"Capital. Good-morning."
The cabs were at the door, and I told Bob to drive with speed to my house, to pack up a bag for both of us expeditiously, and to meet me at Ronald Elsdale's house at a little after ten. The cab was to remain there, and he was to detain his nephew till I joined him there. Pending my arrival he was to tell Ronald everything. I gave him a line to my servant, authorizing him to take what clothes were necessary for the journey.
"Double fare," I said to both the cabmen, "if you drive at your fullest speed."
The next moment Bob was driving to my house and I was on my way to Dr. Cooper.
CHAPTER XXIII.
[ON THE TRACK.]
Theobald's Row was as depressing in the morning as it had been in the evening, and looked as if a bath would do it good. The workingmen's lodging houses bore even a more striking resemblance to prisons, and the men and women I passed looked as if they had been up all night, and had hurried out to their depressing occupations without having had recourse to soap and water. On the doorstep of Dr. Cooper's shop the same half dozen children were playing the same games with pieces of broken crockery and dry mud, and bore no appearance of having been washed since I last set eyes on them. One of the children, catching sight of me, jumped up and ran into the shop, screaming:
"Here's the gentleman, mother!" At which summons the slatternly woman immediately presented herself. It struck me that there was something aggressive in her aspect.
"Oh," she said, in no amiable tone, "it's you!"
"Yes," I replied, "it is I."