“I know Mr. Bower very well, sir. He goes to Paris or Vienna twenty times a year.”
“To-day he is going to Switzerland.”
“So he is, to Zurich, I think. First single he had. But he’s sure to bring up in Vienna or Frankfort. I wish I knew half what he knows about foreign money business. I shouldn’t be punching tickets here very long. Thank you, sir. Charing Cross at two-twenty; but you may have difficulty about booking a berth in the sleeper. Just now everybody is crossing the Channel.”
“It looks like that,” said Spencer, who had obtained the information he wanted. Taking a cab, he drove to the sleeping car company’s office, where he asked for a map of the Swiss railways. Zurich, as Bower’s destination, puzzled him; but he did not falter in his purpose.
“The man is a rogue,” he thought, “or I have never seen one. Anyhow, a night in the train doesn’t cut any ice, and Switzerland can fill the bill for a week as well as London or Scotland.”
He was fortunate in the fact that some person wished to postpone a journey that day, and the accident assured him of comfortable quarters from Calais onward. Then he drove to a bank, and to “The Firefly” office. Mackenzie had just opened his second bottle of beer. By this time he regarded Spencer as an amiable lunatic. He greeted him now with as much glee as his dreary nature was capable of.
“Hello!” he said. “Been to see the last of the lady?”
“Not quite. I want to take back what I said about not going to Switzerland. I’m following this afternoon.”
“Great Scott! You’re sudden.”
“I’m built that way,” said Spencer dryly. “Here are the sixty pounds I promised you. Now I want you to do me a favor. Send a messenger to the Wellington Theater with a note for Miss Millicent Jaques, and ask her if she can oblige you with the present address of Miss Helen Wynton. Make a pretext of work. No matter if she writes to her friend and the inquiry leads to talk. You can put up a suitable fairy tale, I have no doubt.”