I told her of the fruitlessness of my errand, whereupon she sank back into her chair, staring straight into the fire.
In brief I explained that I had discovered the existence of a person in Strassburg who could probably give me a clue to the whereabouts of Kirk and Mabel. Hence my intention of departing by the first service next morning.
“Cannot you telegraph and ask?” suggested the girl. “We seem, Harry, to be losing so much time,” she added frantically. “You haven’t been to the police.”
“I know, Gwen,” I said in sorrow, “but I can’t do more. To telegraph further might close the channel of our inquiry. No, we must still remain patient.”
Then, after snatching some food which had been left in the dining-room for me, I swallowed a glass of burgundy and entered the small room which I used as my particular den.
From there I rang up Pelham on the telephone, and heard the latest details concerning the business which I was now sadly neglecting. Afterwards I sat down and wrote an advertisement for the Times, an appeal addressed to “Silence” for news of my lost wife, an appeal which at the same time contained a veiled threat of exposure of the affair in Sussex Place.
This I concluded, and, ringing up an express messenger, dispatched it to the advertisement offices of the paper.
Then, with sudden resolve, I went forth to Wimpole Street to call upon Leonard Langton.
I found him in his cosy, well-furnished chambers, busy writing letters, while the round-faced man seated in a big arm-chair by the fire smoking a pipe he introduced as his chum with whom he shared chambers, Doctor Hamilton Flynn.
“Flynn’s a specialist on the nose and throat,” he laughed. “He has his consulting rooms along in Harley Street, and we pig it here together.”