Maybe it was only the treacherous light of the moon, but Mr. Trevor fancied as he looked back that the policeman, where he stood thoughtfully fingering the shining blade, seemed to be grinning evilly at them.
II
They walked in silence, their steps ringing sharp on the bitter-chill air. The night in the sky was pale at the white disdain of the moon. It was Mr. Maturin who spoke at last, saying: “There’s too much talk of murder to-night. A man cannot go to bed on such crude talk. You know me, kid. Shall we go to The Garden of My Grandmother?”
At that moment a taxicab crawled across the moonlight; and the driver, a man in a Homburg hat of green plush, did not attempt to hide his pleasure at being able to satisfy the gentlemen’s request to take them to The Garden of My Grandmother.
Mr. Trevor says that he has rarely chanced upon a more unsatisfactory taxicab than that driven by the man in the Homburg hat of green plush. By closing one’s eyes one might perhaps have created an illusion of movement by reason of certain internal shrieks and commotions, but when one saw the slow procession of shops by the windows and the lamp-posts loitering by the curb, one was, as Beau Maturin pointed out, justified in believing that the hackney-cab in question was not going fast enough to outstrip a retired Czecho-Slovakian admiral in an egg-and-spoon race. Nor were they altogether surprised when the taxicab died on them in Conduit Street. The man in the Homburg hat of green plush jumped out and tried to restart the engine. He failed. The gentlemen within awaited the issue in silence. The silence, says Mr. Trevor, grew terrible. But the taxicab moved not, and the man in the Homburg hat of green plush began, in his agitation, thumping the carburetor with his clenched fist.
“No petrol,” he pleaded. “No petrol.”
Said Mr. Trevor to Mr. Maturin: “Let us go. Let us leave this man.”
“’Ere, my fare!” said the fellow.
“Your fare?” said Mr. Maturin with contracted brows. “What do you mean, ‘your fare’?”
“Bob on the meter,” said the wretch.