Then another ruse suggested itself to him. He would with infinite pains secure the services of a man—perhaps there were those who did it for a living—of some man who would find out for him all about Mr. John K. Petre.
He went down by the great stairs turning over in his mind the strange dearth of John K. Petres in the printed lists. Clearly an enormous John K. Petre did, somewhere, dominate the world; but where? He formed the plan of consulting his one friend at the Registration counter.
He made his effort. He went to the clerk standing at the great book of registry, and asked him in a low voice (after looking about to make sure that no one could hear) whether he might be told the name of some agency or person who could look up a small obscure private point for him while he was in London. It was confidential. The clerk, who made an honest penny, among many dozen other honest pennies, by recommending the right people, wrote out at once upon his own card a name and an address: “Jos. Daniels, 27 Birkham Street, Soho.”
“Mr. Petre,” he said, with his usual respect, which seemed so exaggerated to the unfortunate man to whom it was addressed, “if you will just go and give that personally, I think you will get all you want. There is no proper office, and no name put up. Mr. Daniels is too careful for that. He has worked wonders, to my knowledge. Never mind the look of the house. Don’t write. He has no telephone, either. Just go there; and when you find him in, give him this card of mine.”
And thus was the clerk assured of his commission.
Mr. Petre was not quite sure that he had done right. Even one human being knowing but one step of his research was a peril; but he had no other choice, or rather, it was safer than addressing himself to some public firm. He set off at once for Birkham Street. He found the house, or rather, the door; a grimy door next to a little foreign restaurant. He rang. He was let in by a slatternly woman who seemed to have caught something of her master’s air, for she certainly looked as if she knew too much.
He asked for Mr. Daniels, and was overjoyed to find that Mr. Daniels was in.
He found a little, dark-haired man, with keen eyes and a full mouth, and an expression as though the world amused him—which indeed it did; but as if also he were sparing in his words, which indeed he was.
There were, as Mr. Petre had been warned, no marks of an office, nothing to betray Mr. Daniels’ trade. It was a dingy room, stuffily furnished with a few old horsehair chairs, and Mr. Daniels as his visitor came in laid down a paper which he had been reading, rose and asked him, when he had looked at the card, and offered one of the horsehair chairs, of what service he might be.
“My dear sir,” said Mr. Petre earnestly, feeling that unless he began the matter at once he would never have the courage to begin it at all, “it is very simple. I am desired—I have been asked—at any rate I have occasion to find out ... what I can about a Mr. John K. Petre. You know the name?”