As for Miss Ryland, her habitual self-confidence seemed somewhat to have deserted her, and it was almost with respectful interest that she followed Dunbar’s examination of a cabman who, standing cap in hand, completed the party so strangely come together at that late hour.

“This is what you have said,” declared Dunbar, taking up an official form, and, with a movement of his hand warning the taxi-man to pay attention:  “’I, Frederick Dean, motor-cab driver, was standing on the rank in Little Abbey Street to-night at about a quarter to nine.  My cab was the second on the rank.  A young lady who wore, I remember, a woolen cap and jersey, with a blue serge skirt, ran out from the corner of the Square and directed me to follow the cab in front of me, which had just been chartered by a dark man wearing a black overcoat and silk hat.  She ordered me to keep him in sight; and as I drove off I heard her calling from the window of my cab to another lady who seemed to be following her.  I was unable to see this other lady, but my fare addressed her as ‘Denise.’  I followed the first cab to Whitechapel Station; and as I saw it stop there, I swung into Mount Street.  The lady gave me half-a-sovereign, and told me that she proposed to follow the man on foot.  She asked me if I could manage to keep her in sight, without letting my cab be seen by the man she was following.  I said I would try, and I crept along at some distance behind her, going as slowly as possible until she went into a turning branching off to the right of Cambridge Road; I don’t know the name of this street.  She was some distance ahead of me, for I had had trouble in crossing Whitechapel Road.

“’A big limousine had passed me a moment before, but as an electric tram was just going by on my off-side, between me and the limousine, I don’t know where the limousine went.  When I was clear of the tram I could not see it, and it may have gone down Cambridge Road and then down the same turning as the lady.  I pulled up at the end of this turning, and could not see a sign of any one.  It was quite deserted right to the end, and although I drove down, bore around to the right and finally came out near the top of Globe Road, I did not pass anyone.  I waited about the district for over a quarter-of-an-hour and then drove straight to the police station, and they sent me on here to Scotland Yard to report what had occurred.’

“Have you anything to add to that?” said Dunbar, fixing his tawny eyes upon the cabman.

“Nothing at all,” replied the man—­a very spruce and intelligent specimen of his class and one who, although he had moved with the times, yet retained a slightly horsey appearance, which indicated that he had not always been a mechanical Jehu.

“It is quite satisfactory as far as it goes,” muttered Dunbar.  “I’ll get you to sign it now and we need not detain you any longer.”

“There is not the slightest doubt,” said Dr. Cumberly, stepping forward and speaking in an unusually harsh voice, “that Helen endeavored to track this man Gianapolis, and was abducted by him or his associates.  The limousine was the car of which we have heard so much"...