"Still, I think there is something that wants explaining about Mr. Kellner," said Zena, "You evidently thought so too, Murray, since you made such minute inquiries about him."
"I do not think there is anything against him," I answered.
"I am not very interested in Kellner's past," said the professor, "and as we cannot get hold of Small we must do a little guessing."
"Is there anything further for me to do?" I asked.
"One thing. I want you to get hold of some stockbroker you know, and get him to tell you whether there was any kind of panic here, or on the Continent, with regard to any foreign securities between three and four years ago. Find out, if you can, the names of any members of the House who were hammered during that period, and the names of any firms considered shaky at the time. I am not hoping for much useful information, but we may learn something to assist our guesswork."
The information I obtained on the following day amounted to little. As my friend in Threadneedle Street said, three years on the Stock Exchange are a lifetime. In the different markets there had been several crises during the period I mentioned, and certain men, chiefly small ones, had gone under. As for shaky firms, it was impossible to speak unless you were closely interested. A good firm, under temporary stress, would probably be bolstered up, and a week or two might find it in affluence again.
I went to Chelsea with the information, such as it was, but only saw Zena. Quarles was out, and I did not see him for nearly a week. Then he 'phoned to me to call for him one evening and to come in evening dress.
"I am dining with Mr. Delverton to-night," he said, "and I asked him if I might bring you. He returned to town at the beginning of the week, and I have seen him two or three times, once at the office in Austin Friars. I did not see Kellner, he happened to be away that day."
Martin Delverton lived in Dorchester Square, rather a pompous house, and he was rather a pompous individual. Of course he wasn't a bit like Quarles in appearance, yet I was struck by a certain characteristic resemblance between them. They both had that annoying way of appearing to mean more than they said, and of watering down their arguments to meet the requirements of your inferior intellect.
I had become accustomed to it in Quarles, but in a stranger I should have resented it had not the professor told me of the peculiarity beforehand, and warned me not to be annoyed.