In Paris, matters seemed to bode no better results. He first exhausted the more probable points. Saxon's agent, the _commissaire de police_, the consulate, the hospitals--he even made a melancholy visit to the grewsome building where the morgue squats behind _Notre Dame_. Then he began the almost endless round of hotels. His "taxi" sped about through the swift, seemingly fluid currents of traffic, as a man in a hurry can go only in Paris, the frictionless. The town was familiar to him in most of its aspects, and he was able to work with the readiness and certainty of one operating in accustomed haunts, commanding the tongue and the methods. At last, he learned of the registry at the Elysee Palace Hotel. He questioned the clerk, and that functionary readily enough gave him the description of the gentleman who had so inscribed himself. It was a description of the man he sought. Steele fell into one grave error. He did not ask to see the signature itself. "Where had Monsieur Saxon gone? To London. _Certainment_, he had taken all his luggage with him. No, he had not spoken of returning to Paris. Yes, monsieur seemed in excellent health." So, Steele turned his search to London, and in London found himself even more hopelessly mixed in baffling perplexity. He had learned only one thing, and that one thing filled him with vague alarm. Saxon had apparently been here. He had been to all seeming sane and well, and had given his own name. His conduct was inexplicable. It was inconceivable that he should have failed to communicate with Duska. Steele cabled to America, thinking Saxon might have done so since their departure. Nothing had been heard at home. Late in the afternoon on the day of his arrival in London, Steele went for a walk, hoping that before he returned some clew would occur to him, upon which he could concentrate his efforts. His steps wandered aimlessly along Pall Mall, and, after the usage of former habit, carried him to a club, where past experience told him he would meet old friends. But, at the club door, he halted, realizing that he did not want to meet men. He could think better alone. So, with his foot on the stone stairs, he wheeled abruptly, and went on to Trafalgar Square, where once more he halted, under the lions of the Nelson Column, and racked his brain for any thought or hint that might be followed to a definite end. He stood with the perplexed air of a man without definite objective. The square was well-nigh empty except for a few loiterers about the basins, and the view was clear to the elevation on the side where, at the cab-stand, waited a row of motor "taxis" and hansoms. The afternoon was bleak, and the solemn monotone of London was graver and more forbidding than usual. Suddenly, his heart pounded with a violence that made his chest feel like a drum. With a sudden start, he called loudly, "Saxon! Hold on, Saxon!" then went at a run toward the cab-stand.