Tommy took a step forward, but the man clutched him by the arm.
"No yer don't," he said, "not till … Ow!"
With a sudden vigorous shove Tommy sent him staggering back across the pavement, and the next moment we had both jumped into the taxi and banged the door.
"Right away," I called out.
I think there was some momentary doubt amongst the other spectators whether they oughtn't to interfere, but before they could make up their minds our sympathetic driver had thrust in his clutch, and we were spinning away down the Embankment.
Joyce, who was sitting next to me, slipped her hand into mine.
"I love to see you both laughing," she said, "but I should like to know what's happened! At present I feel as if I was acting in a cinematograph play."
We told her—told her in quick, eager sentences of how the danger and mystery that had hung over us so for long had at last been scattered and destroyed. It was a broken, inadequate sort of narrative, jerked out as we bumped over crossings and pulled by behind buses, but I fancy from the light in her eyes and the pressure of her hand that Joyce was quite contented.
"It's—it's like waking up after some horrible dream," she said, "and suddenly finding that everything's all right. Oh, I knew it would be in the end—I knew it the whole time—but I never dreamed it would happen all at once like this."
"Neither did George," chuckled Tommy. "How long had he been with you,
Joyce?"