"We took possession of what property he had at the hotel. It was not much, but what there was hinted pretty plainly at wealth. There was one extraordinary thing—we could not find his address, I mean the address of the place he lived in."
"That was odd, and I cannot explain it," said Gilbert. "You know now he lived in Vancouver?"
"Yes, you have told me so, but I did not know it before. We made inquiries by cable in New York—the label on his luggage showed he had come from that city—but he was unknown to the police there, nor could they find out anything about him. Now we shall make inquiries in Vancouver."
"I hope you will let me know if you hear of anything," said Gilbert, rising to leave, after thanking the inspector for his courtesy. "Miss Thornton is very anxious about her father, and she will be more anxious than ever after she has heard what I have to tell her."
"Certainly."
Gilbert was just about leaving, when it struck him as very desirable that the officer should communicate with his father, Francis Eversleigh. He had already told Mr. Gale that his father's firm were Morris Thornton's solicitors, and now he suggested to the inspector-detective to accompany him, if he had the time, to see his father, and tell him exactly how the case stood.
Gale thought for a moment, and then said that if he would wait for a short while until he had finished a memorandum he had been engaged on when Gilbert had been shown in, he would go with him to his father.
"I really ought to see him in the circumstances," said Gale. "He may be able to give us some clue."
But when Gale and Gilbert put the facts before Francis Eversleigh, he had no suggestion to make. Indeed, the solicitor was perfectly thunderstruck by the intelligence they brought him, and acted in such an extraordinary way as to cause Gilbert to fear that the news had affected his brain. Eversleigh, in fact, could hardly believe it; but when he did, it, too, seemed part and parcel of that hideous waking nightmare in which he now lived. Yet, somewhere in the darkening depths of his mind, there shot up a tiny ray of hope. For if Morris Thornton were dead, or if it were only that he had disappeared, was not that to postpone the day of reckoning?
Gilbert's most difficult and painful task was to disclose to the girl he loved all he had come to know that day. With infinite gentleness and delicacy he told her the truth, and wound up by declaring she must not lose hope of seeing her father again; it was far too soon, he urged, and the circumstances were far too obscure to admit of any definite conclusion being arrived at.