"Beg pardon, sir, but you are Mr. Theydon, aren't you?" said the man.

Then Theydon recognized Evans, the taxidriver, who had brought him
from Fortescue Square.

"Hullo!" he cried. "Any news of the gray car?"

"Yes, sir, I think so," was the somewhat surprising answer. "When I
dropped you last night I got a fare to Euston. Then I took a gentleman
to the Langham, an', as I felt like a snack, I pulled into the nearest
cab rank. I was having some corfee an' a sandwich when I 'appened to
speak about the gray car to one of ahr chaps. 'That's odd,' he said.
'Quarter of an hour ago I had a theater job to Langham Plice, an' a
gray landaulette stopped in front of the Chinese Embassy. It kem along
from the east side, too.' He didn't notice the number, sir, so there
may be nothink in it, after all, but I thought you might like to hear
wot my pal said."

"Was the car empty? Did it call for some one at the Embassy?"

"That's the queer part of it, sir. I axed pertic'ler. This gray car
brought a gentleman, a small, youngish man, 'oo skipped up the Embassy
steps like a lamplighter, and went in afore you could s'y 'knife.'
Somebody might ha' bin watchin' for him through the keyhole, the door
was opened that quick. Then the car went off. My friend wouldn't ha'
given a second thought to it if the gentleman hadn't vanished like a
jack-in-the-box. That's w'y he remembered the color of the car."

Theydon tried to look as though Evans's statement merely puzzled him,
whereas his mind was already busy with the extraordinary coincidences