It was much later than he had meant to begin his real errand in Galveston; but he had nothing else to do there, and he didn't know enough about the entertainment potentialities of the town to be tempted by other attractions. It was most inconsiderate of Lieutenant Kinglake, he thought, to have refused to take his question seriously and enlighten him… But besides that, he knew that his unfortunate discovery of the expiring Mr Henry Stephens. meant that he couldn't look forward to following his own trail much further in the obscurity which he would have chosen. It looked like nothing but cogent common sense to do what he could with the brief anonymity he could look forward to.
Thus it happened that after a couple of grilled sandwiches in the hotel coffee shop he set out to stroll back down into the business district with the air of a tourist who had nowhere to go and all right to get there.
And thus his stroll brought him to the Ascot Hotel just a few blocks from the waterfront. The Ascot was strictly a business man's bunkhouse, the kind of place where only the much-maligned couriers of commerce roost briefly on their missions of peculiar promotion.
Simon entered the small lobby and approached the desk. The plaque above the desk said, without cracking a smile: "Clerk on duty: MR wimblethorpe." Simon Templar, not to be outdone in facial restraint, said without smiling either: "Mr Wimblethorpe, I'm looking for a Mr Matson of St Louis."
"Yes, sir," said the clerk. "Mr Matson was staying here, but— "
"My name," said the Saint, "is Sebastian Tombs. I'm a mining engineer from west Texas, and I have just located the richest deposit of bubble gum in the state. I wanted to tell Mr Matson about it."
"I was trying to tell you," said the clerk, "that Mr Matson has checked out."
"Oh," said the Saint, a bit blankly. "Well, could you give me his forwarding address?"
The clerk shuffled through his card file.
"Mr Matson didn't leave an address. A friend of his came in at five o'clock and paid his bill and took his luggage away for him."