"Your information for mine, you know. What I have is substantial, reliable. I think you can trust me in matters of genealogy. Come now. Am I right in supposing this curiosity of yours is not altogether unconnected with Your interest in Francis Quodling the silk broker? Nothing to me, Gammon; nothing, I assure you. Pure love of genealogical inquiry. Never made a penny out of such things in my life. But I have taken a little trouble, etc. As a matter of friendship—no? Then we'll drop the subject. By the by have you a black-and-tan to dispose of?"
He passed into a vein so chatty and so amiable that Gammon began to repent of distrusting him. Besides, his information might be really valuable and could not easily be obtained in any other way.
"Look here, Greenacre, I don't see why I shouldn't tell you. The fact is, a man I used to know has disappeared, and I want to find him. He was seen at the theatre with a lady who lives at that house; that's the long and the short of it."
"Good! Now we're getting on in the old way. Age of the man about fifty, eh? And if I remember you said he was like Quodling in the face, Francis Quodling? Just so. H'm. I can assure you, then, that no such individual lives at the house we're speaking of."
"No, but perhaps—"
"One moment. The Gildersleeves are a young married couple. With them lives an older lady—"
Greenacre paused, meditating.
"The name of the missing man?" he added gently.
"Fellow called Clover."
"Clover—clover? Clo—"