“You saw that limousine standing there?” asked Craig.

“Yes,” nodded the chauffeur with a show of alertness.

“Well, follow it,” ordered Kennedy, jumping into the cab.

“Yes, sir.”

Craig was just about to close the door when a slight figure flashed past us and a dainty foot was placed on the step.

“Please, Mr. Kennedy,” pleaded Elaine, “let me go.  They may lead to my father’s slayer.”

She said it so earnestly that Craig could scarcely have resisted if he had wanted to do so.

Just as Elaine and Kennedy were moving off, I came out of the vacant store, with Bennett and the detectives.

“Craig!” I called.  “Where are you going?”

Kennedy stuck his head out of the window and I am quite sure that he was not altogether displeased that I was not with him.

“Chasing that limousine,” he shouted back.  “Follow us in another car.”

A moment later he and Elaine were gone.

Bennett and I looked about.

“There are a couple of cabs—­down there,” I pointed out at the other end of the block.  “I’ll take one you take the other.”

Followed by a couple of the detectives, I jumped into the first one I came to, excitedly telling the driver to follow Kennedy’s taxi, directing him with my head out of the window.

“Mr. Jameson, please—­can’t I go with you?”

I turned.  It was Susie Martin.  “One of you fellows, go in the other car,” I asked the detectives.

Before the man could move, Mr. Martin himself appeared.

“No, Susan, I—­I won’t allow it,” he ordered.

“But Elaine went,” she pouted.

“Well, Elaine is—­ah—­I won’t have it,” stormed Martin.

There was no time to waste.  With a hasty apology, I drove off.

Who, besides Bennett, went in the other car, I don’t know, but it made no difference, for we soon lost them.  Our driver, however, was a really clever fellow.  Far ahead now we could see the limousine drive around a corner, making a dangerous swerve.  Kennedy’s cab followed, skidding dangerously near a pole.

But the taxicab was no match for the powerful limousine.  On uptown they went, the only thing preventing the limousine from escaping being the fear of pursuit by traffic police if the driver let out speed.  They were content to manage to keep just far enough ahead to be out of danger of having Kennedy overhaul them.  As for us, we followed as best we could, on uptown, past the city line, and out into the country.

There Kennedy lost sight altogether of the car he was trailing.  Worse than that, we lost sight of Kennedy.  Still we kept on blindly, trusting to luck and common sense in picking the road.

I was peering ahead over the driver’s shoulder, the window down, trying to direct him, when we approached a fork in the road.  Here was a dilemma which must be decided at once rightly or wrongly.