"But the neatest and about the longest job I ever was concerned in was young Mr. Burbidge's case, and that I did in London without any help from the London police. He was in the theatrical profession; a smart young chap, greatly trusted by his manager, who employed him as a confidential secretary, and allowed him to keep the accounts and all the cash. No one checked one or counted t'other. One fine morning he went off with a big sum. He'd been to the bank and drawn a cheque to pay the weekly wages; but he bolted instead, leaving the treasury empty and the whole company whistling for their 'screws.' The manager was half mad, and he came at once to the police. The chief sent for me. 'It's a bad business, thoroughly bad, and we must get him,' he said. 'Spare no pains--spend what money you like, only catch him, if you can.' In jobs of this sort, sir, time goes a long way. Burbidge had got a good start, several hours or more; it was no use my rushing off after him in a hurry, particularly as I did not know which way to rush. So I set myself to think a little before I commenced work. The 'swag' stolen was large. The thief would probably try to make tracks out of the country as soon as he could; but which way? To Liverpool, perhaps, and by one of the ocean steamers to the States; or to Hull, and so to Sweden and Norway; or London, and so to France and Spain. I sent one of my men to the railway station to make inquiries, and another to wire to the police at the ports and to Scotland Yard to watch the Continental trains. "The job I kept for myself was to find out what I could about young Burbidge's ways. It's the only way to get a line on a man who's made off in a hurry and left no clue. So I called at his rooms. He lived in comfortable apartments over a tobacconist's, and was a good customer to his landlord, to judge by the number of pipes I saw over the mantelpiece, all of which were as well coloured as a black-and-tan. The rooms were just as he left them--he might really have been coming back in half-an-hour, only he didn't quite intend to, not if he knew it. The chest of drawers was full of clothes; there were boots already polished; brush and comb on the dressing-table. In the sitting-room the slippers were on the hearth, books, acting-plays lying on the sofa and about the floor, a writing-desk, but not a single scrap of paper--not a letter, or an envelope, or even an unreceipted bill. He'd made up his mind to bolt, and he'd removed everything which might give us the smallest notion of which way he'd gone.