"What's your plan, Miss Hilman?" asked Paul, who was at a loss to account for this projected maneuver.
"The man wants us to follow him," she replied, turning upon her companion almost fiercely in the intensity of her excitement. "He would lead us away from the scene of his operations, don't you see? Since he has discovered that you have been watching him, he has thought it all over, and he has concluded that it is more than likely that you tracked him to that street, for that was the street, wasn't it? Of course! Then he would naturally expect me to go there. I don't dream that he foresaw meeting us just now, but what I do believe to be the case is, that finding that house insecure for his purpose, he is now planning to remove his prisoner, and happening upon us as he did, he will do what he can to lead us away from it. Don't you see?"
"It sounds reasonable; and you plan, then, to make a pretense at a desperate effort to catch up with him, and when he has got away a considerable distance, to return to the house and investigate."
"That's it," and Clara again sank back, but this time her face expressed energy and confidence in success.
"I wonder how we are getting on," she said after a moment. They were dashing along Washington Street now at a furious rate, attracting attention from all passers. Paul tried to look ahead, but he could not do so without leaning far out of the coupé, and that did not seem to be advisable.
"Never mind," said Clara; "I think the driver can be trusted to play his part, if his horse doesn't play it for him by falling down from exhaustion. By the way, I had a letter from O'Brien this morning. You don't know who he is, do you? He is the employee at the Park Square Station who saw Billings drive up, and who says that a man left the carriage and went into the station. The detectives, you know, supposed that man to be Ivan. It's a small point, but O'Brien very kindly wrote to me when he discovered it. He says he was talking about the case with a fellow-workman who remembered the occurrence, and who says that shortly after Billings was seen by O'Brien, a closed carriage stopped at the Columbus Avenue entrance to the station, near the baggage rooms, you know, and that a man left the station and got in. Of course that was the carriage Billings drove, and the man was doubtless the same who got out at the front entrance. He had simply walked through the station, mingled with the crowd, perhaps going so far as to buy a ticket for New York, and then had rejoined his driver. Doesn't it seem clear?"
"It's a perfectly plausible explanation of the point, but it's a pity O'Brien's friend didn't turn up with it sooner. You might have been saved your journey to New York."
"I'm not sure about that. I am not sorry that I saw Lizzie White, although I never felt for an instant that Ivan had eloped."
The coupé was still rattling onward at the highest speed the horse could attain, but a moment after Clara had finished, it came to a sudden halt, and they heard a stern voice saying: