As soon as he had got established in his hotel, and seen that his luggage had been brought up, he went out again and made away for the neighbourhood of Printing House Square. It needs hardly be said that the Western Scotsman was not in possession of a vast white marble building, with huge golden letters shining in the afternoon sun; all the same he had little difficulty in finding the small and unpretentious office; and his first inquiry was for Mr. Anstruther. Mr. Anstruther had been there in the morning; but had gone away home, not feeling very well. Where did he live?—over in Brooklyn. But he would be at the office the next day? Oh, yes; almost certainly; it was nothing but a rather bad cold; and as they went to press on the following evening, he would be pretty sure to be at the office in the morning.
Then Vincent hesitated. This clerk seemed a civil-spoken kind of young fellow.
"Do you happen to know if—if a Mr. Bethune has called at this office of late?"
"Bethune?—not that I am aware of," was the answer.
"He is a friend of Mr. Anstruther's," Vincent went on, led by a vague hope, "an old gentleman with white hair and beard—a handsome old man. There would be a young lady with him most probably."
"No, sir; I have not seen any one of that description," said the clerk. "But he might have called on Mr. Anstruther at his home."
"Oh, yes, certainly—very likely," said Vincent. "Thank you. I will come along to-morrow morning, and hope to find Mr. Anstruther quite well again."
So he left and went out into the gathering dusk of the afternoon; and as he had nothing to do now, he walked all the way back to his hotel, looking at the various changes that had taken place since last he had been in the busy city. And then, when he reached the sumptuous and heavily-decorated apartment that served him at once as sitting-room and bed-room, he set to work to put his things in order, for they had been rather hurriedly jammed into his portmanteau on board ship.
He was thus engaged when there came a knock at the door.
"Entrez!" he called out, inadvertently (with some dim feeling that he was in a foreign town.)