“Well,” began Allan, “you know what I said when we got to this hotel; I said I had a place to go to in Bayswater” (Pedgift mentally checked off the first point: Case in the suburbs, Bayswater); “and a person—that is to say—no—as I said before, a person to inquire after.” (Pedgift checked off the next point: Person in the case. She-person, or he-person? She-person, unquestionably!) “Well, I went to the house, and when I asked for her—I mean the person—she—that is to say, the person—oh, confound it!” cried Allan, “I shall drive myself mad, and you, too, if I try to tell my story in this roundabout way. Here it is in two words. I went to No. 18 Kingsdown Crescent, to see a lady named Mandeville; and, when I asked for her, the servant said Mrs. Mandeville had gone away, without telling anybody where, and without even leaving an address at which letters could be sent to her. There! it’s out at last. And what do you think of it now?”
“Tell me first, sir,” said the wary Pedgift, “what inquiries you made when you found this lady had vanished?”
“Inquiries!” repeated Allan. “I was utterly staggered; I didn’t say anything. What inquiries ought I to have made?”
Pedgift Junior cleared his throat, and crossed his legs in a strictly professional manner.
“I have no wish, Mr. Armadale,” he began, “to inquire into your business with Mrs. Mandeville—”
“No,” interposed Allan, bluntly; “I hope you won’t inquire into that. My business with Mrs. Mandeville must remain a secret.”
“But,” pursued Pedgift, laying down the law with the forefinger of one hand on the outstretched palm of the other, “I may, perhaps, be allowed to ask generally whether your business with Mrs. Mandeville is of a nature to interest you in tracing her from Kingsdown Crescent to her present residence?”
“Certainly!” said Allan. “I have a very particular reason for wishing to see her.”
“In that case, sir,” returned Pedgift Junior, “there were two obvious questions which you ought to have asked, to begin with—namely, on what date Mrs. Mandeville left, and how she left. Having discovered this, you should have ascertained next under what domestic circumstances she went away—whether there was a misunderstanding with anybody; say a difficulty about money matters. Also, whether she went away alone, or with somebody else. Also, whether the house was her own, or whether she only lodged in it. Also, in the latter event—”
“Stop! stop! you’re making my head swim,” cried Allan. “I don’t understand all these ins and outs. I’m not used to this sort of thing.”