told the driver to let them pass him, and then to follow as before.

The man obeyed my directions, but so clumsily as to excite their
suspicions. We had been driving after them about three minutes
(returning along the road by which we had advanced) when I looked out of
the window to see how far they might be ahead of us. As I did this, I
saw two hats popped out of the windows of their cab, and two faces
looking back at me. I sank into my place in a cold sweat; the expression
is coarse, but no other form of words can describe my condition at that
trying moment.

"We are found out!" I said, faintly, to my two subordinates. They stared
at me in astonishment. My feelings changed instantly from the depth of
despair to the height of indignation.

"It is the cabman's fault. Get out, one of you," I said, with
dignity--"get out, and punch his head."

Instead of following my directions (I should wish this act of
disobedience to be reported at headquarters) they both looked out of the
window. Before I could express my just indignation, they both grinned,
and said to me, "Please to look out, sir!"

I did look out. Their cab had stopped.

Where?

At a church door!

What effect this discovery might have had upon the ordinary run of men
I don't know. Being of a strong religious turn myself, it filled me with
horror. I have often read of the unprincipled cunning of criminal
persons, but I never before heard of three thieves attempting to double
on their pursuers by entering a church! The sacrilegious audacity of
that proceeding is, I should think, unparalleled in the annals of crime.

I checked my grinning subordinates by a frown. It was easy to see what
was passing in their superficial minds. If I had not been able to look
below the surface, I might, on observing two nicely-dressed men and one
nicely-dressed woman enter a church before eleven in the morning on a
week day, have come to the same hasty conclusion at which my inferiors
had evidently arrived. As it was, appearances had no power to impose on
_me_. I got out, and, followed by one of my men, entered the church. The
other man I sent round to watch the vestry door. You may catch a weasel
asleep, but not your humble servant, Matthew Sharpin!

We stole up the gallery stairs, diverged to the organ-loft, and peered
through the curtains in front. There they were, all three, sitting in a
pew below--yes, incredible as it may appear, sitting in a pew below!

Before I coul