“You mind your own business,” she said.  “Where am I goin’, indeed.  What’s it got to do with you?”

The episode was valuable to the listening barrister.  It classified the anxious inquirer after Hume’s health.

Her abashed admirer hung back, and the girl resumed her onward progress.  The man was conscious that the gentleman behind him must have heard what passed.  He endeavoured to justify himself.

“She’s pretty O.T., she is,” he grinned.

“Do you know her?” said Brett.

“I know her by sight.  Seen her in the York now an’ then.”

“She can evidently take care of herself.”

“Ra—­ther.  Don’t you so much as look at her, mister, or off goes your topper into the river.  She’s in a bad temper to-night.”

Brett laughed and walked ahead.  On reaching the Surrey side the girl made for the Waterloo Road.  There she mounted on top of a ’bus.  The barrister went inside.  He thought of the “man with black, snaky eyes,” who “took penn’orths” all the way from the Elephant to Whitehall.

And now he, Brett, took a penn’orth to the Elephant.  The ’bus reached that famous centre of humanity, passing thence through Newington Butts to the Kennington Park Road.

In the latter thoroughfare the girl skipped down from the roof, and disdaining the conductor’s offer to stop, swung herself lightly to the ground.  The barrister followed, and soon found himself tracking her along a curved street of dingy houses.

Into one of these she vanished.  It chanced to be opposite a gas-lamp, and as he walked past he made out the number—­37.

Externally it was exactly like its neighbours, dull, soiled, pinched, old curtains, worn blinds, blistered paint.  He knew that if he walked inside he would tread on a strip of oilcloth, once gay in red and yellow squares, but now worn to a dirty grey uniformity.  In the “hall” he would encounter a rickety hat-stand faced by an ancient print entitled “Idle Hours,” and depicting two ladies, reclining on rocks, attired in tremendous skirts, tight jackets, and diminutive straw hats perched between their forehead and chignons—­in the middle distance a fat urchin, all hat and frills, staring stupidly at the ocean.

In the front sitting-room he would encounter horse-hair chairs, frayed carpet, and more early Victorian prints; in the back sitting-room more frayed carpet, more prints, and possibly a bed.

Nothing very mysterious or awe-inspiring about 37 Middle Street, yet the barrister was loth to leave the place.  The scent of the chase was in his nostrils.  He had “found.”

He was tempted to boldly approach and frame some excuse—­a hunt for lodgings, an inquiry for a missing friend, anything to gain admittance and learn something, however meagre in result, of the occupants.

He reviewed the facts calmly.  To attempt, at such an hour, to glean information from the sharp-tongued young person who had just admitted herself with a latchkey, was to court failure and suspicion.  He must bide his time.  Winter was an adept in ferreting out facts concerning these localities and their denizens.  To Winter the inquiry must be left.