The fact that he found nothing indicative, was to him an important indication. North’s business, evidently, was of a vague and sketchy character. He seemed to have an agency for two or three inconspicuous real estate firms, and he appeared to have put over a few unimportant deals.
What was important, however, was a small advertisement, almost cut out from a newspaper and almost overlooked by the detective.
This was a few lines expressing somebody’s desire to rent a summer home on the seashore, preferably on the Maine coast.
It was signed F. V. and Wise thought that it might have been inserted by Frederick Varian. He hadn’t heard that the Varians took Headland House through the agency of or at the suggestion of North, yet it might be so.
At any rate there was nothing else of interest to Wise in North’s whole office,—and he left no paper unread or book unopened.
It took a long time, but when it was accomplished the detective set out on a definite and determined search for North.
The man proved most elusive. No one seemed to know anything about him. If ever a negligible citizen lived in these United States, it was, the detective concluded, Lawrence North.
He hunted directories and telephone books. He visited mercantile agencies and information bureaus. He had circulars already out with a reward offered for the missing man, but none of his efforts gave the slightest success.
Had he been able to think of North as dead, he could have borne defeat better, but he envisaged that nonchalant face as laughing at his futile search!
There was, of course, the possibility that North was an assumed name, and that the true name of the man might bring about a speedy end to his quest. But this was mere surmise, and he had no way of verifying it.