Off we started like hounds, who, after, a check, have once more struck the scent. Business in the City had by this time greatly diminished, and many of the shops were closed; but the Oil Company's emporium, as behoved it, was lighted up from cellar to garret, to give assurance to the world that what they sold could turn night, and even London fog, into day. Notwithstanding the extreme luminosity of the premises, we found the accounts of the establishment, however, rather opaque and complicated; and although nothing could exceed the pains which the clerks put themselves to upon our account, it was several hours before No. 82979 could be identified, both as respected its incoming and outgoing. Finally, however, we gleaned the certain information that the note in question had been received only a day or two previously by the Oil Company from a Mr. Vanderseld, the skipper of a foreign vessel, then lying in the port of London, but which, he had informed them, was to sail immediately. He had bought a small quantity of oil for his cabin lamps, and taken it with him, but had ordered a large supply to be sent to his address in Hamburg, and with this address we were made acquainted. "Well, Mr. Townshend," quoth Mr. Harvey Gerard, as we rolled homewards in a hackney-coach, after seven hours of this man-hunting, "what think you that this news portends? Is the game still afoot, or is it only dead game--quarry?" "I can speak with no sort of certainty yet," replied the Bow Street runner; "but next to all the notes having been paid into the Bank on the 17th or so--which, as I told you, would have almost indicated Sir Massingberd's murder and robbery, without any doubt--I know of no worse tidings than this, of their having come from Hamburg. There's a regular agency abroad, and particularly in that town, for the sale of Bank of England notes dishonestly come by. If a thief cannot get to the Bank immediately, to turn his plunder into gold, he sends it across the water; and then it comes back to us at home, through honest hands enough. We must communicate, of course, with Vanderseld; but the probability is that he will be unable to give us any information. These sea-fellows take account of nothing except what concerns their own trade. He may remember the quarter that the wind was blowing from upon the day he had the note, to a nicety; but he won't have a notion, bless you, as to who paid it him. No--it's the worst sign yet, to my mind, that that 'ere note has come through foreign hands. But don't you be down-hearted, my young gentleman," added the Bow Street runner, addressing himself to Marmaduke, who looked very fagged and anxious; "I'll find your respected uncle, mind you, let him be where he will; and if he's dead, why, you shall see his corpse, though I have to dig it up with my finger-nails." With which comforting statement we had, for that evening, to be content. CHAPTER XII. A BENEVOLENT STRANGER.