"That is a question which a fool would answer at once, sir, but a wise man would take some time to reply to," returned the Bow Street runner coolly, "But one thing you may depend upon, that he will not be 'Lost' long. I have blotted that word out of my dictionary. I know Sir Massingberd Heath well, or, at least, I did know him, and that is a great advantage to start with; he was not a man, I should think, to change with age. Tall figure and strong; large piercing eyes; much beard; a mouth that tells he likes to have his own way; and on his forehead a mark as if the devil had kicked him." "That is excellent," cried Mr. Gerard; "you could not mistake him for any other man in London." "He is _not_ in London, sir," observed the runner dogmatically. "If he were mixing with the lot that he used to be amongst, I should surely have heard of it; and if he is with people much beneath him in station, I should have learned it still more certainly. As for that, however, he is not one--if I remember him right--to hide himself, or work much underground." "If you mean that he would not stoop to deception, Mr. Townshend," remarked my tutor gravely, "I am afraid you are mistaken; the very money which, as I have said, he obtained from me upon the day of his disappearance, was dishonourably come by. His pretext of the Methodists having bidden for a piece of ground upon which to build a chapel within the Park, and almost opposite the Rectory, was, I have since discovered, entirely false; and I cannot but fear that some judgment has overtaken this unhappy man." Here, I am sorry to say, that Mr. Clint and Mr. Gerard looked at one another in rather a comic manner, and the Bow Street runner helped himself to a glass of the particular with an open chuckle. "Well, sir," responded that gentleman, "you see Judgments isn't much in my way. When I catches a chap, he generally knows its judgment and execution too; but barring that, I doubt whether there is much of a special Providence for rascals--even when they rob a Church minister. Not, of course, that I am saying Sir Massingberd Heath, baronet, is a rascal, or anything like it; I never had anything to do with him in all my life before this, and that's a good sign, look you. When I said he was not a man to work underground, however, I did not mean that he would not employ every ingenious device--and the one you mention was one of the neatest I ever heard on--to procure money, but that he is of too domineering and masterful a nature to lurk and spy about. The young gentleman here need not be in much alarm, I think, of his relative's turning up in Harley Street; notwithstanding which, he is a very ticklish customer, no doubt, and one as I should not have been in the least surprised to find myself under orders to fit with a pair of bracelets, for such a thing, for instance, as murder."