“He called on me about a matter of which I could make neither head nor tail. I should like to have another talk with him. Can you tell me where he’s to be found?”
Mr. Curtis shook his head.
“Just now he’s resting. It’s been a little too hot for him of late. I fancy he’s lying by till it gets a little cooler.”
“What’s wrong with the man?”
“Nothing exactly wrong, only he’s had a little experience. Sorry I can’t stay, this cab’s waiting for me.” He stepped into the hansom which was drawn up by the kerb. “If you want to know what’s wrong with Lander, you mention to him the name of Batters—Benjamin Batters.”
The cab drove off. Before I had recovered from my astonishment it was beyond recall.
Batters? Benjamin Batters? My Benjamin Batters? There could hardly be two persons possessed of that alliterative name. If I had only guessed that there was any sort of connection between him and Benjamin Batters, Mr. Lander would not have departed till we had arrived at a better understanding. Why had the idiot not dropped a hint? Why had Curtis driven off at that rate at the wrong moment?
I asked at the office for the address of Captain Max Lander. I was snubbed. The name was evidently not a popular one in that establishment. The clerk, having submitted my inquiry to someone elsewhere, informed me curtly that nothing was known of such a person there, and appeared to think that I had been guilty of an impertinence in supposing that anything was. When I followed with a request for information about a Mr. Benjamin Batters, I believe that clerk thought I was having a game with him. Somewhere in the question must have been a sting, with which I was unacquainted; for, with a scowl, he turned his back on me, not deigning to reply.
As I did not want to have an argument with Messrs. Staple, Wainwright and Friscoe’s staff, I went away. I pursued my inquiries elsewhere, both for Captain Max Lander and for Mr. Benjamin Batters. But without success. The scent had run to ground. By the evening I concluded that I had had about enough of the job. Instead of trying to find out things about Benjamin Batters, I would seek out Mary Blyth. She should have the good news. I was not sure that I had not already kept them from her longer than I was justified in doing. She should learn that she was the proud possessor of a tumble-down, disreputable house in Camford Street; though, so far as I could see, she had not a shadow of a title to it which would hold good in law; but perhaps she was not a person who would allow herself to be hampered by a trifle of that description; also of a comfortable income derived from consols—conditions being attached to both bequests which were calculated to drive her mad. Having imparted that good news, I would wash my hands of the Batters’ family for good and all. There was something about it which was, as Gregory Pryor put it, “sniffy.”
With that design I started betimes the next morning. I had no difficulty in finding the establishment of Messrs. Cardew and Slaughter, where Mr. Batters stated in his will that he had last heard of his niece as an assistant. It was an “emporium,” where they sold many things you wanted, and more which you did not, from gloves to fire-irons. After being kept waiting an unconscionable length of time, asked many uncalled-for questions, and enduring what I felt to be intentional indignities, I was ushered into the office of Mr. Slaughter.