Not a word had been received from Cranbourne. From the moment he left Lord Almont's flat he disappeared completely. That was Cranbourne's way, for once an idea started in his brain he rested not until it has been realised or disproved. He had given himself three days to find a human duplicate of Barraclough and among a population of seven millions the task was no easy one. His quarry had dined at the Berkeley on the twenty-fourth instant but beyond that point information languished. The redoubtable Brown, prince of head waiters, who knew the affairs of most of his customers as intimately as his own, was able to offer little or no assistance. He remembered the gentleman who had dined alone in a tweed suit and had said something about having no dress clothes. He believed he had seen him in uniform during the earlier parts of the war but couldn't recall the regiment. Had an impression he paid for his dinner with the last of the notes in his pocket but that might mean nothing. "A pleasant gentleman, spoke crisply and had a smile." John, of the cloakroom, recalled a half crown thrown on his little counter in return for a soft hat—"Wait a bit, sir, by a Manchester hatter I believe," and a rainproof coat "rather thinnish and brown."
The Manchester hat stuck in Cranbourne's throat a trifle since it widened the circle of enquiry.
The porter at the revolving door believed the gentleman had gone toward Piccadilly—walking. Yes, he was sure he hadn't taken a cab. Gave him a shilling and five coppers.
Cranbourne thanked them and spent the rest of the day passing in and out of every well known grill room in London. It was sound enough reasoning but it brought no results. At twelve o'clock the same night he paid a flying visit to all the dancing rooms—Murray's, Giro's, Rector's, The Embassy, Savoy and half a dozen others. At three o'clock he rang up Daimler's, hired a car and drove to Brighton because many men come up from Brighton by day and bring no evening clothes. Besides the time of his departure from the Berkeley plus a walk to Victoria Station more or less synchronised with the down train to Brighton. He spent the best part of the following day racing through hotel lists and looking up visitors at Brighton, Eastbourne, Hastings and Folkestone. He was back in Town again by 7.30, at the Theatre Library, where he bought a single ticket for twelve musical plays and revues selecting them from the class of entertainment Barraclough himself would have been likely to attend. It was a restless evening, dashing from one place to another and sorting over the audiences in the narrow margin of time allowed by intervals. Afterwards he spent an hour by the fountain in Piccadilly Circus keenly examining the thousands of passers-by.
It was very late indeed when he struck one hand against the other and cried out,
"Oh, my Lord, what a fool I am."
A new significance had suddenly suggested itself as a result of Brown's repetition of the mysterious diner's remark, "I repeat I have no evening clothes." Cranbourne had taken it to imply that there had been no time to dress but why not accept it literally.
Two whole days wasted looking at men in white shirt fronts and black coats!
"Lord, what an idiot I am. Alter your line of thought and alter it quick."
He began to walk briskly, muttering to himself as he strode along.