"There's something queer in this young man running away from town; there's some mystification somewhere," he thought. "He has not gone to Dorking, or he would scarcely have told Lotta that he was going a hundred and fifty miles from town. He would be likely to be taken off his guard by her questions, and would tell the truth. I wonder whether Paget is in the secret. His manner seemed open enough; but that sort of man can pretend anything. I've noticed that he and George have been very confidential lately. I wonder whether there's any underhand game on the cards between those two."
The game of which Mr. Sheldon thought as he leant over his blotting-paper was a very different kind of game from that which really occupied the attention of George and his friend.
"I'll go to his lodgings at once," he said to himself by-and-by, rising and putting on his hat quickly in his eagerness to act upon his resolution. "I'll see if he really has left town."
The stockbroker hailed the first empty hansom to be seen in the crowded thoroughfare from which his shady court diverged. In less than an hour he alighted before the door of the house in which Captain Paget lodged.
"Is Mr. Hawkehurst in?" he asked of the girl who admitted him.
"No, sir; he's just left to go into the country. He hasn't been gone ten minutes. You might a'most have met him."
"Do you know where he has gone?"
"I heard say it was Dorking, sir."
"Humph! I should like to have seen him before he went. Did he take much luggage?"
"One portmanter, sir."