en he sees me and walks up to the cab and opens the door and helps
the lady in. Then he says to me: 'Do you know New Inn?' he says. That's
what he says to me what was born and brought up in White Horse Alley,
Drury Lane.

"'Get inside,' says I.

"'Well,' says he, 'you drive in through the gate in Wych Street,' he
says, as if he expected me to go in by Houghton Street and down the
steps, 'and then,' he says, 'you drive nearly to the end and you'll see
a house with a large brass plate at the corner of the doorway. That's
where we want to be set down,' he says, and with that he nips in and
pulls up the windows and off we goes.

"It took us a full half-hour to get to New Inn through the fog, for I
had to get down and lead the horse part of the way. As I drove in under
the archway, I saw it was half-past six by the clock in the porter's
lodge. I drove down nearly to the end of the inn and drew up opposite a
house where there was a big brass plate by the doorway. It was number
thirty-one. Then the gent crawls out and hands me five bob--two
'arf-crowns--and then he helps the lady out, and away they waddles to
the doorway and I see them start up the stairs very slow--regler
Pilgrim's Progress. And that was the last I see of 'em."

Thorndyke wrote down the cabman's statement verbatim together with his
own questions, and then asked:

"Can you give us any description of the gentleman?"

"The gent," said Wilkins, was a very respectable-looking gent, though he
did look as if he'd had a drop of something short, and small blame to
him on a day like that. But he was all there, and he knew what was the
proper fare for a foggy evening, which is more than some of 'em do. He
was a elderly gent, about sixty, and he wore spectacles, but he didn't
seem to be able to see much through 'em. He was a funny 'un to look at;
as round in the back as a turtle and he walked with his head stuck
forward like a goose."

"What made you think he had been drinking?"

"Well, he wasn't as steady as he might have been on his pins. But he
wasn't drunk, you know. Only a bit wobbly on the plates."

"And the lady; what was she like?"

"I couldn't see much of her because her head was wrapped up in a sort of
woollen veil. But I should say she wasn't a chicken. Might have been
about the same age as the gent, but I couldn't swear to that. She seemed
a trifle rickety on the pins too; in fact they were a rum-looking
couple. I watched 'em tottering across the