The message showed that it had been handed in at Brussels at one o'clock that afternoon.
Brussels! So he was hiding there. Yes, I would lose no time in crossing to the gay little Belgian capital and search him out.
Before giving him up to the police I would meet him face to face and demand the truth. I would compel him to speak.
Should I retain possession of the message? I reflected. But, on consideration, I saw that when I had left, Phrida might return to recover it. If I replaced it where I had found it she would remain in ignorance of the knowledge I had gained.
So I screwed it up again and put it back among the cinders in the grate, afterwards leaving the house.
Next morning I stepped out upon the platform of the great Gare du Nord in Brussels—a city I knew well, as I had often been there on business—and drove in a taxi along the busy, bustling Boulevard Auspach to the Grand Hotel.
In the courtyard, as I got out, the frock-coated and urbane manager welcomed me warmly, for I had frequently been his guest, and I was shown to a large room overlooking the Boulevard where I had a wash and changed.
Then descending, I called a taxi and immediately began a tour of the various hotels where I thought it most likely that the man I sought might be.
The morning was crisp and cold, with a perfect sky and brilliant sunshine, bright and cheerful indeed after the mist and gloom of January in London.
Somehow the aspect, even in winter, is always brighter across the channel than in our much maligned little island. They know not the "pea-souper" on the other side of the Straits of Dover, and the light, invigorating atmosphere is markedly apparent directly one enters France or Belgium.