Any such pursuit, however, was not as easy as it promised. For I first had to explain to that inquiring patrolman that the accident had been a trivial one, that I hadn't even bothered about taking the license-number of the car, and that I could be found at my home in Gramercy Square in case any further information might be deemed necessary. Then, once clear of the neighborhood, I hesitated between two possible courses. One was to get in touch with Mary's father over the phone, with John Lockwood. The other was to hurry down to Police Headquarters and talk things over with my good friend Lieutenant Belton. But either movement, I remembered, would have stood distasteful to Mary herself. It meant publicity, and publicity was one thing to be avoided. So I solved the problem by taking an altogether different tack. I did what deep down in my heart I had been wanting to do all along. I hailed a passing taxicab, hopped in, and made straight for that hinterland district of Brooklyn where Crotty had described his home as standing. I didn't drive directly to that home, but dismissed my driver at a near-by corner and approached the house on foot. There was no longer any Nile-green car in sight. And the house itself, I noticed, was a distinctly unattractive-looking one, a shabby one, even a sordid one. I stood in the shadow of the side-entrance to one of those gilt-lettered corner-saloons which loom like aromatic oases out of man's most dismal Saharas, studying that altogether repellent house-front. And as I stood there making careful note of its minutest characteristics a figure came briskly down its broken sandstone steps. What made me catch my breath, however, was the fact that the figure was that of a man, and the man was Latreille, my ex-chauffeur. And still again, I remembered, the long arm of Coincidence was reaching out and plucking me by the sleeve. But I didn't linger there to meditate over this abstraction, for I noticed that Latreille, sauntering along the opposite side of the street, had signaled to two other men leisurely approaching my caravansary from the near-by corner. One of these, I saw, was the old man known as Crotty. And it was obvious that within two minutes' time they would converge somewhere disagreeably close to the spot where I stood. So I backed discreetly and quietly through the side-entrance of that many-odored beer-parlor. There I encountered an Hibernian bartender with an empty tray and an exceptionally evil eye. I detained him, however, with a fraternal hand on his sleeve. "Sister," I hurriedly explained, "I've got a date with a rib here. Can you put me under cover?" It was patois, I felt sure, which would reach his understanding. But it wasn't until he beheld the five-spot which I'd slid up on his tray that the look of world-weary cynicism vanished from his face.