“Did the girl get in beside him?”
“No. She didn’t seem to speak to him, but jumped in behind and he drove off at once. The thing seemed arranged and they hurried it through as quickly as possible.”
This hurry seemed significant to French. Moreover, the driver was suggestively like Thurza Darke’s description of Westinghouse.
“Same thing tonight and tomorrow morning,” he said to his satellites, “only that we’ll change round. We don’t want those girls to spot that they’re being shadowed. You, Carter, can take the Isaacs girl and Harvey, Miss Burgess and I’ll shadow this Molly Moran.”
That night the three young women went quickly home as before and next morning at French found himself trying to kill time unostentatiously in Nelson Street until Miss Moran should take it into her rather pretty head to sally forth on the day’s adventures. There was here no convenient restaurant and he found himself hard put to it to keep an eye on the boarding house without attracting the attention of the curious. But French was an expert at his job, and by buying innumerable boxes of matches and cigarettes at the neighbouring tobacconists and making indefatigable inquiries for one Mrs. Entwhistle, a mythical dressmaker whom he had invented for the occasion, he contrived to fill in the time.
At just , the same hour as on the previous day, the young lady in question emerged from the boarding house and turned her unhurried steps towards Mornington Crescent tube station. Again she took a southbound train. French expected that she would alight at Charing Cross as before, but she nearly gave him the slip by jumping out of the train just before it started from the Strand. However, he managed to follow her and when she reached the courtyard of the main line station he was not more than ten yards behind.
Determining that he should not be left in the lurch like Carter, he engaged a taxi, telling the driver to follow the young lady in blue. The man, allowing himself the suspicion of a wink, started off as if the following of pretty young women was a matter in which he had considerable experience. Whether or not this was so, he performed his task with practised skill, stopping at times to adjust his engine or ask a direction or to allow French to buy a paper, so as to keep his speed down to that of his quarry’s.
The chase led across the Strand and up Chandos Street, and there at the quiet end next Bedford Street the previous day’s performance was repeated. Miss Moran walked slowly up and down until suddenly a grey saloon car appeared, drew in to the footpath beside her, and stopped. It was driven by an elderly, clean-shaven man of the successful American business type. So far as French could see it contained no one else. Miss Moran stepped quickly forward and got into the tonneau and immediately the vehicle slid away.
“Follow the car,” French told the driver.
The journey was short. From Chandos Street the grey saloon turned up Bedford Street and into Garrick Street. There it stopped and Miss Moran got out. Immediately it drove quickly away.
“After the car,” cried French. “Never mind the girl.”
But just as Carter had been held up on the previous day, so now French’s luck deserted him. The grey car, passing along Cranbourne Street, just crossed Charing Cross Road when the officer on point duty closed the road and French was held up.
Seeing that to follow the car was out of the question, he was about to shout to his man to try to find the girl again, when glancing through the back window, he saw her approaching. He therefore paid his man off and when she had passed, slipped out of the taxi and followed her.
But she merely walked on aimlessly through the streets, evidently killing time, until some forty minutes later she reached Leicester Square and turned into the Panopticon.
French walked slowly back to the Yard, pondering over what he had seen. The whole proceeding was certainly very suggestive. He didn’t believe there could be any innocent explanation. Something shady, he felt sure, was in progress.
Next morning he had another try. This time he waited at Mornington Crescent and picked up Miss Moran as she was entering the train. He followed her to Charing Cross, where she changed and took an eastbound Circle train to the Temple. There she got out, and turning away from the river, began pacing up and down Norfolk Street. French hailed the first taxi he saw, and instructing his man as before, sat back in it to await events.
In about five minutes he saw the proceedings of the previous day repeated. The grey car appeared, driven, as far as he could see, by the same man. It picked Miss Moran up, crossed the Strand, and passed up Aldwych and into Kingsway. Then turning down a street to the left, it ran into Wild Street. There the young lady got out.
French had told his driver what to expect, and as the grey car ran on into Drury Lane, French’s vehicle was close behind. Through Broad Street and High Street it passed and then along Oxford Street to North Audley Street, down which it turned. And then in Grosvenor Square the whole thing was repeated.
On the footpath in Grosvenor Square stood a young woman. French could not see much of her, but he noticed that she was well dressed and that her bobbed hair was flaming red. The car stopped, she jumped into the back seat, and once again the car swung on.
More interested than ever, French continued the chase. The grey car passed on down South Audley Street and along South Street into Waverton Street. There it stopped and the girl
