VIII
CABMAN TWO
Returning to Scotland Yard, Inspector Dunbar walked straight up to his own room. There he found Sowerby, very red faced and humid, and a taximan who sat stolidly surveying the Embankment from the window.
“Hullo!” cried Dunbar; “he's turned up, then?”
“No, he hasn't,” replied Sowerby with a mild irritation. “But we know where to find him, and he ought to lose his license.”
The taximan turned hurriedly. He wore a muffler so tightly packed between his neck and the collar of his uniform jacket, that it appeared materially to impair his respiration. His face possessed a bluish tinge, suggestive of asphyxia, and his watery eyes protruded remarkably; his breathing was noisily audible.
“No, chuck it, mister!” he exclaimed. “I'm only tellin' you 'cause it ain't my line to play tricks on the police. You'll find my name in the books downstairs more'n any other driver in London! I reckon I've brought enough umbrellas, cameras, walkin' sticks, hopera cloaks, watches and sicklike in 'ere, to set up a blarsted pawnbroker's!”
“That's all right, my lad!” said Dunbar, holding up his hand to silence the voluble speaker. “There's going to be no license-losing. You did not hear that you were wanted before?”
The watery eyes of the cabman protruded painfully; he respired like a horse.
“ME, guv'nor!” he exclaimed. “Gor'blime! I ain't the bloke! I was drivin' back from takin' the Honorable 'Erbert 'Arding 'ome—same as I does almost every night, when the 'ouse is a-sittin'—when I see old Tom Brian drawin' away from the door o' Palace Man—”