“I don’t aspire to the official designation, Mr. Upton, an inquiry agent is all I presume to call myself.” “But you do inquire into mysteries?” “I’ve dabbled in them.” “As an amateur?” “A paid amateur, I fear.” “I come on a serious matter, Mr. Thrush—a very serious matter to me!” “Pardon me if I seem anything else for a moment; as it happens, you catch me dabbling, or rather meddling, in a serious case which is none of my business, but strictly a matter for the police, only it happens to have come my way by a fluke. I am not a policeman, but a private inquisitor. If you want anything or anybody ferreted out, that’s my job and I should put it first.” “Mr. Thrush, that’s exactly what I do want, if only you can do it for me! I had reason to fear, from what I heard this morning, that my youngest child, a boy of sixteen, had disappeared up here in London, or been decoyed away. And now there can be no doubt about it!” So, in about one of the allotted minutes, Thrush was trusted on grounds which Mr. Upton could not easily have explained; but the time was up before he had concluded a briefly circumstantial report of the facts within his knowledge. “When can I see you again?” he asked abruptly of Thrush. “When? What do you mean, Mr. Upton?” “The four minutes must be more than up.” “Go on, my dear sir, and don’t throw good time after bad. I’m only dining with a man at his club. He can wait.” “Thank you, Mr. Thrush.” “More good time! How do you know the boy hasn’t turned up at school or at home while you’ve been fizzing in a cloud of dust?” “I was to have a wire at the hotel I always stop at; there’s nothing there; but the first thing they told me was that my boy had been for a bed which they couldn’t give him the night before last. I did let them have it! But it seems the manager was out, and his understrappers had recommended other hotels; they’ve just been telephoning to them all in turn, but at every one the poor boy seems to have fared the same. Then I’ve been in communication with these infernal people in St. John’s Wood, and with the doctor, but none of them have heard anything. I thought I’d like to do what I could before coming to you, Mr. Thrush, but that’s all I’ve done or know how to do. Something must have happened!” “It begins to sound like it,” said Thrush gravely. “But there are happenings and happenings; it may be only a minor accident. One moment!” And he returned to the powder-closet of its modish day, where Mullins was still pursuing his ostensibly menial avocation. What the master said was inaudible in the library, but the man hurried out in front of him, and was heard clattering down the evil stairs next minute. “In less than an hour,” explained Thrush, “he will be back with a list of the admissions at the principal hospitals for the last forty-eight hours. I don’t say there’s much in it; your boy had probably some letter or other means of easier indentification about him; but it’s worth trying.”