The cab driver proved to be a dull and surly fellow, like many another
_cocher_ of Paris, but the clink of silver and the sight of it mellowed
him. I began by saying that I was in search of three friends of mine
whom I was to have met when the boat train came in, but whom I had
unfortunately missed. I asked him to describe the men he had driven away
from the station at that time, and though he did it clumsily, betraying
an irritating lack of observation when it came to details, still such
information as I could draw from him sounded encouraging. He remembered
perfectly well the place at which he had deposited his three passengers,
and I decided to take the risk of following them.
When I say "risk," I mean the risk that the man I was starting to chase
might turn out not to be the man I wished to follow. Besides, as they
had been driven to Neuilly, the distance was so great that, if I went
there in a cab, and found at last that I had made a mistake, I should
have wasted a great deal of valuable time on the wrong tack. If the
driver had remembered the name of the street, and the number of the
house at which he had paused, I would have hired a motor and flashed out
to the place in a few minutes; but, despite a suggested bribe, he could
say no more than that, when he had come to a certain place, one of his
passengers had called, "Turn down the next street, to the left.
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