their place at the street corner. At the first stroke of the hour, punctual to his information, the woman took the child’s hand in hers and, moving away, became on the instant one of the unconsidered crowd. Gilead followed, instant but wary, in pursuit. She led him to the Mansion House Station, where, standing behind her, he heard her take tickets for Victoria, whither he journeyed in a neighbouring carriage. Thence, ‘shadowing’ his quarry, he ran her into an omnibus, to the roof of which he himself mounted. It took them by the Queen’s Road and Cheyne Walk to the Albert Bridge and across. He had paid his fare, for security, for the entire route, and was prepared therefore to descend at once when, at the corner of Park Road, the woman and child got out. It was raining by then, and his umbrella afforded him useful cover. The child, as if by established custom, ran away towards the adjacent slums; the woman herself walked southward down the Albert Road. At a block of handsome flats bordering on Battersea Park she turned, and, passing without stopping through the swing doors, mounted the stairs to the second floor. Following at her heels as close as he might venture, he came upon her letting herself in at a certain door with a latchkey; and, even as he reached the place, the door closed and he was alone.