A long time ago? What nonsense! He, Mr. Privet, felt quite put out with this detective, and he began to see why Mr. Tropenell thought the man ought not to have been brought into the business at all. It was certainly rather cool of the hotel manager to have gone and brought such a person into the affair, without asking Mr. Pavely's friends if he was at liberty to do so. They had managed to catch the six o'clock express back to Pewsbury, and then Mr. Tropenell very kindly insisted on driving Mr. Privet home. Mr. and Mrs. Privet owned a pretty, old-fashioned house on the other side of the town. When Mr. Privet had married--a matter of forty years ago now--he had made up his mind that it would do him good to be obliged to take a good walk to and from the Bank every day. On their arrival at the house--which, funnily enough, was called Southbank--Mr. Tropenell, at the request of Mr. Privet, had come in for a few minutes to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Privet. He had said how much he liked their house, how much prettier it was, how much more dignified--that had been his curious word--than the red brick villas which had sprung up all over the outskirts of their beautiful old town. And Mr. Privet had been secretly rather pleased, for lately "Mother"--as he called Mrs. Privet--had become somewhat restless, being impressed by certain improvements those gimcrack villas possessed, which their house lacked, and that though he had put in a nice bathroom a matter of twenty years ago. Yes, of the several people who, that day, had been engaged in trying to probe the mystery of Godfrey Pavely's disappearance, the only one who found a great deal of natural pleasure and simple enjoyment out of it all was Mr. Privet; and he, alone of them all, really cared for the missing man, and, perhaps, alone of them all, had a genuine longing to see him again. Mr. Privet thought it was particularly kind of Mr. Oliver Tropenell to be taking all this trouble for poor Mrs. Pavely; though of course he, Mr. Privet, was well aware that Mrs. Pavely's brother was partner to Mr. Tropenell in Mexico. He knew the sad truth--the sad truth, that is, as to the disgraceful circumstances under which Gilbert Baynton had had to leave England. No one else in the Bank had known--at least he and Mr. Pavely hoped not. It had been very, very fortunate that the forged signature had been on one of their own cheques. But for that fact, nothing could have saved that good-for-nothing scoundrel--so Mr. Privet always called Gillie Baynton in his own mind--from a prosecution. Do any of us ever think, reader, of the way in which our most secret business is known, nay, must be known, to a certain number of people of whose existence we ourselves are scarcely aware?