‘Was he your bookkeeper?’

‘No, he was a junior clerk.’

‘Have you any of his handwriting that you can show me?’

He fumbled in a side pocket and drew out a pocketbook from which he took a memorandum of agreement, or some paper of the sort, to the bottom of which a signature was attached as witness.

‘That’s his writing,’ said he.

It was a stiff schoolboy’s scrawl.

This was not my man then.  I apologized to Mr. L——­ for the trouble I had given him, and withdrew.

Lost time, said I to myself.  I am on the wrong track.  I must back to the eating house, and begin the chase again from the point where I left off.  I saw the same waiter.

‘I want you to think again,’ said I, ’Try hard to remember whether there was never any other man here with Hawes on any occasion.’

After reflecting for a little while, he said he thought he recollected his going up stairs not long ago, with another man, to a private room.

‘Did you wait on him yourself at the time you speak of?’ I asked.

‘No—­most likely it was Joe Harris.’

‘Will you send for him, if you please.’

Joe Harris came.

’You waited on Mr. Hawes a few days ago, when he dined with another gentleman in a private room up stairs, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Who was that other man?’

‘He is a young man who is clerk in a livery stable in Sullivan street.’

‘What are his looks?’

‘He is tall and light haired.’

‘Do you know his name?’

‘His name is Edgar.’

I hurried up to Sullivan street, went into the first livery stable I came to, inquired for the proprietor, and asked him if he had a young man in his stable of the name of Edgar.

He said he had.

‘Does he keep your books?’

‘Yes, he takes orders for me.’

‘Let me see some of his handwriting, if you please.’

He stepped back into the office and took from a desk a little order book.  I opened it:  there were some orders, hastily written, no doubt, but in a hand almost like beautiful copperplate.

This was my man—­I felt nearly certain of it.  I asked where he lived, and was told, with his mother, a widow woman, at such a number in Hudson street.  I started for the place.  It was now nine o’clock.  Arriving at the house, I rang the bell.  It was answered by a servant girl.

‘Does Mr. Edgar live here?’ I inquired.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Is he at home?’

‘No, sir.’

‘When will he come home?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Does he sleep here?’

‘Sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn’t.’

‘Where is he likely to be found?  I should like to see him.’