“It was but little I could do,” the lady returned. “I do hope you may be able to help that poor girl. I should be so glad to hear that she is all right.”
Cheyne was touched by this unexpected sympathy.
“You may count on my letting you know, madam,” he said, and then thinking of the terribly monotonous existence led by the poor soul, he went on warmly: “I should like, if I might, to call and tell you all about it, but if I am prevented I shall certainly write. May I know what name to address to?”
“Mrs. Sproule, 17 Colton Street. I should be glad to see you if you are in this district, but I couldn’t think of taking you out of your way.”
A few moments later French had collected his three remaining men, and was being driven rapidly to the nearest telephone call office. There he rang up the Yard, repeated the descriptions of the car and of each of its occupants, and asked for the police force generally to be advised that they were wanted, particularly the men on duty at railway stations and wharves, not only in London, but in the surrounding country.
“Now we’ll have a shot at picking up the trail ourselves,” he went on to Cheyne when he had sent his message. He re-entered the car, calling to the driver: “Get back and find the men on point duty round about Colton Street.”
Of the four men they interviewed, three had not noticed the yellow car. The fourth, on a beat in the thoroughfare at the eastern end of Colton Street, had seen a car of the size and color in question going eastwards at about the hour the party had left No. 12. There seeming nothing abnormal about the vehicle, he had not specially observed it or noted the number, but he had looked at the driver, and the man he described resembled Blessington.
“That’s probably it all right,” French commented, “but it doesn’t help us a great deal. If they were going to any of the stations or steamers, or to practically anywhere in town, this is the way they would pass. Let us try a step further.”
Keeping in the same general direction they searched for other men on point duty, but though after a great deal of running backwards and forwards, they found all in the immediate neighborhood that the car would have been likely to pass, none of them had noticed it.
“We’ve lost them, I’m afraid,” French said at last. “We had better go back to the Yard. As soon as that description gets out we may have news at any minute.”