chasing a man twice around the world, had nabbed him at the end of six years. So much for British perseverance.
Inquiry had failed to produce the slightest enlightenment from the doorman or the starter at Spangler's. He always remembered them as the stupidest asses he had ever encountered. They didn't recognize the chauffeur, nor the car, nor the ladies; not only were they unable to tell him the number of the car, but they couldn't, for the life of them, approximate the number of ladies. All they seemed to know was that some one had been knocked down by a "swell" who was "hot-footing it" up the street.
His sallow-faced friend, however, had provided him with an encouraging lead. That worthy knew the ladies, but somewhat peevishly explained that it was hardly to be expected that he should know all of the taxi-cab drivers in New York,—and as he had seen them arrive in a taxi-cab it was reasonable to assume that they had departed in one.
"But it wasn't a taxi-cab," the Scotland Yard man protested. "It was a blinking limousine."
"Then, all I got to say is that they're not the women I mean. If I'd been out here when they left I probably could have put you wise. But I was in there listenin' to what Con McFaddan was sayin' to poor old Spangler. The woman I mean is a dressmaker. She ain't got any more of a limmo than I have. Did you notice what they looked like?"
The Scotland Yard man, staring gloomily up the rain-swept street, confessed that he hadn't noticed anything but the chauffeur's face.
