"But you withdraw your opposition to making public the disappearance of Mr. Thornton?"
"Yes, though I do not advise it. I hope it will not annoy Miss Thornton very much, but I fear she may be troubled with newspaper reporters."
"Cannot you refer them to me or to my father?"
"I shall do so, but if they can ferret her out they will, you may be sure."
"Oh, I dare say I shall be able to baffle them," declared Gilbert. "Now, will you assist me in drawing up a statement for publication?"
Before Gilbert left Scotland Yard a brief but succinct account of the disappearance of Morris Thornton was put into writing. Then followed a description of Thornton, taken from the detective-inspector's note-book, who, in his turn, had got the particulars from certain members of the staff of the Law Courts Hotel. Further, Mr. Gale drafted what he thought should go into the advertisement, offering the reward of a thousand pounds, and this Gilbert took to his father. On his way to Lincoln's Inn he stopped at a typewriting establishment, and gave instructions to have copies made of the account of the disappearance, and to send one to each of the London papers.
"This will be enough," thought he, "to set the ball rolling."
Next he saw Francis Eversleigh, who, he found to his surprise, was against inserting the advertisement. The older man, who had his own bitter, gnawing, consuming anxieties of which the younger guessed nothing, had a glimmering notion that to advertise the reward was somehow likely to precipitate a crisis in his affairs and bring about exposure. But, backboneless as usual, he was easily over-ruled by his son. The advertisement was made out, typewritten, manifolded, and also sent to all the London journals.
The day following, Gilbert had ample proof that he had set the ball rolling with a vengeance. Pressmen, it seemed to him, descended upon him from every quarter of the town, eager, clamorous, importunate, determined not to be sent empty away. But, after all, Gilbert had not much to tell them. They managed, notwithstanding, to write sensational and, for the most part, highly over-coloured articles round the missing man. One or two of the evening papers wrote leaders on the subject, and in many ways the public interest in Thornton's disappearance was excited to the highest pitch. For one thing, his wealth was exaggerated to such an extent that he was represented as a sort of colonial Crœsus, and in London, and throughout the country, people talked of and speculated about the man now everywhere described as "The Missing Millionaire." Indeed, the reward of a thousand pounds was hardly needed to stimulate public curiosity and sympathy and activity.
High and low, rich and poor, the man of Mayfair and the man of Whitechapel, conversed about it with the same relish, the same wonder. The man in the street, shopmen, clerks, labourers, even beggars and outcasts, all heard of the mysterious disappearance of Thornton, and were all anxious to know the explanation of so extraordinary a thing. In brief, it was the one topic of the moment.