“Does she keep more than one servant?” “Oh, I think not; but no doubt the greengrocer can say.” The lady seemed to feel it an affront that she should be supposed to know anything of Mrs. Butcher, and Hewitt consequently started for the greengrocer’s. Now this was just one of those cases in which dependence on information given by other people put Hewitt on the wrong scent. He spent that day in a fatiguing pursuit of Mrs. Butcher’s servant, with adventures rather amusing in themselves, but quite irrelevant to the Seton case. In the end, when he had captured her, and proceeded to open a cunning battery of inquiries, under plea of a bet with a friend that the shoes could not be matched, he soon found that _she_ had been the purchaser who, after buying just such a pair of shoes, had returned and exchanged them for something cheaper. And the only outcome of his visit to the baby-linen shop was the waste of a day. It was indeed just one of those checks which, while they may hamper the progress of a narrative for popular reading, are nevertheless inseparable from the matter-of-fact experience of Hewitt’s profession. With a very natural rage in his heart, but with as polite an exterior as possible, Hewitt returned to the baby-linen shop in the evening. The whole case seemed barren of useful evidence, and at each turn as yet he had found himself helpless. At the shop the self-confident young lady calmly admitted that soon after he had left something had caused her to remember that it was the other customer who had kept the white shoes, and not Mrs. Butcher’s servant. “And do you know the other customer?” he asked. “No; she was quite a stranger. She brought in a little boy from a cab and bought a lot of things for him--a suit of outdoor clothes as well as the shoes.” “Ah! now probably this is what I want. Can you remember anything of the child?” “Yes; he was a pretty little fellow, about two years old or so, with curls. She called him Charley.” “Did she put the things on him in the shop?” “Not the frock; but she put on the outer coat, the hat and the shoes. I can remember it all now quite well--now I have had time to think.” “Then what shoes did the child wear when he came in?” “Rather old tan-coloured ones.” “Then I think this is the person I am after. You say you never saw her at any other time before or since. Try to describe her.” “Well, she was a lady well dressed, in black. She had a very high collar to hide a scar on her neck, like the scars people have sometimes after abscesses, I think. I could see it from the side when she stooped down.” “And are you sure she had nothing sent home? Did she take everything with her?” “Yes; nothing was sent, else we should know her address, you know.” “She didn’t happen to pay with a banknote, did she?” “No; in cash.”