Again, Lucius had now the nucleus of a very fair private practice. His patients, for the most part small tradesmen, paid punctually, and there were among them some wealthy traders whose custom was worth having. He saw the beginning, very small it is true, but the beginning of fortune. That dream of Savile-row was to be realised out of such small beginnings. His patients believed in him, and talked of him; and so far as reputation can be made in such a place as the Shadrack-Basin district, his reputation was fast being made. To turn his back upon all this would be to sacrifice, or at any rate to postpone indefinitely, his hope of winning a home for the woman he loved. Beyond this there remained a third reason why he should refrain from setting forth upon that wild-goose chase which, however barren as to result, would at least serve to prove him the most devoted and chivalrous of lovers. To go to Rio was to leave Lucille, and for an indefinite period; since the business upon which he would go was essentially a business requiring deliberation, ample leisure, time for inquiry, for travelling to and fro, time enough to waste in following up trails which, though promising much, might prove false,—time and indomitable patience. How could he afford time and patience with his heart racked by fears for the safety of Lucille? What might not happen during his absence? The old man was in so precarious a condition that his illness might at any moment take a fatal turn—in a state so critical that to deliver him over to a strange doctor, and perhaps a careless one, would be a kind of assassination. Thus, after profound thought, Lucius determined that even love should not impel him to so rash a course as a voyage to Rio in quest of Ferdinand Sivewright. ‘After all,’ he said to himself, ‘there is no wiser saying than that of Apelles to the cobbler, “Let every man stick to his own trade.” I may be a clever surgeon, but a very poor detective-officer; and it will be safer to spend the little money I can spare in employing a retired policeman than in trying my ’prentice hand in the art of detection. We bluster a good deal in the newspapers about the incompetence of the police, when they fail to hunt up a criminal who has plunged into the great sea of humanity, leaving not a bubble to mark the place where he went down; yet I doubt if any of those brilliant journalists who furnish indignant editorials on the police question would do much better in the detective line than the officials whose failures they ridicule. Yes, I will submit the case to Mr. Otranto, the private detective.’ Once resolved, Lucius lost no more time; but called at Mr. Otranto’s office in the city, and was fortunate enough to find that gentleman at home—a plain-mannered little man, with a black frock-coat buttoned up to the chin, and the half-military stamp of the ex-policeman strong upon him. He was a brisk little man, too, disinclined to waste time upon unnecessary detail.