Mr. Montmorency tapped the side of his handsome nose.
"All right, my boy!" he said. "I understand—wicked, wicked world! Done? Dear boy, it shall be done! Come down to the stage door—our man knows every landlady in the town!"
By various winding ways and devious passages he led the two young men down to the stage door. Its keeper, not being particularly busy at that time, was reading the evening newspaper in his glass-walled box, and glanced inquiringly at the strangers as Mr. Montmorency pulled them up before him.
"Prickett," said Mr. Montmorency, leaning into the sanctum over its half-door and speaking confidentially. "You keep a sort of register of lodgings don't you, Prickett? Now I wonder if you could tell me where Miss Adela Chatfield, of the Mrs. Swayne's Necklace Company stopped when she was last here?—that's a year ago or about it. Prickett," he went on, turning to Gilling, "puts all this sort of thing down, methodically, so that he can send callers on, or send up urgent letters or parcels during the day—isn't that it, Prickett?"
"That's about it, sir," answered the door-keeper. He had taken down a sort of ledger as the manager spoke, and was now turning over its leaves. He suddenly ran his finger down a page and stopped its course at a particular line.
"Mrs. Salmon, 5, Montargis Crescent—second to the right outside," he announced briefly. "Very good lodgings, too, are those."
Gilling promised Mr. Montmorency that he would look him up later on, and went away with Copplestone to Montargis Crescent. Within five minutes they were standing in a comfortably furnished, old-fashioned sitting-room, liberally ornamented with the photographs of actors and actresses and confronting a stout, sharp-eyed little woman who listened intently to all that Gilling said and sniffed loudly when he had finished.
"Remember Miss Chatfield being here!" she exclaimed. "I should think I do remember! I ought to! Bringing mortal sickness into my house—and then death—and then a funeral—and her and her father going away never giving me an extra penny for the trouble!"