“There isn’t any other Mr. Polton,” our subordinate replied irritably.  “I am the—­er—­person who spoke to you in the shelter.”

“Are you though?” said the manifestly incredulous cabby.  “I shouldn’t have thought it; but you ought to know.  What do you want me to do?”

“We want you,” said Thorndyke, “to answer one or two questions.  And the first one is, Are you a teetotaller?”

The question being illustrated by the production of a decanter, the cabman’s dignity relaxed somewhat.

“I ain’t bigoted,” said he.

“Then sit down and mix yourself a glass of grog.  Soda or plain water?”

“May as well have all the extries,” replied the cabman, sitting down and grasping the decanter with the air of a man who means business.  “Per’aps you wouldn’t mind squirtin’ out the soda, sir, bein’ more used to it.”

While these preliminaries were being arranged, Polton silently slipped out of the room, and when our visitor had fortified himself with a gulp of the uncommonly stiff mixture, the examination began.

“Your name, I think, is Wilkins?” said Thorndyke.

“That’s me, sir.  Samuel Wilkins is my name.”

“And your occupation?”

“Is a very tryin’ one and not paid for as it deserves.  I drives a cab, sir; a four-wheeled cab is what I drives; and a very poor job it is.”

“Do you happen to remember a very foggy day about a month ago?”

“Do I not, sir!  A regler sneezer that was!  Wednesday, the fourteenth of March.  I remember the date because my benefit society came down on me for arrears that morning.”

“Will you tell us what happened to you between six and seven in the evening of that day?”

“I will, sir,” replied the cabman, emptying his tumbler by way of bracing himself up for the effort.  “A little before six I was waiting on the arrival side of the Great Northern Station, King’s Cross, when I see a gentleman and a lady coming out.  The gentleman he looks up and down and then he sees me and walks up to the cab and opens the door and helps the lady in.  Then he says to me:  ‘Do you know New Inn?’ he says.  That’s what he says to me what was born and brought up in White Horse Alley, Drury Lane.

“‘Get inside,’ says I.

“‘Well,’ says he, ‘you drive in through the gate in Wych Street,’ he says, as if he expected me to go in by Houghton Street and down the steps, ‘and then,’ he says, ’you drive nearly to the end and you’ll see a house with a large brass plate at the corner of the doorway.  That’s where we want to be set down,’ he says, and with that he nips in and pulls up the windows and off we goes.

“It took us a full half-hour to get to New Inn through the fog, for I had to get down and lead the horse part of the way.  As I drove in under the archway, I saw it was half-past six by the clock in the porter’s lodge.  I drove down nearly to the end of the inn and drew up opposite a house where there was a big brass plate by the doorway.  It was number thirty-one.  Then the gent crawls out and hands me five bob—­two ’arf-crowns—­and then he helps the lady out, and away they waddles to the doorway and I see them start up the stairs very slow—­regler Pilgrim’s Progress.  And that was the last I see of ’em.”