In vain he enquired in street after street for Mrs Forrester’s address. Some had not heard the name. Some knew a public-house kept by one Tony Forrester. Some recollected an old lady who used to keep a costermonger’s stall and had a baby with fits. Others, still more tantalising, began by knowing all about it, and ended by showing that they knew nothing. At the police-office they looked at him hard, and demanded what he wanted with anybody of the name of Forrester. At the post-office they told him curtly they could not tell him anything unless he could give the old lady’s address.
At length, late in the day, he ventured to knock at the door of the clergyman of that part of the town in which the only few residents’ houses seemed to be, and to repeat his question there.
The clergyman, a hard-working man who visited a hundred families in a week, at first returned the same answer as everybody else. No, he did not know any one of that name.
“Stay,” he said; “perhaps you mean old Mrs Wilcox.”
Jeffreys groaned. Everybody had been suggesting the name of some old lady to him different from the one he wanted.
“She had a nephew, I think, who was a cripple. The poor fellow had had an accident at school, so I heard. I almost think he died. I never saw him myself, but if you come with me, I’ll take you to the Wesleyan minister. I think he knows Mrs Wilcox.”
Thankful for any clue, however slight, Jeffreys accompanied the good man to the Wesleyan minister.
“Mrs Wilcox—ah, yes,” said the latter, when his brother pastor had explained their errand. “She died in Torquay five months ago. She was a great sufferer.”
“And her nephew?” inquired the clergyman.
“Her grandson, you mean.”