"Going away," echoed Dentham when the door had closed on the tall figure of his master. "Where to, I wonder; there's something queer about this—why, he's hardly been out of the house for the last six months, and now he makes up his mind to be off in half a minute. I'll have a look at this and find out where he's going to."
The Bradshaw was lying on the table, still open at the place to which Adrian had referred, so Dentham had no difficulty in discovering that Dr. Roversmire was going to Great Marlow, in the county of Bucks.
"What does he want there?" mused Mr. Dentham, laying down the book—"more mysteries."
Here he caught sight of the paper crumpled up on the floor, where Adrian had thrown it, and picked it up.
"He's been asking for the papers a lot lately," said the astute valet to himself, "I wonder if there's anything in this that's got to do with his going to Marlow—I'll see."
He looked carefully over the paper, and at length came upon the advertisement for Adrian Lancaster's whereabouts.
"That's it," said Mr. Dentham in a satisfied tone, "it's the only mention of Marlow in the paper, and he only made up his mind to go there since he read the paper; and now I think of it," muttered Dentham sagaciously, "the walking-stick I picked up as he said belonged to himself, which was a lie, had the letters A L on it—now A stands for Adrian and L for Lancaster, and Adrian Lancaster's disappeared. I wonder—now I do wonder if the voice I heard that night was Mr. Lancaster's, and what his walking-stick is doing in this room—jumping at conclusions this is, I'm afraid, still, something may come of all this, but I shan't move till I've got more to go on."
He put the paper in his pocket, intending to place it beside the stick, which he had securely hidden, and then went off to pack Dr. Roversmire's portmanteau with a self-satisfied smirk on his white face.