The Luck of the Vails: A Novel

by E. F. Benson

"Quite so. Here is Wigmore Street. We will wait in this entry. There is his cab still at the door. Ah! we must have a cab waiting too."

He stepped out of the entry, hailed a cab from a rank a little way down the street, and said a few words to the man, pointing out to him the hansom he was to keep in sight. He drew up at the curb opposite their place of observation. Not forty yards in front was Mr. Francis's hansom.

The sober, respectable street dozed in the haze of the afternoon sun with the air of a professional man resting for a little from his work. Vehicles were but few, the pavements only sparsely populous, and the roadway nearly empty. The driver of Mr. Francis's cab had got down from his perch, and was talking to the hall porter of the house of flats and pulling at a laggard pipe. Then suddenly both porter and cabman looked up as if they had been called from within, and disappeared into the entry, to come back with various small pieces of luggage. Then the cabman mounted his box, and with the other's assistance drew up a portmanteau on to the roof. At that moment Mr. Francis stepped across the pavement and entered the cab. He had on a straw hat, in his hand was the morocco flute case, on his mouth a smile and thanks to the porter. Sanders followed, and, after a word, got in after him. At the same instant of time the doctor and Geoffrey had sprung into their places, and the two cabs started together.

The passage of half a dozen streets was sufficient to make their destination tolerably certain, and when Mr. Francis's cab turned into the steep decline leading to the departure platform at Paddington, the matter was practically beyond doubt. Here the doctor stopped the cab, and they got out.

"It is certain," said Geoffrey, though no word had passed between them. "Look! it is ten minutes past five; the fast train to Vail will start in seven minutes. Now what are we to do?"

"Harry is at Oxted," said the doctor, as if speaking to himself. "Yes, we only want to be perfectly certain that Mr. Francis goes to Vail."

"I will find that out," said Geoffrey.

He walked down the incline, past Sanders, who was busy with the luggage, and into the booking office. There was a considerable number of passengers waiting, but Mr. Francis was already high up in the queue. Geoffrey waited with his back turned till he heard him speak to the clerk.

"One first and one second single to Vail," he said.

With this their information was complete, and he rejoined the doctor.