"Ah! to the hotel, but where----" Gilbert stopped without completing the question, while excitement struggled with anxiety within his breast. He gazed imploringly at the other. "He did not return to the Law Courts Hotel that evening," the manager went on, "and nothing has been seen or heard of him since." Gilbert smothered an ejaculation. What a thing, he thought, to have to tell Kitty! "That was the state of the case up to yesterday," continued the manager. "I have had no communication on the subject this morning, but if you like, I will ring up the hotel on the 'phone--there may be fresh news." "Thanks; but one moment, please. You had what you have just told me from the hotel people?" "Yes, and also from the police who are now moving in the matter, though I am not aware of their having found out anything." "The police!" exclaimed Gilbert, almost protestingly, but even as he spoke he knew it was a fit and proper case for the police to take up. "Please go on," he said. "Of course," resumed the manager, "the police had to be called in. Between ourselves I think they should have been called in sooner than they were, but at the same time it must be acknowledged that the hotel authorities were in a difficult position; people in their business are always anxious not to interfere with the freedom of their guests, so they make allowance for eccentricities and what might be considered rather erratic movements." "I understand," said Gilbert. "Perhaps you will now tell me just what action the hotel people took--you can ring them up later." "Very well. Mr. Thornton went out from the hotel late that Friday night--the 30th of July was a Friday--and on his way out he spoke to the porter, saying he would go along Holborn and take a turn, it might be, up and down Chancery Lane, if it was pretty quiet." "The porter remembered that distinctly, I presume?" "Yes, perfectly. He did not see Mr. Thornton return, but he thought nothing of this, imagining that Mr. Thornton had gone back into the hotel when he, the porter, happened to be away for a minute from the door." "I must see that porter," Gilbert broke in. Was he, he wondered, the last man to see Thornton alive? For, already, a conviction was springing up within him that Thornton was no more, and that this was the mournful intelligence he would have to carry to Kitty. "Certainly you must," assented the manager. "Well, next day a chambermaid, on going into Mr. Thornton's room, found that his bed had not been slept in; she reported it, but nothing beyond taking a note of the circumstance was done at the moment by the hotel people. They supposed, naturally enough, that Mr. Thornton would turn up in the course of the day." "But surely," said Gilbert, "they should have felt some alarm seeing that they knew how frightfully ill he had been two days before, don't you think?"