“I have not,” replied Lansbury. “Careless, perhaps, but that’s so—I haven’t. But I reckon my bankers may have them—they enter numbers when paying them out, don’t they?” “Who are your bankers?” asked Blick. “International Banking Corporation—London office in Bishopsgate,” replied Lansbury promptly. “But I can’t be certain that I got those particular notes there. I may have—in which case, they will have. But I mayn’t—in which case they won’t have. Those notes—or some of them—may have been paid to me by other people. And—once or twice, recently—I have cashed cheques for large amounts in other places than London. My financial operations are considerable, and I handle notes in large numbers.” “All the same,” said Blick, “we’ll have to do what we can in tracing those notes. But now we’re faced with another matter. Von Eckhardstein is missing. His hostess thinks he’s had an accident while out on one of his night walks. I don’t!—I think he’s run away.” “Why, now, Blick?” asked the Chief Constable. “Why didn’t he come forward at the inquest and tell us what Mr. Lansbury has just told us?” answered Blick. “He’d the chance!—and he sat there and said nothing. Von Eckhardstein knows something—and he must be found. I wish I’d laid hands on him last night. Now, we must get to work on tracking him. You’d better come out with me to Markenmore, and let’s see into things.” “I hope you don’t want me?” said Lansbury. “I am particularly anxious to get back to Falmouth. But I shall return from Falmouth in two days, and shall then be for several days at Southampton—close by you.” “Leave us an address—or addresses—that will find you at short notice,” said Blick. “There’s no need to keep you from your business, Mr. Lansbury. And we’d better be getting to work on our own!” He presently hurried the Chief Constable off to Markenmore and Mrs. Tretheroe. The events and revelations of the morning had given him an entirely new conception of the case in hand, and he was now blaming himself bitterly for not having asked von Eckhardstein to account for his possession of the pipe as soon as he had discovered that it was in the financier’s overcoat pocket. “But I was saving that up for this morning,” he said grumblingly, as he and the Chief Constable drove along to Markenmore. “I meant to stop him as he was entering the station to catch that ten-eight express; tell him that you and I wanted some information from him, to get him to your office, and have things out with him. Now—it’s too late!” “You don’t know that yet, Blick,” remarked the Chief Constable. “If this man was accustomed to strolling about at night he may easily have had an accident, and be lying in some lonely part of those downs or woods waiting for help. Anyhow, so far, I don’t see anything to incriminate him—in my opinion.” “He was the last man known to be with Guy Markenmore,” said Blick.