'Confound it,' he muttered angrily, 'he must have slipped out at one of the other stations without my noticing him. It must have been at Vauxhall, just as those four men were pushing past me to get out. I am a nice sort of fellow to take up the amateur detective business. To hunt for a man for nearly three weeks and then when I have found him to lose him again like this. I will go across and see Danvers. Of course he will have the laugh against me. Well, I can't help that; I will take his advice about it. I am evidently not fit to manage by myself.' Danvers had just returned from the Courts when Captain Hampton reached the chambers. 'Hullo, Hampton, where do you spring from? Everyone has missed you from your accustomed haunts. Some said you had eloped with an heiress; others that you are wanted for forgery. I met the Hawtreys last night at dinner. They both asked me after you. The young lady quite seemed to take your disappearance to heart. The more so, I think, because she had sent down a servant with a note to your lodgings, and the girl had learnt from your landlady that you had been away for a week. Of course, I could not enlighten her. Her father took me apart and asked me quite seriously about you. He seemed to think that you had been trying to ferret out something about this confounded letter business. He told me he had talked it over with you, regarding you as almost one of the family.' 'That is just what I have been about, Danvers, and I have made an amazing ass of myself.' 'You don't mean to say that!' Danvers exclaimed in affected surprise. 'Well, I know you used to do it at school sometimes, but I hoped that you had got out of the habit.' 'Bosh!' Hampton laughed. 'But I own I have done it this time. You remember that fellow on the racecourse?' 'You mean at the Oaks. Of course I remember him.' 'Well, it struck me that he might be the man who had sent the letters. He had, as Hawtrey told us in the evening, a bitter grudge against him, and such a dirty trick as this was just the sort of thing that a disreputable broken-down knave like him might concoct to gratify his malice.' 'You are right there; I wonder the idea did not occur to me. Well, I retract what I said just now; so far you have told me nothing to justify the epithet you bestowed on yourself.' 'My first idea,' Hampton went on, without noticing the interruption, 'was that as I had nothing particular to do I would go down to some of the races near town where I felt certain I should find him, follow the fellow back, and track him to his home. Then I had intended to come to you and ask your advice as to the next step to be taken.' 'There you showed your sagacity again, Hampton. Well, what came of it?'