Sir James was therefore obliged to rest
content with what he had learned, and continued his search in Pimlico.
There he spent several hours in playing, with small shopkeepers and
policemen, a game somewhat analogous to that which is usually commenced
with the words "Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?" The result was
that eventually he reached Number 9 Purr Street, and found himself in
the presence of Miss Lillycrop.

That lady, however, damped his rising hopes by saying that she did not
know where George Aspel was to be found, and that he had suddenly
disappeared--to her intense regret--from the bird-warehouse in which he
had held a situation. It belonged to the brothers Blurt, whose address
she gave to her visitor.

Little Tottie Bones, who had heard the conversation through the open
parlour door, could have told where Aspel was to be found, but the
promise made to her father sealed her lips; besides, particular
inquiries after any one were so suggestive to her of policemen, and
being "took," that she had a double motive to silence.

Mr Enoch Blurt could throw no light on the subject, but he could, and
did, add to Sir James's increasing knowledge of the youth's reported
dissipation, and sympathised with him strongly in his desire to find out
Aspel's whereabouts. Moreover, he directed him to the General
Post-Office, where a youth named Maylands, a letter-sorter--who had
formerly been a telegraph message-boy,--and an intimate friend of Aspel,
was to be found, and might be able to give some information about him,
though he (Mr Blurt) feared not.

Phil Maylands could only say that he had never ceased to make inquiries
after his friend, but hitherto without success, and that he meant to
continue his inquiries until he should find him.

Sir James Clubley therefore returned in a state of dejection to the
sympathetic Miss Lillycrop, who gave him a note of introduction to a
detective--the grave man in grey,--a particular friend and ally of her
own, with whom she had scraped acquaintance during one of her many
pilgrimages of love and mercy among the poor.

To the man in grey Sir James committed his case, and left him to work it
out.

Now, the way of a detective is a mysterious way. Far be it from us to
presume to point it out, or elucidate or expound it in any degree. We
can only give a vague, incomplete, it may be even incorrect, view of
what the man in grey did and achieved, nevertheless we are bound to
recor