"She surely isn't going to get out there," I thought. "Go on slowly," I said to my driver, who, peeping through the lid in the roof, asked whether he should proceed. We drove past the cab, and one glance sufficed to show that the vehicle was empty. My surprise found vent in language which the most charitably disposed of my friends could not have construed into a doxology. "You've followed the wrong cab!" I cried savagely to my driver. "Not I, governor. That 'ere is the wehicle you told me to follow: No. 2071. It's my pal's--Bill Whippam's--cab. That's him as is in the pub now--he's a rare 'un for the booze." In a moment I was inside the public-house. The "rare 'un for the booze" was ringing a golden coin on the counter of the bar, as if to test its genuineness. "A good 'un!" he cried delightedly, "Blow me tight if I didn't think it was a duffer for the minute! She's something like a fare, she is! A glass of the usual, Jim, with a little lemon and----" "Where is your fare, cabby?" I demanded brusquely. "What's that got to do with you, governor?" was the immediate retort. "A good deal, as you'll see," I returned pulling out a notebook, and feigning to write therein. "Your number, I see, is 2071. I shall want you at Bow Street, to-morrow. Perhaps you are not aware that I am a detective, and that the lady you have aided to escape was to have been arrested this morning?" The man assumed a more respectful demeanour. "Axes your pardon, governor, but how was I to know that the lady was 'wanted,' and that a 'tec was arter her? The lady she says to me, she says----" "What?" I interrupted. "She spoke to you, then? She wasn't dumb?" "Dumb? No more than you are, governor. She says to me: 'Coachman, there's a gentleman a-follerin' o' me----'" "That's not a verbatim report, I suppose?" I said with a smile. "Wot's that?" "Those were not her exact words, I mean?" "They wos her exact words, governor," replied the cabman, with a solemnity befitting the witness-box, "so help me! 'There's a gentleman a-follerin' o' me,' she says, 'an admirer of mine pestering me with his attentions, and I want to get rid of him. Will you help me?' 'If I can, miss,' I says. 'Well, then,' she says, 'drive fast, and the moment you have turned the corner of Long Acre, draw up sharp. I shall get out there and then you drive on at once to Euston. He'll follow you, thinking I am still in the cab. Will you do this, and I'll give you a sovereign?' Of course I says, 'Yes.' She give me the quid, and directly I turned the corner at Long Acre she was out like a shot, almost afore I'd time to draw up. She darted down a side-street like winking, and I drove on according to orders."