The sun was already obscured; there stole a most insidious chill through the air; like the changing of a scene on the stage they found themselves in a few minutes walking in a little ring of trees and road and iron railings instead of a wide sunny park; the roar of the streets came from behind a wall of mist that opened mysteriously to let a phantom carriage in and out, and closed silently behind it again.
“I like not zis,” said the Baron, with a shiver.
By the time they had found Piccadilly again there was nothing at all to be seen but the light of the nearest lamp, as large and far away as a struggling sun, and the shadowy people who flitted by.
Their talk ceased. The Baron turned up his collar and sucked his cigar lugubriously, and Mr Bunker seemed unusually thoughtful. They had walked nearly as far as Piccadilly Circus when they were pulled up by a cab turning down a side-street. There was a lamp-post at the corner, and under it stood a burly man, his red face quite visible as they came up to his shoulder.
In an instant Mr Bunker seized the Baron by the arm, pulled him round, and began to walk hastily back again.
“Vat for zis?” said the Baron, in great astonishment.
“We have come too far, thanks to this infernal fog. We must cross the street and take the first turning on the other side. I must apologise, Baron, for my absence of mind.”
* * * * *
The cab passed by and the red-faced man strolled on.
“Like lookin’ for a needle in a bloomin’ haystack,” he said to himself. “I might as well go back to Clankwood. ’E’s a good riddance, I say.”