It was a mean street, narrow and noisome, but full of shipping traffic and barred by tramways—a heartbreaking street for a chase. The chauffeur was a master of his art; he jumped his great craft at every vacant arm’s-length; he steered it through incredibly narrow lanes; he progressed sometimes by luffs, like a boat under sail when the forward passage must be reached in such indirect fashion; but the crowd of ungainly vehicles, loaded dizzily above his head, made the superior speed of the motor of no avail. In spite of him they could see the red tails lessening. Again and yet again, the hack turned; again, but each time with a loss, the motor struck its trail. By now the street was changed; the dingy two-story buildings lining it were brightened by gold-leaf and vermilion; oriental arms and garbs and embroidery spangled the windows and oriental faces looked inscrutably out of doorways. There rose the blended odors of spice, sandalwood and uncleanliness that announce the East, reeking up out of gratings and puffing out of shops.
“Ah,” said Mrs. Winter softly to herself, “Chinese quarter, is it? Well.” Her eyes changed; they softened in a fashion that would have amazed one who only knew the surface of Mrs. Winter, the eccentric society potentate. She looked past the squalid, garish scene, past the shining sand-hills and the redwood trees, beyond into a stranger landscape glowing under a blinder glare of sun. Half mechanically she lifted a tiny gold chain that had slipped down her throat under the gray gown. Raising the yellow thread and the carven jade ornament depending therefrom, she let it lie outside amid the white lace and chiffon.
“We’re making good now,” called the chauffeur. “Will I run alongside and hail ’em, or what?”
She told him quietly to run alongside. But her lips twitched, and when she put up her hand to press them still, she smiled to discover that the hand was bare. She had forgotten to pull on her glove. She began to pull it on now.
“The road is narrow,” said she. “Run ahead of the hack and block its way. You can do it without hitting the horses, can’t you?”
“Well, I guess,” returned the chauffeur, instantly accomplishing the manœuver in fine style.
But he missed his deserved commendation; indeed, he forgot it himself; because, as he looked back at the horses rearing on the sudden check and tossing their auburn manes, then ran his scrutiny behind them to the hack, he perceived no life in it; and when his own passenger jumped with amazing nimbleness from her seat and flung the crazy door wide open, she recoiled, exclaiming: “Where are they? Where did you leave them?”
“Leave who?” queried the hackman. “Say, what you stoppin’ me fur? Runnin’ into me with your devil-wagon! Say!”—then his wrath trailed into an inarticulate mutter as he appreciated better the evident quality of the gentlewoman before him.
“You may be mixed up in a penitentiary offense, my man,” said she placidly. “It is a case of kidnapping. Where did you leave that boy who was in the cab? If you give us information that will find him, there’s five dollars; if you fool us—well, I have your number. Where did you leave the boy?”
“Why, there was a cop with ’im—a cop and a gentleman. Ain’t you got hold of the wrong party, lady?”