“It was touch and go,” the young man declared with a note of awe in his tone. “If the omnibus wheel had turned a foot more, I should have lost both my legs. It was all through watching that chap hop out of the taxicab, too.”
The Inspector inclined his head gravely.
“You saw him get in, didn’t you?” he asked.
“That’s so,” the patient admitted. “I was on my way—Charing Cross to the Kensington Palace Hotel, on a bicycle. There was a block—corner of Pall Mall and Haymarket. I caught hold—taxi in front—to steady me.”
The nurse bent over him with a glass in her hand. She raised him a little with the other arm.
“Not too much of this, you know, young man,” she said with a pleasant smile. “Here’s something to make you strong.”
“Right you are!”
He drained the contents of the glass and smacked his lips.
“Jolly good stuff,” he declared. “Where was I, Mr. Inspector?”
“Holding the back of a taxicab, corner of Regent Street and Haymarket,” Inspector Jacks reminded him.