"It may be that I will have something further to report this evening," he told Mr. Latham. "If not, I'll see you to-morrow, here."
He went out. Ten minutes later he was talking to a friend in police headquarters, over the telephone. The records there showed that the license for the particular cab he had followed had been issued to one William Johns. He was usually to be found around the cabstand in Madison Square, and lived in Charlton Street.
CHAPTER VI
THE MYSTERIOUS WOMAN
Mr. Birnes' busy heels fairly spurned the pavements of Fifth Avenue as he started toward Madison Square. Here was a long line of cabs drawn up beside the curb, some twenty or thirty in all. The fifth from the end bore the number he sought—Mr. Birnes chuckled; and there, alongside it, stood William Johns, swapping Billingsgate with the driver of a hansom, the while he kept one eye open for a prospective fare. It was too easy! Mr. Birnes paused long enough to congratulate himself upon his marvelous acumen, and then he approached the driver.
"You are William Johns?" he accused him sharply.
"That's me, Cap," the cabby answered readily.
"A few minutes past four o'clock this afternoon you went up Fifth Avenue, and stopped at the corner of Thirty-fourth Street to pick up a fare—a young man."
"Yep."
"You drove him to the corner of Sixty-seventh Street and Fifth
Avenue," the detective went on just to forestall possible denials.
"He got out there, paid you, and you went on up Fifth Avenue."