eceived the same reply. Today he was asked to
wait. The patient was better--would be able to see him. Soon a nurse in
neat uniform came quietly down the corridor and took charge of him.

"Ten minutes, no more," she insisted good-humoredly.

The Inspector nodded.

"One question, if you please, nurse," he asked. "Is the man going to
live?"

"Not a doubt about it," she declared. "Why?"

"A matter of depositions," the Inspector exclaimed. "I'd rather let it
go, though, if he's sure to recover."

"It's a simple case," she answered, "and his constitution is excellent.
There isn't the least need for your to think about depositions. Here he
is. Don't talk too long."

The Inspector sat down by the bedside. The patient, a young man,
welcomed him a little shyly.

"You have come to ask me about what I saw in Pall Mall and opposite
the Hyde Park Hotel?" he said, speaking slowly and in a voice scarcely
raised above a whisper. "I told them all before the operation, but they
couldn't send for you then. There wasn't time."

The Inspector nodded.

"Tell me your own way," he said. "Don't hurry. We can get the
particulars later on. Glad you're going to be mended."

"It was touch and go," the young man declared with a note of awe in his
tone. "If the omnibus wheel had turned a foot more, I should have lost
both my legs. It was all through watching that chap hop out of the
taxicab, too."

The Inspector inclined his head gravely.

"You saw him get in, didn't you?" he asked.

"That's so," the patient admitted. "I was on my way--Charing Cross to
the Kensington Palace Hotel, on a bicycle. There was a block--corner of
Pall Mall and Haymarket. I caught hold--taxi in front--to steady me."

The nurse bent over him with a glass in her hand. She raised him a
little with the other arm.

"Not too much of this, you know, young man," she said with a pleasant
smile. "Here's something to make you strong."

"Right you are!"

He drained the contents of the glass and smacked his lips.

"Jolly good stuff," he declared. "Where was I, Mr. Inspector?"

"Holding the back of a taxicab, corner of Regent Street and Haymarket,"
Inspector Jacks reminded him.

The patient nodded.

"There was an electric brougham," he continued, "drawn up alongside the
taxi. While we were there, waiting, I saw a chap get out, speak to some
one through the window of the taxi, open the door, and step in. When we
moved on, he stayed in the taxi. Dark, slim chap h