Directly after lunch we started off towards Chelsea. Up the embankment, past the Houses of Parliament and the Tate Gallery, by the broad stretches of Chelsea Hospital where a few old pensioners were sunning themselves on the trim walks, our motor car carried us to the very edges of the quaint old suburb. Our chauffeur had never heard of the street named in the clipping, and it was only after diligent search that we found the little back street, a mews, where stables and kennels alternated with houses of stablemen and farriers, where trig grooms in leggings the chrysalides, and pompous coachmen in severe livery the full grown moths, met on equal terms.
At the end of the little street stood a small public house for the benefit of the Jehus who congregated in the neighborhood. As we passed it, Tom stopped the chauffeur.
“I’ll run in here,” he said, “and see what I can find.” In ten minutes he was back.
“Have you found anything?” queried Dorothy, leaning forward.
Tom nodded. “We’ll leave the car here,” he said laconically. “Come on with me.”
Down the little street and through an inner court Tom led the way. At length he entered a gate whose rounding arch supported a quaint carved horse’s head, that might well have seen the equipages of a century or more ago lumbering beneath. Within, was a square paved courtyard; straight ahead, a boarded stable; on the right, an old farrier’s shop, whose disused bellows and forge showed through a dusty window; on the left, a slatternly dwelling. A sign on the stable and the shop stated the whole premises were to let. “Inquire on the left of the yard.”
“They told me in the pub that the sign hung over the gateway with the carved horse’s head,” said Tom. “It was called the sign of the three horses. I’m going to see if they know anything about it at the house.”
Dorothy and I waited by the gateway, while Tom crossed the yard. As he advanced, the door opened and a tall, rectangular woman came out, clothespin in mouth and a piece of washing in her hands. A somewhat one-sided conversation followed.
“I want to see the stable for rent,” said Tom.
“Um um um um,” responded the woman, from her half closed mouth.