CHAPTER XXXIII.
LIGHT.
AFTER a long and baffling search up and down through western Europe he learned that Courtleigh had robbed her and deserted her, and that she was alone, under the name of Mrs. Brandon, at a tiny house in Craven street near the Strand. He lifted and dropped its knocker, and a maid-of-all-work thrust through a crack in the door, her huge be-frowzled head with its thin hair drawn out at the back over a big wire-frame.
“How is Mrs. Brandon?” he said.
“Not so well, thank you, sir,” replied the maid, looking at him as suspiciously as her respect for the upper classes permitted.
“I wish to see the landlady.”
She instantly appeared, thrusting the maid aside and releasing a rush of musty air as she opened the door wide. She was fairly trembling with curiosity.
“I am Mrs. Brandon’s—next friend,” he said, remembering and using the phrase which in his reporter days he had often seen on the hospital entry-cards. “I am the guardian of her child. I’ve come to see what can be done for her.”
His determined, commanding tone and manner, and his appearance of prosperity, convinced Mrs. Clocker. “We’ve done all we could, sir. But the poor lady is in great straits, sir. She’s been most unfortunate.”
“Is there a physician?”
“Doctor Wackle, just up the way, sir.”