"Do you know where he is now?"
"What, have you lent money to Speyer, too?"
"He is heavily in my debt," said Morton, evasively.
"That's odd. He seems to have been borrowing money all round. I remember, about a year or more ago, I met Mr. Vinal, and he began to talk about Paris. 'By the way,' said he to me, 'do you happen to remember a man named Spires, or Speyers, or some such thing? I lent him five hundred francs.' 'I wish you may get it,' said I. 'Well,' said Vinal, 'I have a friend going to Paris, who will try what can be done for me.' So I set him on the track. I don't know whether he got his money or not, but I saw him talking with Speyer in the street, one evening last spring, and Vinal looked as sour as if he had swallowed a bottle of vitriol."
"Talking with Speyer last spring!" repeated Morton; "has he been to Paris?"
"Speyer has come out to America. There is not a country in Europe but has grown too hot for him. He was under surveillance in Paris, all the time I knew him."
"When did he come?"
"Six or eight months ago."
"Where is he to be found?"
"In New York, chiefly. If you could have caught him when he was here in Boston, in the spring, you might have got something out of him; for he seemed flush of money."