"What was it?" I asked, willing to reserve the account of my interview
with Madge till later.
"The most remarkable thing, for me to witness on this particular
morning," he replied; and told me the story as we rattled through
Temple Bar and Fleet Street, on our way to the bridge and the Surrey
side. "After I left you, I don't know what it was that kept me from
coming through St. Martin's Lane to the Strand, and made me continue
East instead. But something did; and finally I turned to come through
Bow Street. When I was nearly in front of the magistrate's house, a
post-chaise stopped before it, and a fellow got out whom I took to be
a Bow Street runner. Several people ran up to see if he had a prisoner
in the chaise, and so the footway was blocked; and I stopped to look
on for a moment with the rest. A man called out to the constable,
'What you got, Bill?' The constable, who had turned around and reached
into the chaise, stopped to look at the speaker, and said, 'Nobody
much--only the Soho Square assault and robbery--I ran him down at
Plymouth, waiting for a vessel--he had a mind to travel for his
health.' The constable grinned, and the other man said, 'Sure that's a
hanging business, and no mistake!'"
"And so it is," said I, interrupting Philip. "I read of the affair at
the time. A fellow named Howard knocked down his landlady, robbed her
money-box, and got away before she came to.
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