Pocket did not know where he was, and Phillida would not tell him where
she was going, neither could he question her in that alarming throng.
He felt a frightful sense of guilt and danger, not so much to himself
as to her, with that lethal weapon concealed about her; every man who
looked at them was a detective in his eyes, and past the policemen at
the corners he wanted to run. But they gained the middle of Waterloo
Bridge undetected and ensconced themselves in a recess without creating
a sensation.
“Now, then,” said Phillida, “will you focus Westminster Bridge and the
Houses of Parliament, or shall I?”
There they were before them against the sunset, the long lithe bridge,
the stately towers. But Pocket could not see Phillida’s drift until she
aimed herself, and, aiming, let the square black box slip clean through
her fingers into the depths of the river from which she had only
retrieved it a couple of hours before, as a body is committed to the
deep.
She bewailed her stupidity; he had the wit to echo her then, and in a
loud voice, that any eye-witness or passer-by might be struck with the
genuine severity of their loss. But there had been no eye-witness who
thought it worth while to rally them on the occurrence, and the busy
townsfolk hastening past were all too much engrossed in their own
affairs to take any interest in those of the boy and girl who seemed
themselves in something of a hurry to get back to the Strand.
And in the Strand the first thing they saw was a yellow poster bearing
but four words in enormous black letters:—
CHELSEA INQUEST
CAMERA CLUE!
Phillida slipped her hand within Pocket’s arm. Pocket was man enough to
press it to his side.
THE END
Printed in Great Britain by Wyman & Sons, Ltd., London and Reading
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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