“I should have laid a quid on it,” he declared, “that she would have been as smiling and pleasant going away as when she came. She always is.” “Well, you’d ha’ pulled it off. But, lor, guv’nor, it’s easy for lydies as wot ’as lots o’ money to be pleasant. W’y shouldn’t they be?” French rose. “Ah, well, I expect they’ve their troubles like the rest of us,” he said, slipping half a crown into the man’s eager hand. If the caretaker was correct and Miss Duke was in good spirits on leaving the club, it followed that the upset, whatever it had been, had not up to then taken place. The next step, therefore, was obviously to find the taxi in which the two young people had driven to Hampstead, so as to learn whether anything unusual had occurred during the journey. He returned to the Yard, and sending for some members of his staff, explained the point at issue. But, as he would have been the first to admit, it was more by luck than good guidance that on the very first day of the inquiry he gained his information. Taximan James Tomkins had driven the young couple on the evening in question, and by five o’clock he was at the Yard awaiting French’s pleasure. CHAPTER VIII SYLVIA AND HARRINGTON TAXIMAN TOMKINS was a wizened-looking man with a surly manner and the air of having a constant grievance, but he was evidently overawed by the situation in which he found himself, and seemed anxious to do his best to answer the Inspector’s questions clearly. He remembered the evening in question. He had been hailed by a gentleman near Liverpool Street, and told to drive to the Curtis Street Girls’ Club. There, after some delay, they had picked up a young lady. “What address did you get?” French asked. “I don’t just remember,” the man said slowly scratching his head. “Somewhere in Hampstead it was, but I’m blest if I could tell you where.” “The Cedars, Hampstead, perhaps?” “That’s right guv’nor. That was it.” “And the two started off together?” “Yes, the other young lydie just saw them off.” “Now tell me, did they meet any one else on the way home?” “Not while they were in the keb, they didn’t.” “Or buy a paper, or stop for any purpose whatever?” “They stopped and got out for a ’arf a mo’, but I can’t say if it was to buy a paper.” “Oh, they stopped, did they? Where was that?” “In Holborn, just past the end of Hatton Garden.” “What?” cried French, surprised out of his usual calm superiority. “Tell me about that.”