"I was," Laverick answered. "I hadn't paid him and I told him to
wait."

"I thought there was something queer about it," the policeman
remarked. "Soon after you had gone inside, two gentlemen drove up
in a hansom. They got out here and one of them spoke to your driver,
who shook his head and pointed to his flag. The gent then said
something else to him - can't say as I heard what it was, but it
was probably offering him double fare. Anyway, they both got in
and off went your taxi, sir."

"Thank you," Laverick said thoughtfully. "It sounds a little
perplexing."

He hesitated for a moment.

"Constable," he continued, "I have just made a very valuable deposit
in there, and I had an idea that I might be followed. I have still
in my pocket a document of great importance. I have no doubt
whatever but that the object of the men who have taken my taxicab is
to leave me in the street here alone under circumstances which will
render a quick attack upon me likely to be successful."

The policeman turned his head and looked at Laverick incredulously.
He was more than half inclined to believe that this was a practical
joke. Were they not standing on the pavement in Chancery Lane, and
was not he an able-bodied policeman of great bulk and immense muscle!
Yet his companion did not look by any means a man of the nervous
order. Laverick was broad-shouldered, his skin was tanned a