Under the heading “Stop Press News,” he saw “Demaine Result,” and then underneath, more courteously: “Mr. Demaine has been heard of.” It was printed in faint wobbly type in a big blank space--and there was nothing more. Edward, entering at that moment, told him that the exact point from which the message had been sent could not be discovered until Brighton had cleared. “Oh!” said the Prime Minister. He was going to call up Mary Smith, but Edward assured him that nothing more than an inept half-wit maid would answer the demand--he had tried it. Dolly sat on in patience and wondered where Demaine had been discovered. The matter was of some moment. Without the least doubt he would have to make up his mind as to the succession of the office that very afternoon, and it was already close on five. Demaine might be discovered suffering from a loss of memory (though what he had to remember Dolly couldn’t conceive); he might have been discovered in the hands of the police. He might have been discovered attempting for some unknown reason to fly the country. Till the Premier knew more he could not act. For a good half-hour he persuaded himself that it was better to wait. Then he went out and motored to Mary’s. And Mary of course was not at home. He went on to Demaine House, and found there nothing but a man making a very careful inventory of all the pictures, all the furniture and all the glass. He came back to his room, and at last the mystery was solved. All good things come to an end, as do all delays and all vexations, and life itself. By a method less expeditious than some of those which modern civilisation has put at our disposal, the full truth was revealed to him. George Mulross Demaine was at that moment (it was six o’clock) upon that afternoon of Wednesday, the 3rd of June, ... drinking brandy and soda in great quantities and refusing tea, at the Liverpool Street Hotel. A courteous message from the Manager thereof was the source of the information, and Edward--Edward who never failed--had been the first to receive it. The message had gone up and down London a good deal before it had got to the House of Commons; at Demaine House the Manager had been told to try Mary Smith’s number, and at Mary Smith’s the half-wit having almost had her head blown off by Edward’s repeated violence, very sensibly suggested that the Manager should telephone direct to the House of Commons and give a body peace. An instant demand (said Edward) that Demaine should himself come to the instrument, had been followed by a very long pause, after which he was told that the gentleman had gone off in a four-wheeler with a lame horse, and had left the bill unpaid. There was nothing to do but to wait.