"It was Bully Hagan telled me he'd seen him only the other day."
"The round-headed man who's just come out of prison?" asked Hora.
"Lives at 27 in the Street, first floor front," said the woman.
"I met him on my way here," said Hora. "I'll go and find him." He rose to go.
"You haven't told me how my gal's lookin'," said the woman.
Hora laughed, but he good naturedly complied with the request, and for five minutes poured into the greedy ears of the woman a description of the dresses and the jewels her daughter wore at the theatres and dinners and dances to which she had recently been. Then he took his departure, leaving behind him a couple of gold pieces in the old woman's palm. In the street he resumed his missionary demeanour and passing along from house to house found Bully Hagan at the same spot where he had parted from him, and in exchange for another piece of gold was soon put in possession of the address he sought. He wrote it down on a piece of paper.
Cornelius Jessel, Woodbine Cottage, Melpomene Road, Wimbledon.
And, resuming his progress, came at last to the more respectable streets and finally to the railway station again.
CHAPTER XII
INSPECTOR KENLY'S LODGER
One day at the beginning of July Detective Inspector Kenly's face as he left the railway station and stepped out briskly homewards wore a particularly injured air. It was not entirely owing to the sultry state of the atmosphere, though that may have had something to do with his frame of mind. He considered himself to be a greatly aggrieved man. In the first place his investigations into the Flurscheim burglary had been an abject and total failure. He had spent day and night following up illusory clues without the slightest result. On top of this he had been entrusted with the investigation of the stolen despatch affair, and after three days' laborious enquiry found himself no nearer any accurate result than he had been when he commenced, save that certain names on the list of members of the Stock Exchange had been ticked off as unable to afford any information. These failures he might have borne with equanimity had they been his sole grievance. But he had another, and being a purely personal, private, domestic grievance, it rankled far more than any of the others.