The thought of Mr. Winchester decided me instantly. If I failed in recovering the gems by following Philippa, I would but lose my reward and possibly a little of my prestige as a detective; but if I failed in the same undertaking by not following her, Mr. Winchester would have the right to reproach me with a manifest disregard of his orders. For had he not said, “Watch who it is who endeavors to leave this house after your threat to search it, and follow him, for that person will have the diamonds.” To be sure Mr. Sutton had already gone and was being followed, but if a dozen left after him, especially after resorting to subterfuge to elude pursuit, would it not be my duty to see that they were also followed and that with the same care and circumspection I had thought proper to have employed in his case? There could be no doubt on the matter; so flinging all other consideration to the winds, I gave myself up to the pursuit of this flying sprite, closing the front door after me without a suspicion but that my first glance down the street would show me in what direction she had started.
But neither my glances down the street nor up revealed to me Philippa, and agitated by my first fear that I had possibly undertaken more than I could accomplish, I dashed down to the corner, which was that of Madison Avenue, and looking hastily this way and that, saw on the block below the supple and delicate form of a female which I had barely decided was hers, when a car stopped and she stepped aboard and was carried away before I could get breath to cry stop! to the rather obtuse conductor who assisted her.
Happily the next car was not many blocks off, and when I boarded it and found the driver a man I knew, I felt that the case was not so hopeless as first appeared. With but little persuasion he consented to urge the horses on a little faster than the schedule called for, so that in a few minutes we had drawn up close enough to the car in front for me to see each figure as it descended. In this way I was enabled to follow Miss Irwin with more satisfaction than if I had got into the same car with her; and as her ride was short, I soon was stepping lightly behind her down Forty-fifth Street. She did not walk two blocks before she stopped, ran up a stoop, rang the bell and was admitted.
I hastened quickly after her, looked at the number and paused confounded. Why, this was a house I well knew; one which many people visited,—though not often on the same errand as Miss Irwin, I must believe,—one which I had sometimes visited myself; the home of the well-known minister, Mr. Randall.
Nonplussed for the moment, I stood hesitating, when to add to my astonishment a man stepped up to me from behind, and tapping me familiarly on the back, said:
“Well, what do you make of it?”
It was Hawkins.
“What! you here?” I exclaimed.
“Certain!” he cried, “and my man, too.”
It was inexplicable. Fortunately there was hope of solving the mystery.