Unwilling as I was to leave London just then, where my presence was at any moment necessary, the affairs of one of my best and oldest clients summoned me to Liverpool for a couple of days, and I took a return-ticket thither from the Saturday to the Monday after that last memorable visit from Inspector Keene. Who shall ever dare to doubt the special Providence ordering and overruling every event, every circumstance of our lives, however trivial and unimportant they may seen at the moment of their occurrence? That journey of mine, which outwardly had not the smallest bearing or reference to the story I am telling, was in reality the beginning of the end.
Travelling by an early training, I arrived in Liverpool about three o'clock. After engaging a bed at a hotel near the station, and refreshing my inner man, I set off immediately on the business [{229}] which had brought me thither. This lay asked some of the great shipping offices in Tower Buildings, close to the docks. Coming out of one, I noticed a man following me. Suddenly my arm was touched, and looking round I saw Inspector Keene.
"God bless me! Who'd have thought of seeing you here?"
"And who'd have thought of seeing you, sir? I don't suppose you ever expected it would be so, Mr. Kavanagh, but you and I have hunted the fox together, and now you and I will be in at the death."
"You mean to say you have traced the housekeeper?"
"That's just precisely what I do mean, sir."
"Where is she?"
"Not a stone's throw from here."
"And you have her in charge?"
"Not yet, sir, not yet. I have but just obtained a warrant for her apprehension from the sitting magistrate, and I am on my way now to announce the agreeable tidings to her."