"Slow and sure, sir, 's my motto," said the sergeant. "'Tain't always that one can make a dead swoop down. I should have liked to have brought you word that I had found next day after getting instructions; but a case of this sort is like hatching chickens--it takes time. You've been thinking as the eggs are all addled, but p'raps you're wrong, sir. I don't know. I won't say but what I might have heard one little thing beginning to peck inside, and one may have a good brood yet--who knows!" "But have you anything authentic you can tell me?" said Harry, who was wearied out with these many purposeless visits, the endless consultations, the trivial information demanded, and after all the small result. "Nothing, sir, as yet. Only I tell you this, I think I shall have something for you directly." "Hope deferred," said Harry, bitterly. "Maketh the heart sick--eh, sir? Exactly so, and good news is the physic as makes it well again. Have a little more patience with me, and you may be satisfied yet." Harry bent his head. "Look here, sir," said the sergeant; "just another word before I go. You've been very often to Decadia lately." "Yes," said Harry. "Well, sir, if you'll take my advice, you won't go there so often. Why not? you think. My answer to that is--We haven't found your friend yet; and my experience of some parts of London is, that there are men in it who think a deal more of a pound or two than they do of a man's life." Here Sergeant Falkner fixed a bold clear eye upon that of the young man for a few seconds, nodded sagely, and then departed. Left alone, Harry stood thoughtful and half startled for a few minutes before going up to Sir Francis' room, where the baronet still remained sleeping, evidently under the influence of some sedative, for there was a graduated bottle upon the little table by the head of his couch, and a faint odour that reminded Harry of visits to a photographer's pervaded the room. "Must be ether!" he said, softly, as he went on tip-toe to the bedside, and anxiously looked down on the pallid troubled face, whose expression--even in sleep--told of the tortured mind, and the pangs which the old man was called upon to suffer. "Let him sleep," said Harry to himself, and he stole gently from the room to sit and think for a while, when, the hour being far too early for bed, he lit a cigar, and went out for half-an-hour's stroll before retiring for the night.