He went to the office and saw the proprietor. The latter was a tall weedy individual, dilapidated looking as his own hotel. But he spoke civilly, and exerted himself to answer the Inspector’s questions, calling in various maids, and an untidy waiter for the latter’s interrogations. Unfortunately, none of them could tell anything Tanner had not already learned. The man had registered ‘William Douglas, Fulham Street, Birmingham,’ and with the proprietor’s permission Tanner cut out and pocketed the leaf. Then he asked to see the room the visitor had occupied. It was a small apartment on the fourth floor, supplied with the minimum of cheap, rickety furniture. The bed was not made up, and dust lay thick everywhere. ‘It hasn’t been occupied recently?’ ‘Not since Mr Douglas had it,’ the proprietor admitted. ‘I’ll just take a look round, if you don’t mind,’ said Tanner. ‘Don’t let me keep you. I’ll follow you to the office in a minute or two.’ Left to himself Inspector Tanner began one of his careful, painstaking examinations. The entire contents of the room were minutely inspected. Every inch of the carpet and the cracks between the floor boards were examined in the hope of finding some small object which might have been dropped. The drawers of the small wardrobe, the bedclothes, the dressing-table and washstand, all were gone through with the utmost care, but with no result. At last to complete his task the searcher turned his attention to the fireplace. A broken Japanese fan was stuck in the old-fashioned grate, and only partially concealed a litter of matches, scraps of paper, bits of cord and other debris. Tanner lifted out the fan and began to go through the rubbish with the same scrupulous care. And then his perseverance was rewarded. Among the papers he found the charred remains of an envelope which at once interested him. It was more than half burnt, a triangular portion with the stamp on one corner only remaining. As he picked it up it struck him it was of unusually good quality to find in a room of that description—thick, cream-laid paper, which only a well-to-do person would have used. A few letters at the end of each line of the address remained visible. But at these he hardly glanced at first, his attention being riveted on the postmark. The letters were slightly blurred, but still he could read it clearly—‘HALFORD 4 PM 2 JY 20.’ [Illustration: Part of an envelope’s right-hand side, showing a postmark and the ends of four words.] As he looked at the large, firm calligraphy of the address, the suggestion this name conveyed to him was confirmed—the envelope had been written by Sir William Ponson. He examined the mutilated address. It contained four lines, and from three to five letters remained at the end of each. It was clearly not that of the hotel, and it therefore might, if decipherable, lead to the discovery of the man in question.