lace and joined his friend just round the corner.
Then they went so quick up Bullock Street that I couldn't catch them,
though I ran round the bars to do it."

"Bullock Street," said the detective, and shot up that thoroughfare as
quickly as the strange couple he pursued.

Their journey now took them through bare brick ways like tunnels;
streets with few lights and even with few windows; streets that seemed
built out of the blank backs of everything and everywhere. Dusk was
deepening, and it was not easy even for the London policemen to guess
in what exact direction they were treading. The inspector, however, was
pretty certain that they would eventually strike some part of Hampstead
Heath. Abruptly one bulging gas-lit window broke the blue twilight like
a bull's-eye lantern; and Valentin stopped an instant before a little
garish sweetstuff shop. After an instant's hesitation he went in; he
stood amid the gaudy colours of the confectionery with entire gravity
and bought thirteen chocolate cigars with a certain care. He was clearly
preparing an opening; but he did not need one.

An angular, elderly young woman in the shop had regarded his elegant
appearance with a merely automatic inquiry; but when she saw the door
behind him blocked with the blue uniform of the inspector, her eyes
seemed to wake up.

"Oh," she said, "if you've come about that parcel, I've sent it off
already."

"Parcel?" repeated Valentin; and it was his turn to look inquiring.

"I mean the parcel the gentleman left--the clergyman gentleman."

"For goodness' sake," said Valentin, leaning forward with his first
real confession of eagerness, "for Heaven's sake tell us what happened
exactly."

"Well," said the woman a little doubtfully, "the clergymen came in about
half an hour ago and bought some peppermints and talked a bit, and then
went off towards the Heath. But a second after, one of them runs
back into the shop and says, 'Have I left a parcel!' Well, I looked
everywhere and couldn't see one; so he says, 'Never mind; but if it
should turn up, please post it to this address,' and he left me the
address and a shilling for my trouble. And sure enough, though I thought
I'd looked everywhere, I found he'd left a brown paper parcel, so I
posted it to the place he said. I can't remember the address now; it
was somewhere in Westminster. But as the thing seemed so important, I
thought perhaps the police had come about it."

"So they have," said Val