Looking out discreetly, I saw the cab containing Armand stop also,
and that gentleman alighted and paid the driver. The other cab
rattled on at a good pace and disappeared up the Avenue. Then the two
porters lifted out the cabinet, and, with Armand showing them the
way, carried it into the building before which the van had stopped.
They were gone perhaps five minutes, from which I argued that they
were carrying it upstairs; then they reappeared, with Armand
accompanying them. He tipped them and went out also to tip the driver
of the van. Then the porters climbed aboard and it rattled away out
of sight. Armand stood for a moment on the step, looking up and down
the Avenue, then disappeared indoors.
An instant later, I saw Godfrey and another man whom I recognised as
Simmonds, come out of a shop across the street and dash over to the
house into which the cabinet had been taken. They were standing on
the door-step when I joined them.
It was a dingy building, entirely typical of the dingy neighbourhood.
The ground floor was occupied by a laundry which the sign on the
front window declared to be French; and the room which the window
lighted extended the whole width of the building except for a door
which opened presumably on the stairway leading to the upper stories.
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