“Rudy! That's Rudy,” he repeated, but Holmes was already in action, exhorting the taxi driver to turn about and follow the trolley. The man grumbled, declared that if he got caught by a cop that it wasn't him that was going to pay the fine, and pulled over to the middle of the wide street to wait for a gap between the on-coming cars. Then just as he began to pull forward, all five of our younger companions began to shout furiously. “There's Kurt!” and “Wait, don't leave Kurt” contradicted by “No, go on, he'll be okay” and “Wait, here comes Markie too, c'mon, Markie, run faster!”

At that, Holmes told the driver to pull over to the side and stop for a moment. He dug two more silver coins from his apparently endless supply and whipped a five-dollar note out of his bill-fold, handing both coins and bill to the leader. “Mr Garcia, I shall have to ask you to leave us here for the time being. I should appreciate it if you would present yourself to the St Francis desk at nine o'clock tomorrow morning for a final accounting.”

The boy, naturally enough, protested, but Holmes was already propelling small and angry bodies out of the motor, assisted willingly by Hammett, and he overrode the protests. “Mr Garcia, if you wish to hear the details of what has taken place—all the details, even those in which you were not involved—you will appear at the hotel in the morning. If you continue protesting now, I shall give you nothing but your money and send you on your way.”

It has always amazed me, how Holmes the bachelor understood so thoroughly the workings of the childhood mind. Here yet again he hit on exactly the thing that got the boys out of the motor without another word of protest. The leader's eyes merely narrowed with consideration for a moment, then he climbed out of the motor. As we drove away from the five standing lads and two more approaching at a run, we heard Ricky's voice call, “If you don't give over, you'll be really sorry.”

Holmes brushed himself off and gave me a grin. “I shall, too.”

We quickly caught the trolley up, and Holmes had the driver pull just close enough for him to give a sharp whistle, then drop away again. The dangling boy looked around, spotted Holmes, and instantly let go his precarious hold to stand in the midst of the traffic waiting for us to catch him up. Hammett kicked the door open and the boy scrambled in, without the taxi actually coming to a halt. We continued after the trolley while Holmes interrogated his final Irregular.

“You're Rudy, yes? We just dropped your friends down the street. May I take it that the two people you've been following are in this street-car?”