ont window, and Hugo and Albert engaged in forcing a door which
led to emptiness, the door of the sitting-room, the sole means of egress
from the first-floor suite, had been shut and locked on the outside.

In vain Hugo assailed it with boot and shoulder; in vain Albert assisted
him.

'Keep your eye on the street, you fool!' said Albert to Simon, when the
latter offered to join the siege of the door.

Hugo and Albert multiplied their efforts.

'There's a cab driven up,' Simon informed them from the window. 'A man's
got out. Now he's gone down the area steps. They're carrying something
up, something big. Oh! look here, I must help you.'

And Simon ran to the door. Before the triple assault it fell at last,
and the three tumbled pell-mell downstairs into the hall. The front-door
was open.

A cab was just driving away. It drove rapidly, very rapidly.

'After it!' Hugo commanded.

The hunt was up.

Two minutes afterwards another cab drove up to the door.

Ravengar and another man emerged from the area holding between them the
form of a woman. They got leisurely into the cab with the woman and
departed.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE CEMETERY

Both Simon and Albert easily outran Hugo, and, fast as the first cab was
travelling, they had gained on it by the time it turned into Victoria
Street. And at the turning an incident happened. The driver, though
hurried, was apparently to a certain extent careful and cautious, but he
did not altogether avoid contact with a policeman at the corner. The
policeman was obliged to step sharply out of the way of the cab, and
even then the sleeve of his immaculate tunic was soiled by contact with
the hind-wheel of the vehicle. Now, the driver might have scraped an
ordinary person with impunity, and passed on unchallenged; he might even
have soiled the sleeve of a veteran policeman and got nothing worse than
a sharp word of censure and a fragment of good advice. But this
particular policeman was quite a new policeman, whose dignity was as
delicate and easily smirched as his beautiful shining tunic. And the
result was that the cabby had to stop, give his number, and listen to a
lecture.

Simon and Albert formed part of the audience for the lecture. It did
not, however, interest them, for they had instantly perceived that the
cab was empty.

Then, as the lecturer was growing eloquent, Hugo arrived, and was
informed of the emptiness of the vehicle.

'It was just a trick,' Simon