"Couldn't have had time to pack a trunk, could she?" I asks. "If not she'd be coming back some time to-day. Shall we wait here a while, Mr.

Ellins?"

"I think I prefer a meeting on neutral grounds," says he.

So we goes downstairs and paces up and down the sidewalk, watchin' the avenue traffic sleuthy.

"Course she wouldn't start off without baggage," I suggests.

"I'm not so certain," growls Old Hickory.

Ten minutes we waited--fifteen; and then I spots a yellow taxi rollin'

up from downtown. Inside I gets a glimpse of a black straw lid with purple flowers on it.

"Here she comes!" I sings out to Old Hickory. "Yep, that's her! And say! The Captain's with her. Quick! Dive into our cab."

He's a little heavy on his feet, Mr. Ellins is, and someway he manages to get himself hung up on the cab door. Anyway, Auntie must have seen us doin' the wild scramble, and got suspicious; for, just as they got alongside, she pounds on the front window, shouts something at the driver, and instead of stoppin' the other taxi veers off and goes smokin' uptown.

"Hey!" yells Mr. Ellins to our driver. "Catch that yellow car! Ten dollars if you catch it."

And you know it's just the chance of hearin' a few kind words like them that these taxi pirates live for. This old coffee mill that Mr. Ellins had hailed reckless could give out more groans and grinds and produce less speed than any other fare trap I was ever in. The connectin' rods was wabbly on the shaft, the gears complained scandalous, and the hit-and-miss average of the cylinders was about 33 per cent.

But after a few preliminary jack-rabbit jumps she begun to get headway, and the next I knew our driver was leanin' over his wheel like he was after the Vanderbilt Cup. He must have been throwin' all his weight on the juice b.u.t.ton and slippin' his clutch judicious, for we sure was breezin' some. Inside of two blocks we'd eaten up half the lead and was tearin' uptown like a battalion chief answerin' a third alarm. I glances at Old Hickory to see if he's gettin' nervous at some of the close shaves; but he's braced himself in one corner, his teeth sunk deep into his cigar and his eyes glued on that yellow taxi ahead.

They was wise to the fact that we was after 'em, too. First Auntie would rubber back at us, and then lean forward to prod up her chauffeur. A couple of rare old sports, them two, with no more worries for what might happen to their necks than if they'd been joy-riders speedin' home at 3 A.M. from the Pink Lady Inn.

Me, I was holdin' my breath and waitin' for the grand smash. If Auntie's driver had stuck to a straightaway run we'd either caught 'em or smeared ourselves against a beer truck or something. But after the first mile he takes to dodgin'. Zip! he goes on two wheels around a corner.

"After him now!" orders Old Hickory. "I'll make it twenty if you don't let him get away."

"You're on!" says our speed maniac, and does a carom skid into a cross street that showed he didn't need any banked turns in his.

In and out we goes, east and west and up and down; now losin' sight of the yellow taxi altogether, then pickin' it up again; droppin' behind a whole block when the traffic broke bad for us, but makin' it up when something got in the way of the other cab.

Our gears was hummin' a reg'lar tomcat chorus, but with the throttle wide open the motor was. .h.i.ttin' on four most of the time.

Talk about your chariot race! Say, if we'd had Ben Hur aboard he'd been down on the floor, clawin' the mat. Twice we sc.r.a.ped fenders with pa.s.sin' cars, and you could have traced every turn we made by the wheel paint we left on the curb corners. It was a game of gasoline cross-tag. We wasn't merely rollin'; we was one-stepping fox-trottin', with a few Loupovka motions thrown in for variety. And, at that, Auntie was holdin' the lead.

Down at Fifty-ninth, what does her driver do but swing into Fifth Avenue, right in the thick of it. That was no bonehead play either, for if there's any one stretch in town where you can let out absolutely reckless and get a medal for it, that's the place. Course, you got to take it in short spurts when you get the "go" signal, and that's what he was doin'. I watched him wipe both ends of a green motor bus and squeeze into a s.p.a.ce that didn't look big enough for a baby carriage.

"Auntie must be biddin' up on the results, too," I remarks to Mr.

Ellins. "There they duck through Forty-third."

"Try Forty-fourth," sings out Old Hickory. "In here!"

It was a poor guess, for when we hits Sixth Avenue there's no yellow taxi in sight.

"Wouldn't Auntie's game be to double back home?" I suggests.

"We'll see," says Old Hickory, and gives the order to beat it uptown again.

And, sure enough, just as we gets in sight of the apartment house, there's the other taxi, with Auntie haulin' Captain Killam out hasty.

Before we can dash up and pile out, they've disappeared in the vestibule.

"Looks like we'd lost out by a nose," says I.

"Not yet," says Old Hickory. "I intend to see what those two mean by this."

And after 'em we rushes.

But the one elevator was half way up when we fetches the gate. Old Hickory puts his finger on the b.u.t.ton and holds it there.

"They've stopped at the fourth," says I. "Now it'll be comin'-- No; it's goin' all the way to the roof!"

There it stayed, too, although Old Hickory shoots some spicy commands up the elevator well.

"No use; he's been bought," says I. "What's the matter with the stairs? Only three flights."

"Good idea!" says Mr. Ellins; and up we starts.

He wouldn't break any stair-climbin' records in an amateur contest, though, and when he does puff on to the last landin' he's purple behind the ears and ain't got breath enough left to make any kind of speech.

So I tackles another interview with Helma.

"No," says she; "Meesus not coom yet."

"Ah, ditch the perjury stuff, Helma," says I. "Didn't we just follow her in?"

"No coom yet," insists Helma in her wooden way.

That's all I can get out of her, too. It wasn't that she'd had orders to say Auntie wasn't at home, or didn't care to receive just then.

Helma sticks to the simple statement that Auntie hasn't come back.

"But say," I protests; "we just trailed her here. Get that? We was right on her heels when she struck the elevator. And the Captain was with her."

"No coom," says Helma, shakin' her head solemn.

"Why, you she-Ananias, you!" I gasps. "Do you mean to tell me that--"

"I beg pardon," says a familiar acetic acid voice behind us--and I turns to see Auntie steppin' out of the elevator. "Were you looking for someone?" she goes on.

"You've guessed it," says I. "In fact, we was--"

"Madam," breaks in Mr. Ellins, "will you kindly tell me what you have done with Captain Rupert Killam?"

"Certainly, Mr. Ellins," says Auntie. "Won't you step in?"

"I should prefer to be told here, at once," says Old Hickory.

"My preference," comes back Auntie, "if I must be cross-examined, is to undergo the process in the privacy of my own library, not in a public hallway."