"I shall not deceive you—I shall not deceive you," answered the hag. "Alack! I am too anxious to escape from this horrible den."
"You may leave it to-morrow night for certain," returned Tidkins: "at least, it all depends on yourself."
He then closed the door, bolted it carefully, and quitted the subterranean.
While he was engaged in making some little changes in his toilet ere he sallied forth to his appointment with the veiled lady, he thus mused upon a project which he had conceived:—
"I have more than half a mind to get the Buffer to dog that lady and me, and find out where she takes me to. And yet if we go far in a vehicle, the Buffer never could follow on foot; and if he took a cab, it would perhaps be observed and excite her suspicions. Then she might abandon the thing altogether; and I should lose my two hundred quids extra. No:—I must trust to circumstances to obtain a clue to all I want to know—who she is, and where she is going to take me."
Having thus reasoned against the project which he had for a moment considered feasible, the Resurrection Man armed himself with a dagger and pistols, enveloped himself in his cloak, slouched his hat over his forbidding countenance, and then took his departure.
CHAPTER CCXIX.
THE MURDER.
It wanted five minutes to nine o'clock when Anthony Tidkins reached the corner of Oxford Street and the Edgeware Road.
A cab was standing a few yards up the latter thoroughfare; and as the driver was sitting quietly on his box, without endeavouring to catch a fare, it instantly struck the Resurrection Man that his unknown patroness might be the occupant of the vehicle, and was waiting for him.
He accordingly approached the window, and by the reflection of a shop gas-light, perceived the veiled lady inside.