A page brought him his top-coat, hat and stick; tipping the child from
sheer force of habit, he desired a gigantic porter, impressively ornate in
hotel livery, to call a hansom. Together they passed out into the night, he
and the girl.

Beneath a permanent awning of steel and glass she waited patiently,
slender, erect, heedless of the attention she attracted from wayfarers.

The night was young, the air mild. Upon the sidewalk, muddied by a million
feet, two streams of wayfarers flowed incessantly, bound west from Green
Park or east toward Piccadilly Circus; a well-dressed throng for the most
part, with here and there a man in evening dress. Between the carriages at
the curb and the hotel doors moved others, escorting fluttering butterfly
women in elaborate toilets, heads bare, skirts daintily gathered above
their perishable slippers. Here and there meaner shapes slipped silently
through the crowd, sinister shadows of the city's proletariat, blotting
ominously the brilliance of the scene.

A cab drew in at the block. The porter clapped an arc of wickerwork over
its wheel to protect the girl's skirts. She ascended to the seat.

Kirkwood, dropping sixpence in the porter's palm, prepared to follow; but a
hand fell upon his arm, peremptory, inexorable. He faced about, frowning,
to confront a slight, hatchet-faced man, somewhat under medium height,
dressed in a sack suit and wearing a derby well forward over eyes that were
hard and bright.

"Mr. Calendar?" said the man tensely. "I presume I needn't name my
business. I'm from the Yard--"