a quarter past nine, when he sat down by Webster’s side in the lobby of the House of Commons, nobody seemed to have any recollection of him except Mr. Fiskie, the hatter, and he only remembered him faintly, and because Marbury had bought a fashionable cloth cap at his shop.  At any rate, by noon of that day, nobody had come forward with any recollection of him.  He must have gone West from seeing Myerst, because he bought his cap at Fiskie’s; he must eventually have gone South-West, because he turned up at Westminster.  But where else did he go?  What did he do?  To whom did he speak?  No answer came to these questions.

“That shows,” observed young Mr. Ronald Breton, lazing an hour away in Spargo’s room at the Watchman at that particular hour which is neither noon nor afternoon, wherein even busy men do nothing, “that shows how a chap can go about London as if he were merely an ant that had strayed into another ant-heap than his own.  Nobody notices.”

“You’d better go and read up a little elementary entomology, Breton,” said Spargo.  “I don’t know much about it myself, but I’ve a pretty good idea that when an ant walks into the highways and byways of a colony to which he doesn’t belong he doesn’t survive his intrusion by many seconds.”

“Well, you know what I mean,” said Breton.  “London’s an ant-heap, isn’t it?  One human ant more or less doesn’t count.  This man Marbury must have gone about a pretty tidy lot during those six hours.  He’d ride on a ’bus—­almost certain.  He’d get into a taxi-cab—­I think that’s much more certain, because it would be a novelty to him.  He’d want some tea—­anyway, he’d be sure to want a drink, and he’d turn in somewhere to get one or the other.  He’d buy things in shops—­these Colonials always do.  He’d go somewhere to get his dinner.  He’d—­but what’s the use of enumeration in this case?”

“A mere piling up of platitudes,” answered Spargo.

“What I mean is,” continued Breton, “that piles of people must have seen him, and yet it’s now hours and hours since your paper came out this morning, and nobody’s come forward to tell anything.  And when you come to think of it, why should they?  Who’d remember an ordinary man in a grey tweed suit?”

“‘An ordinary man in a grey tweed suit,’” repeated Spargo.  “Good line.  You haven’t any copyright in it, remember.  It would make a good cross-heading.”

Breton laughed.  “You’re a queer chap, Spargo,” he said.  “Seriously, do you think you’re getting any nearer anything?”

“I’m getting nearer something with everything that’s done,” Spargo answered.  “You can’t start on a business like this without evolving something out of it, you know.”

“Well,” said Breton, “to me there’s not so much mystery in it.  Mr. Aylmore’s explained the reason why my address was found on the body; Criedir, the stamp-man, has explained—­”

Spargo suddenly looked up.

“What?” he said sharply.