I replaced it, stood for a moment deep in thought, and then, with sudden resolve, returned to the chamber of horror, obtained my hat, and, descending the stairs, went forth into Porchester Terrace.
I had to walk as far as Bayswater Road before I could find a taxi. The sun was now shining brightly, and there were many people about in the streets. Finding a cab at last, I told the man to drive with all speed to my bank in Oxford Street.
It was just eleven when I went up to the counter to one of the paying cashiers I knew, and asked him breathlessly if a cheque of mine had been paid to a person named Reckitt. He saw by my manner that I was in hot haste.
“I’ve cashed it not a moment ago, Mr. Biddulph,” was his reply. “Why, you must have passed the man as you came in! He’s only this moment gone out.”
Without a word I dashed back to the swing-doors, and there, sure enough, only a few yards away, I caught sight of Forbes, in a smart grey flannel suit, entering a taxi. I shouted, but the taxi man did not hear me. He was facing westward, and ere I could attract his attention he was slowly moving in the direction of the Marble Arch.
The quick eyes of Forbes had, however, detected me, and, leaning out, he said something to his driver. Quickly I re-entered my cab, and told my man to turn and follow, pointing out the taxi in front. Mine was open, while that in which the assassin sat was closed.
In his pocket the scoundrel carried over a thousand pounds of my money.
My first impulse was to stop and inform a police-constable, but if I did so I saw that he must escape. I shouted to my driver to try and see the number of the cab, but there was a lot of traffic, and he was unable to see it clearly.
I suppose I must have cut a sorry figure, dishevelled as I was by my night’s weird experience, and covered with the dust of that untenanted house. What the bank-clerk must have thought, I know not.
It was an exciting chase. For a moment we were held up by the police at Regent Circus, for there was much traffic, but only for a brief space; then we tore after the receding cab at a pace which made many passers-by stare. The cab in which Forbes was, being closed, the driver did not see us, but I knew that the assassin was watching us from the tiny window in the back, and was giving his driver instructions through the front window.