into Wimpole Street.

A hundred plans raced through Ford's brain; he would arouse the
street with a false alarm of fire and lead the firemen, with the
tale of a smoking chimney, to one of the three houses; he would
feign illness, and, taking refuge in one of them, at night would
explore the premises; he would impersonate a detective, and insist
upon his right to search for stolen property. As he rejected these
and a dozen schemes as fantastic, his brain and eyes were still
alert for any chance advantage that the street might offer. But the
minutes passed into an hour, and no one had entered any of the
three houses, no one had left them. In the lower stories, from
behind the edges of the blinds, lights appeared, but of the life
within there was no sign. Until he hit upon a plan of action, Ford
felt there was no longer anything to be gained by remaining in
Sowell Street. Already the answer to his cable might have arrived
at his rooms; at Gerridge's he might still learn something of
Pearsall. He decided to revisit both these places, and, while so
engaged, to send from his office one of his assistants to cover the
Sowell Street houses. He cast a last, reluctant look at the closed
blinds, and moved away. As he did so, two itinerant musicians
dragging behind them a small street piano on wheels turned the
corner, and, as the rain had now ceased, one of them pulled the
oil-cloth covering from the instrument and, seating himself on a
camp- stool at the curb, opened the piano. After a discouraged
glance at the darkened windows, the other, in a hoarse, strident
tenor, to the accompaniment of the piano, began to sing. The voice
of the man was raucous, penetrating. It would have reached the
recesses of a tomb.