"Search me! I never seen him before."

The detective regarded the cabby with accusing eyes. Then, quite
casually, he flipped open his coat and Johns caught a glimpse of
a silver shield. It might only have been accident, of course,
still--

"Now, Johns, who was the man in the cab when you stopped to pick up
the second man at Thirty-fourth Street?"

"Wrong, Cap," and the cabby grinned. "There wasn't any man."

"Don't attempt to deny--"

"No man, Cap. It was a woman."

"A woman!" the detective repeated. "A woman!"

"Sure thing--a woman, a regular woman. And, Cap, she was a pippin,
a peachorino, a beauty bright," he added, gratuitously.

Mr. Birnes stared thoughtfully across the street for a little while.
So there was a woman in it! Mr. Wynne had transferred the contents
of the gripsack to her, in a cab, on a crowded thoroughfare, right
under his nose!

"I was a little farther down the line there," Johns went on to
explain. "About a quarter of four o'clock, I guess, she came along.
She got in, after telling me to drive slowly up Fifth Avenue so I
would pass Thirty-fourth Street five minutes or so after four