“You!” I gasped, utterly dumbfounded.
“Why—Mr. Biddulph!” she cried, recovering herself in a moment and stretching forth her small gloved hand; “fancy meeting you like this!”
What words I uttered I scarcely knew. This sudden transformation of the scoundrel Forbes into Sylvia Pennington held me bewildered. All I could imagine was that Sylvia must have been awaiting the man in another cab close to the bank, and that, in the course of our chase, we had confused the two taxis. Forbes had succeeded in turning away into some side street, while we had followed the cab of his companion.
She had actually awaited him in another cab while he had entered the bank and cashed the stolen cheque!
My taxi-driver, when he saw that a lady, and not a man, occupied the fugitive cab, drew back, returning to his seat.
“Do you know!” exclaimed the girl, with wonderful calmness, “only yesterday I was thinking of you, and wondering whether you were in London!”
“And only yesterday, too, Miss Pennington, I also was thinking of you,” I said meaningly.
She was dressed very quietly in dead black, which increased the fairness of her skin and hair, wearing a big black hat and black gloves. She was inexpressibly smart, from the thin gauzy veil to the tips of her tiny patent-leather shoes, with a neat waist and a figure that any woman might envy. Indeed, in her London attire she seemed even smarter than she had appeared on the terrace beside the blue Italian lake.
“Where is your father?” I managed to ask.