Now, the driver might have scraped an ordinary person with impunity, and passed on unchallenged; he might even have soiled the sleeve of a veteran policeman and got nothing worse than a sharp word of censure and a fragment of good advice.  But this particular policeman was quite a new policeman, whose dignity was as delicate and easily smirched as his beautiful shining tunic.  And the result was that the cabby had to stop, give his number, and listen to a lecture.

Simon and Albert formed part of the audience for the lecture.  It did not, however, interest them, for they had instantly perceived that the cab was empty.

Then, as the lecturer was growing eloquent, Hugo arrived, and was informed of the emptiness of the vehicle.

‘It was just a trick,’ Simon exclaimed; ’a trick to get us out of the house.’

‘We must go back,’ said Hugo, breathless.

At this moment the second cab appeared, was delayed a moment by the multitude listening to the lecture, and passed westwards into Victoria Street.

‘They’re in that!’ cried Simon.

‘Are you sure?’ Hugo questioned.

‘Of course I’m sure,’ said Simon, who in the excitement of the trail had ceased to be a valet.

To jump into a hansom and order the driver to keep the four-wheeler in sight ought to have been the work of a few seconds, but it occurred, as invariably occurs when a hansom is urgently needed, that no hansom was available.  The four-wheeler was receding at a moderate rate in the direction of the Grosvenor Hotel.

‘Run after it!’ said Hugo.  ’I’ll get a cab in the station-yard and follow.’

The quarry vanished round a corner just as they tumbled into the hansom on the top of Hugo, but it was never out of observation for more than a quarter of a minute.  Through divers strange streets it came at length into Fulham Road at Elm Place, and thenceforward, at a higher rate of speed, it kept to the main thoroughfare.  The procession passed the workhouse and the Redcliffe Arms.  Between Edith Grove and Stamford Bridge the roadway was up for fundamental repairs, and omnibuses were being diverted down Edith Grove to King’s Road.  A policeman at the corner spoke to the driver of the four-wheeler, gave a sign of assent, and the four-wheeler went straight onwards into a medley of wood-blocks, which was all that was left of Fulham Road.  The hansom followed intrepidly, and then its three occupants were conscious of a sudden halt.

‘Bobby wants to know where you’re going to,’ said the driver, opening the trap.

There was a slight hesitation, and the policeman’s voice could be heard: 

‘Come out of it!’

‘We’re following that four-wheeler,’ Hugo was about to say, but he perceived the absurdity of saying such a thing in cold blood to a policeman.

All three descended.  The cabman had to be paid.  There was a difficulty about finding change—­one of those silly and ridiculous difficulties that so frequently supervene in crises otherwise grave; in short, a succession of trifling delays, each of which might easily have been obviated by perfect forethought, or by perfect accord between the three men.