Then commenced a long, long chase, which cost Fanks the best part of a sovereign. He followed to Oxford Street, thence emerged into Regent Street; passed through Piccadilly Circus, down to Trafalgar Square. After proceeding along the Strand, the cabs dropped down Arundel Street to the Embankment, went up through Northumberland Avenue, Cockspur Street, Waterloo Place, and again doubled the trail in Piccadilly. Fanks began to weary of this interminable chase; he wondered where this woman intended to stop. Still he held on in a dogged fashion, determined to weary out his adversary, whom he began to consider a foeman--or rather a foewoman--not unworthy of his steel. He therefore kept up the chase on the doubled trail, and, to his surprise, he found that the cab which he had so persistently followed turned up Half-Moon Street, and stopped before the chambers of Fellenger. "Good Lord!" said Fanks to himself, "surely she has not been so great a fool as to come to earth again, where she knows she will find me." He was perfectly right in making this remark, for when he jumped out and ran up to the first cab he found it--empty. Fanks swore, whereat Joe Berners grinned. "And it do serve y' right," said Joe, who was a surly person; "I never did 'old as young gents should persecute innocents. G' on wi' y'." Fanks recovered his temper on hearing this speech. It was most humiliating to have followed an empty cab for so many miles; but it was rather amusing to be accused of being a profligate when he was ardently bent on doing his duty. The detective laughed, although the joke was against himself. "The question of persecution will bear argument, my friend," he said in a laughing tone. "In the meantime, perhaps you will tell me what you did with the young lady you picked up here?" "Why!" said Mr. Berners, "she told me as you was after her for kisses an' such like; so she gives me a sov. to mislead you. She got out of my keb at the end of this street, she did; and told me to drive on an' on for an hour or so, while she got away. I done that," added Joe, with a grin, "an' you've bin follerin' a h'empty keb ever since I went up to Berkeley Square." "You have acted according to your lights, my friend," said Fanks, when he realised how he had been tricked, "and I do not blame you. All the same I am not a profligate, but a detective." "Lor!" said Joe, "has she done anything, sir?" "What she has done is nothing to you. Can you tell me in which direction she went?" "No, I can't, sir; and I don't bel've you, I don't," and so saying Joe Berners drove off in high dudgeon.