"I didn't. Flowers couldn't say that. But he remembered such a man."
"Well, that's something," said Hetherwick. He turned into another room and sat down to his breakfast, thinking. "Mapperley, come here!" he called presently. "Look here," he went on as the clerk came in. "Since you know this Vivian place, go there again to-night, and try to find out if that friend of yours knows anything of a tall man who corresponds to the description of the man whom Hannaford was seen to meet at Victoria. You read Ledbitter's account of that, given at the inquest?"
"Yes," replied Mapperley. "But of what value is it? None—for practical purposes! He couldn't even tell the shape of the man's nose, nor the colour of his eyes! All he could tell was that he saw a man muffled in such a fashion that he saw next to nothing of his face, and that he was tall and smartly dressed. There are a few tens of thousands—scores, perhaps—of tall, smartly-dressed men in London!"
"Never mind—inquire," said Hetherwick, "and particularly if such a man has ever been seen in Baseverie's company there."
He finished his breakfast, and then, instead of going down to the Central Criminal Court, after his usual habit, he hung about in his chambers, expecting Matherfield. But Matherfield did not come, and at noon Hetherwick, impelled by a new idea, left a message for him in case he called, and went out. In pursuance of the idea, he journeyed once more to the regions of Paddington and knocked at the door of the house wherein he and Matherfield had kept watch on the flats opposite.
The lodging-house keeper opened the door himself and grinned on seeing Hetherwick. Hetherwick stepped inside and nodded at the door of the room which he had left only a few hours before.
"I want a word or two with you," he said. "In private."
"Nobody in here, sir," replied the man. "Come in."
He closed the door on himself and his visitor, and offered Hetherwick a chair.
"I expected you'd be back during the day," he said, with a sly smile. "Either you or Matherfield, or both!"