50
r Green.
More than once we were almost out-distanced, three times we were caught in a block of traffic, so that my taxi's bonnet was nosing the limousine's tank. Once I got out, but, as I stepped into the road, the waiting stream was released, and the car slid away and round the hull of a 'bus from under my very hand. My escape from a disfiguring death beneath the wheels of a lorry was so narrow that I refrained from a second attempt to curtail my pursuit, and resigned myself to playing a waiting game.
When we emerged from the Park, my spirits rose and I fell to studying what I could see of the lines of the limousine, and to speculating whether I was being led to Claridge's or the Ritz. I had just pronounced In favour of the latter, when there fell upon my ears the long regular spasm of ringing which is a fire-engine's peremptory demand for instant way. Mechanically the order was everywhere obeyed. The street was none too wide, and a second and louder burst of resonance declared that the fire-engine was hard upon our heels.
The twenty yards separating us from the limousine were my undoing. With a helpless glance at me over his shoulder, my driver pulled in to the kerb, and we had the felicity of watching the great blue car turn down a convenient side street and flash out of sight.
The engine swept by at a high smooth speed, the traffic emerged from its state of suspended animation, and in some annoyance I put my head out of the window and directed my driver to drive to Bond Street.
I had chosen a new hat and was on the point of leaving the shop, when a chauffeur entered with a soft grey hat in his hand. The hat resembled the one I had Lost, and for a moment I hesitated. Then it occurred to me that there were many such hats in London, and I passed on and out of the door. Of course it was only a coincidence. Still....
Opposite me, drawn up by the kerb, was the large blue limousine.
The next moment I was back in the shop.
"I rather think that's my hat,"