The business boulevards, the Boulevarde Auspach, and the Boulevard du Nord, with their smart shops, their big cafés, and their hustling crowds, were bright and gay as my taxi sped on, first to the Métropole, in the Place de Brouckere.
The name of Kemsley was unknown there. The old concierge glanced at his book, shook his head, and elevating his shoulders, replied:
Thence I went to the Palace, in front of the station, the great new hotel and one of the finest in Europe, a huge, garish place of gilt and luxury. But there I met with equal success.
Then I made the tour of the tree-lined outer boulevards, up past the Botanical Gardens and along the Rue Royale, first to the Hotel de France, then to the Europe, the Belle Vue, the Carlton in the Avenue Louise, the new Wiltscher's a few doors away, and a very noted English house from the Boulevard Waterloo, as well as a dozen other houses in various parts of the town—the Cecil in the Boulevard du Nord, the Astoria in the Rue Royale, and even one or two of the cheaper pensions—the Dufour, De Boek's, and Nettell's, but all to no purpose.
Though I spent the whole of that day making investigations I met with no success.
Though I administered judicious tips to concierge after concierge, I could not stir the memory of a single one that within the past ten days any English gentleman answering the description I gave had stayed at their establishment.
Until the day faded, and the street lamps were lit, I continued my search, my taxi-driver having entered into the spirit of my quest, and from time to time suggesting other and more obscure hotels of which I had never heard.
But the reply was the same—a regretful "Non, m'sieur."
It had, of course, occurred to me that if the fugitive was hiding from the Belgian police, who no doubt had received his description from Scotland Yard, he would most certainly assume a false name.