“So it proved. I spent the whole of yesterday evening in making enquiries entirely without avail. This morning I began very early, and at eight o’clock I reached Halliday’s Private Hotel, in Little George Street. On my enquiry as to whether a Mr. Stangerson was living there, they at once answered me in the affirmative.

“ ‘No doubt you are the gentleman whom he was expecting,’ they said. ‘He has been waiting for a gentleman for two days.’

“ ‘Where is he now?’ I asked.

“ ‘He is upstairs in bed. He wished to be called at nine.’

“ ‘I will go up and see him at once,’ I said.