"Thanks; feel remarkably well. A touch of liver now and then, but nothing serious. By the by, anything I can do for you? Any genealogy?"
Gammon had drained his tumbler of hot whisky, and felt better for it. With the second he became more communicative. He asked himself why, after all, he should not hang on to the clue he had obtained from Polly, and why Greenacre should not be made use of.
"Know anything about a Gildersleeve?" he asked with a laugh.
His companion smiled cheerfully, looking at once more interested.
"Gildersleeve! Why, yes, there was a boy of that name—no, no; it was Gildersleeves, I remember. Any connexion with Quodling?"
"Can't say. The people I mean live in Stanhope Gardens. I don't know anything about them."
"Like to?"
Gammon admitted that the name had a significance for him. A matter of curiosity.
"No harm in a bit of genealogy," said Greenacre. "Always interesting. Stanhope Gardens? What number?"
He urged no further question and gave no promise, but Gammon felt sure this time that information would speedily be forthcoming. Scarcely a week passed before Greenacre wrote to him with a request for a meeting at the Bilboes. As usual, the man of mystery approached his subject by indirect routes. Beginning with praise of London as the richest ground of romance discoverable in the world, he proceeded to tell the story of a cats'-meat woman who, after purveying for the cats at a West End mansion for many years, discovered one day that the master of the house was her own son.