He questioned all of the staff who had come in contact with the three men, without result, until he came to the restaurant porter who had called the taxi. Here he had more luck than is usual in such inquiries. The taxi had been taken from a neighbouring rank, and the porter recollected the driver, whom he had called several times previously. He was an elderly, wizened man, clean-shaven and with white hair. After slipping a coin into the porter’s eager hand, Tanner walked to the rank. The driver of the third car answered the description. Tanner accosted him civilly, explaining who he was. ‘On Monday the 5th instant, just three weeks ago,’ he went on, ‘about three in the afternoon, you were hailed by the porter at the Étoile over there. Your fare was this gentleman’—he showed Sir William’s photograph. ‘Do you remember it?’ The man looked at the card. ‘Why yes, sir, I remembers ’im all right.’ ‘Where did you drive him to?’ ‘I’m blessed if I can remember the name, sir,’ the driver answered slowly, ‘It was to a little narrow street back of Gower Street. I ’adn’t ever been there before. The old gent, ’e directs me there, and tells me to set ’im down at the corner, and so I does. ’E was standing there when I saw ’im last.’ ‘Could you find the place again?’ ‘I believe I could, sir.’ ‘Then drive me there,’ said Tanner, entering the vehicle. The district they reached was a miserable, decaying part of town. The streets were narrow—mere lanes, and the buildings high and unusually drab and grimy even for a London backwater. The houses had been good at one time, but the place had now degenerated into a slum. ‘What in the name of wonder,’ thought Tanner, as he stood looking round at the depressing prospect, ‘could have brought Sir William here?’ He paid off his driver and began to investigate his surroundings. He was at a cross-roads, the broader street being labelled Dunlop Street, the other Pate’s Lane. In Dunlop Street were a few shops—a bar at the corner, a tobacconist’s, a grocer’s—all small, mean, and dirty. Pate’s Lane appeared entirely given up to tenement houses. Tanner felt utterly at a loss. He could form no conception of Sir William’s possible objective. Nor could he envisage any line of inquiry which might lead him to his goal. He seemed to be up against a blank wall, through which he could see no means of penetrating. He wondered if a former servant or mill worker might not live in the neighbourhood, with whom the manufacturer might have had business. But if so, and if by some incredible chance Tanner were to hit on the person in question, he felt he would be no further on, and that all knowledge of Sir William’s visit would almost certainly be concealed. However, he would learn nothing by standing in the street, and he walked to the bar at the nearest corner and entered.