“My informant told me he heard of it about a year ago.”
“A mistake, sir, a mistake, somebody of the same name,” cried Mr Morgan. “Two months ago I met him in the Strand, and we chatted for a few seconds. We didn’t say much to each other for I was in a hurry to get back to the shop.”
“He never mentioned to you that he had left Camberwell?”
“No; as he said nothing about it I took it for granted that he was still there. But I don’t suppose we exchanged a couple of dozen words altogether. I remember I told him he was looking as well as ever, and he laughed, and said he came of a long-lived family.”
Smeaton breathed again. An hour later he was back again at Camberwell, on the track of the retired engraver.
A man cannot move a houseful of furniture without leaving some traces. After visits to half-a-dozen moving establishments, he hit upon the right one in the Walworth Road. The proprietor referred to his books, and gave Smeaton the information he wanted. The goods had been taken down by road to Beech Cottage, Lower Halliford, a little village in the Thames Valley.
So far, so good. Unless he had been seized with another desire for change, Millington would be found at Beech Cottage, Lower Halliford.
It was too late to pursue the affair further that day. Smeaton would run down the next morning. Millington was an old man; his wits would probably be brighter in the early hours.
The morning found him knocking at the door of Beech Cottage, a pretty little cottage overhung with climbing roses, facing the river. The door was opened by a stout, pleasant-faced woman, whom he at once discovered to be Millington’s niece and housekeeper.
“My uncle is not very well this morning,” she told him; “he suffers a good deal from asthma. But if you’ll come into the parlour, I’ll take your card in. He likes to see people when he can, for it’s terribly dull down here.”