“But you do inquire into mysteries?”
“I’ve dabbled in them.”
“As an amateur?”
“A paid amateur, I fear.”
“I come on a serious matter, Mr. Thrush—a very serious matter to me!”
“Pardon me if I seem anything else for a moment; as it happens, you catch me dabbling, or rather meddling, in a serious case which is none of my business, but strictly a matter for the police, only it happens to have come my way by a fluke. I am not a policeman, but a private inquisitor. If you want anything or anybody ferreted out, that’s my job and I should put it first.”
“Mr. Thrush, that’s exactly what I do want, if only you can do it for me! I had reason to fear, from what I heard this morning, that my youngest child, a boy of sixteen, had disappeared up here in London, or been decoyed away. And now there can be no doubt about it!”
So, in about one of the allotted minutes, Thrush was trusted on grounds which Mr. Upton could not easily have explained; but the time was up before he had concluded a briefly circumstantial report of the facts within his knowledge.
“When can I see you again?” he asked abruptly of Thrush.
“When? What do you mean, Mr. Upton?”