s.
Yet the porter stared at Langholm as he approached. His face was
flushed, and his eyes so bright that there would have been but one
diagnosis by the average observer. But the porter knew that Langholm had
come in sober, and that for the last twenty minutes he had sat absorbed
in the hotel register.

"I see," said Langholm--and even his voice was altered, which made the
other stare the harder--"I see that a friend of mine stayed here just
upon a year ago. I wonder if you remember him?"

"If it was the off-season, sir, I dare say I shall."

"It was in September, and his name was Steel."

"How long did he stay?"

"Only one night, I gather--an elderly gentleman with very white hair."

The porter's face lighted up.

"I remember him, sir! I should think I did! A very rich gentleman, I
should say; yes, he only stayed the one night, but he gave me a
sovereign when he went away next day."

"He is very rich," said Langholm, repressing by main force a desire to
ask a string of questions. He fancied that the porter was not one who
needed questioning, and his patience had its immediate reward.

"I remember when he arrived," the man went on. "It was late at night,
and he hadn't ordered his room. He came in first to see whether we could
give him one. I paid the cab myself and brought in his bag."

"He had just arrived from the country, I presume?"

The porter nodded.

"At King's Cross, by the 10.45, I believe; but it must have been a good
bit late, for I was just coming off duty, and the night-porter was just
coming on."

"Then you didn't see any more of Mr. Steel that night?"

"I saw him go out again," said the porter, dryly, "after he had
something to eat, for we are short-handed in the off-season, and I
stopped up myself to see he got it. I didn't see him come in the second
time."

Langholm could hardly believe his ears. To cover his excitement he burst
out laughing.

"The old dog!" he cried. "Do you know if he ever came in at all?"

"Between two and three, I believe," said the porter in the same tone.

Langholm laughed again, but asked no more questions, and in a little he
was pacing his bedroom floor, with fevered face and tremulous stride, as
he was to continue pacing it for the greater part of that August night.

Yet it was not a night spent in thought, but rather in intercepting and
in casting out the kind of thoughts that chased each other through the
novelist's brain. His imagination had him by the