“Well, put her in! Look sharp; no time to lose. I thought I heard footsteps as I came along,” and Mr. Trackem, for it is he, holds open the door.
They obey his orders without more ado, and then he jumps in.
“Now then! look alive, men! One on the box, one in with her and me.”
It is done. The men are “sharp uns.” They know their master, and he knows his men. The next moment the carriage is bowling along towards Windsor, en route for London.
Who will track them, who discover them? Not the detectives of Scotland Yard!
CHAPTER IX.
There has been a late sitting in the House of Commons. A protracted debate on the crowded condition of the filthy alleys and slums in that most wonderful city of the world, London, has kept members fully occupied. But twelve o’clock, midnight, has struck, and the Commons are dispersing. It has been a great night for Hector D’Estrange. He has spoken for an hour and a half to a spell-bound audience; for does it not know full well that the subject of that night’s discussion is one in which he is no novice, it having been undertaken on his own motion?
He has spoken for an hour and a half, and has told them many things. Has he not a right to do so? None like him have dived into those terrible slums, have visited night after night, as he has done, those abodes of crime, of vice, of wickedness, and of misery. He knows them well, and has depicted them as they are, to the wondering representatives of a nation, in language of which he alone is master.
He has seen much, and knows much of the horrors which he has depicted so vividly, yet not even he knows some of the depths of infamy that exist in that cesspool of Modern Babylon. He has yet another experience to incur.