Waiting your turn in a dull cheerless room along with half a dozen more people who always seem oil to your water or vice versa, so as to insure non-mixing, is about one of the most unpleasant things in life. It is bad enough at the doctor’s, where you sit and wonder what is the matter with your neighbours right or left, and whether their complaints are infectious; but at a private-inquiry office at a busy time it is ten times worse. There is such a general disposition evinced by everybody to turn his back on everybody else; an act which the actor soon finds out to be an utter impossibility; for though he gets on very well with respect to two or three, he soon finds that, however clever a mathematician he may be, he cannot place himself in the required position; and, as a matter of course, he turns rusty, and resents the presence of the other waiters—waiters, of course not in the hotel and coffee-room sense of the term.

To do Charley Vining justice, he was as ill-tempered as any one present; but he refrained from showing it, and tried to tranquillise his mind into a state of wonderment as to the business of others present. Was there any one seeking the address of some daughter or sister very dear?—was any one moved by the tender passion? It did not seem like it, judging from the countenances around.

One lady of vinegary aspect was evidently in search of a husband who had vanished; while on the other side was a little squeezy mild man, who might have come on a similar errand respecting a wife. The gentleman in speckless black, with papers in his hand tied with red tape, looked legal, and took snuff or pounce frequently from a small box, which he tapped with considerable grace, so as to bring the dust from the corner into a heap in the centre. His mission was evidently respecting a legatee, heir-at-law, administrator, executor, or assign, whose presence was necessary for the completion of some deed, document, or preamble as aforesaid.

What a wheezy stout man wanted was doubtful; but it was evident that the quiet-looking unassuming man who came out softly from the inner sanctum, and in one glance took down and mentally recorded all who were present, had something to do with order as well as law.

And it was so, in fact; for the quiet unassuming man was Mr Orger, of the detective department of Great Scotland-yard, who, after a fortnight of unavailing search for some gentleman who was wanted, did not think it derogatory to his dignity to seek counsel—on the principle of two heads being better than one—from his old friend and fellow-inspector Mr Whittrick, of the detective force formerly, but now professionally engaged upon his own account.

Charley’s turn at last, just as he had come to the conclusion that he would wait no longer, but call another day, when there were not so many private inquirers.

Obeying a signal, he was shown into a well-furnished room with a couple of tables, at one of which, whose top was covered with papers, sat a very ordinary-looking man, in a black-velvet cap; at the other, which bore a telegraphic dial, were a couple of clerks busily writing.

“Perhaps you will step this way,” said the man of the black-velvet cap, mentally photographing his visitor the while; and Charley followed him to an inner room, where, taking the seat offered, he paid certain fees and stated his case.

“Young lady—deep mourning—fair—grey eyes—luxuriant hair,” muttered the private-inquiry high-priest, ............