Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/128

 missed by a quarter of an inch. Beresford jammed his hat on the back of his head and, leaning out of the window, proceeded to urge the man to his utmost speed.

"What about the speed-limit, sir?" demanded the Jehu out of the corner of his mouth.

"Damn the speed-limit," yelled Beresford, causing the sentry pacing up and down outside St. James's Palace to stop suddenly and stare.

"Yes, that's all very well," grumbled the man.

"I'll pay fines and everything," said Beresford, "drive like hell."

Round the bend the man swung his cab into the middle of the Mall and let her rip. Beresford changed from the offside to the nearside, striving to get a glimpse of the Rain-Girl's taxi. Apparently it had disappeared. Had she gone in the other direction? For a moment he hesitated. Should he stop the man and turn back? Yet why should she be coming this way if she were not going to Victoria, or at least in that direction.

He strained his eyes and leaned far out of the window to see the other vehicles as they swung round by the Queen Victoria Memorial. Unconscious that he was attracting to himself the attention, not only of the occupants of the taxis he overtook, but of the passers-by, Beresford continued to watch and to despair. She had gone. Disappeared into thin air. What luck, what rotten luck! Probably she had gone away for

Suddenly he withdrew his head and plumped