“Enough to drive from here to Edinburgh. This is going to be great sport after all.”
Maurice beckoned the hall porter and asked him to call a taxi. In half a minute it was at the door. Maurice walked out slowly, threw the end of his cigarette away, and, as he stepped in, told the chauffeur to drive to 73, Cavendish Square, the first number and address that came into his head.
“Beg pardon, sir, there is no number 73,” said the driver.
“Oh no! Thirty-seven. Drive slowly.”
At a glance towards the Victoria Hotel, Buckland saw that the yellow car was no longer there, but he caught sight of it in a moment drawn up on the south side of Trafalgar Square, opposite the offices of the Hamburg-American Line. Looking over the lowered tilt of the taxi-cab he failed to see the car in pursuit, but on reaching the Haymarket he noticed another taxi-cab about forty yards behind, and behind that, rapidly overhauling it, a small private motor-car. He was not sure that these were on his track, and determined to put it to the test.
“Driver,” he said through the speaking tube, “I think that taxi behind is following me, and I want to shake it off. Take all the side streets you come to; never mind about Cavendish Square; a sovereign if you do it.”
The cabman winked. He ran up the Haymarket, was checked by a policeman at Coventry Street; then, when the traffic was parted, cut across into Windmill Street, swept round into Brewer Street, turned the corner into Golden Square at a speed that caused an old gentleman to shake his stick and call for the police, and so by Beak Street into Regent Street and presently into Savile Row. Long before this the taxi-cab which had followed was lost in the traffic.
“Well done,” said Buckland. “Now turn back and hurry to Blackfriars Bridge, and then to Herne Hill. Choose the quietest streets.”
He sat well back in the cab, congratulating himself on the success of his stratagem. The driver made his way by a roundabout course to the Strand, down Arundel Street to the Temple, and along the Embankment. At the entrance to De Keyser’s Hotel Buckland noticed a man standing with his hands in his pockets beside a stationary taxi-cab. No sooner had Buckland passed than the man darted towards the cab, and said a few words to a person inside. The vehicle instantly started in pursuit across the bridge, the man who had given the alarm dashing into the hotel.
“Well I’m hanged!” said Buckland to himself; he had watched these movements intently. The pursuers had evidently guessed that he might make for one of the southern stations, and had set a watch probably at all the bridges. He had no doubt that the man who had run into the hotel was now telephoning to his friends, and the taxi-cab following close behind would keep him in view. The number of his own cab had almost certainly been noted as soon as he entered it.