Instinctively, Phil connected that creature with the invisible fighter that he had encountered the night before. Since he didn’t know that it also paid clandestine visits to the top floor of the Chateau Parkview, Phil’s data on the monster subject was somewhat limited; but he felt right now that he could cope with the creature if he met it.
First though, Phil was to meet the hansom cab.
It took a long, mad rush among trees, over rocks, and through underbrush, before Phil finally came upon the missing vehicle, and then - quite curiously - it was reaching the open. The hansom must have used its own network of bridle paths and unlisted routes to reach this open stretch of flat, smooth ground which was crossed by a paved footpath, wide enough for the hack to use as a road.
This open area was an almost-forgotten spot termed the Oval and ahead it narrowed to a path with overhanging trees that was called the Willow Arch. Beyond the Willow Arch lay a section of the Great Lawn, but the terms would have meant nothing to Phil Harley, even if he had heard them.
Phil wanted to find out who was in the hansom and it was coming to a halt just in front of the Willow Arch, the tall bulk of this giraffe among vehicles threatening to tangle with the willow boughs should its driver attempt to take it through.
That was a break for Phil, or so he thought. Starting full tilt across the Oval, Phil found that the ground was level but heavy with thick grass, so he switched to the footpath for more speed, which proved a tactical error.
Before Phil could quite reach the halted hack, men lunged out to block him, attracted by the clatter of his running footsteps. In the dull glow that the city cast against the sullen sky, Phil recognized his assailants. They were chunky men that he had met the night before and they were garbed in outfits resembling leopard skins.
Leopards in agility they were as well, but instead of claws they had knives, long blades that flashed at Phil like great-toothed fangs!
He was a tough fighter, Phil, but battling off a tribe like this was almost as difficult as a head-on encounter with The Shadow.
Thinking of the hansom as a refuge, Phil made an effort to enter it, but without success. Getting into a hansom was troublesome; you had to enter it from the front and Phil didn’t know the system. Besides, the driver was flicking down with his whip, shouting something at both Phil and the leopard men.