Waiting your turn in a dull cheerless room along with half a dozen more
people who always seem oil to your water or _vice versa_, so as to
insure non-mixing, is about one of the most unpleasant things in life.
It is bad enough at the doctor's, where you sit and wonder what is the
matter with your neighbours right or left, and whether their complaints
are infectious; but at a private-inquiry office at a busy time it is ten
times worse. There is such a general disposition evinced by everybody
to turn his back on everybody else; an act which the actor soon finds
out to be an utter impossibility; for though he gets on very well with
respect to two or three, he soon finds that, however clever a
mathematician he may be, he cannot place himself in the required
position; and, as a matter of course, he turns rusty, and resents the
presence of the other waiters--waiters, of course not in the hotel and
coffee-room sense of the term.
To do Charley Vining justice, he was as ill-tempered as any one present;
but he refrained from showing it, and tried to tranquillise his mind
into a state of wonderment as to the business of others present. Was
there any one seeking the address of some daughter or sister very
dear?--was any one moved by the tender passion? It did not seem like
it, judging from the countenances around.
One lady of vinegary aspect was evidently in search of a husband who had
vanished; while on the other side was a little squeezy mild man, who
might have come on a similar errand respecting a wife. The gentleman in
speckless black, with papers in his hand tied with red tape, looked
legal, and took snuff or pounce frequently from a small box, which he
tapped with considerable grace, so as to bring the dust from the corner
into a heap in the centre. His mission was evidently respecting a
legatee, heir-at-law, administrator, executor, or assign, whose presence
was necessary for the completion of some deed, document, or preamble as
aforesaid.
What a wheezy stout man wanted was doubtful; but it was evident that the
quiet-looking unassuming man who came out softly from the inner sanctum,
and in one glance took down and mentally recorded all who were present,
had something to do with order as well as law.
And it was so, in fact; for the quiet unassuming man was Mr Orger, of
the detective department of Great Scotland-yard, who, after a fortnight
of unavailing search for some gentleman who was wanted, did not think it
derogatory to his dignity to seek counsel--on the principle of two heads
being better than one--from his old friend and fellow-inspector Mr
Whittrick, of the detective force formerly, but now professionally
engaged upon his own account.
Charley's turn at last, just as he had come to the conclusion that he
would wait no longer, but call another day, when there were not so many
private inquirers.
Obeying a signal, he was shown into a well-furnished room with a couple
of tables, at one of which, whose top was covered with papers, sat a
very ordinary-looking man, in a black-velvet cap; at the other, which
bore a telegraphic dial, were a couple of clerks busily writing.
"Perhaps you will step this way," said the man of the black-velvet cap,
mentally photographing his visitor the while; and Charley followed him
to an inner room, where, taking the seat offered, he paid certain fees
and stated his case.
"Young lady--deep mourning--fair--grey eyes--luxuriant hair," muttered
the private-inquiry high-priest, as he took notes during Charley's
explanations, trying hard to suppress a smile as he saw his client's
earnestness. "Came up from Laneton on the 9th, to the South Midland
Terminus," he continued.
"Well, Mr Vining?"
"Well," said Charley, "I must have her address found!"
"The information you give is very meagre, sir," said Mr Whittrick
quietly.
"It is, I know," said Charley impetuously: "but I must have that
address.
"Here," he exclaimed, drawing out his porte-monnaie and placing a couple
of crisp new ten-pound notes upon the table, "do not stand for expense.
That is all I have with me; but tell me what you require, and you shall
have it."
"Thanks, sir," said Mr Whittrick quietly, as he transferred the notes
to his pocket-book, after entering the transaction and the numbers in a
book. "But you give us the credit of great powers, sir."
"Well," said Charley, "you have great powers: telegraphy and a cordon of
spies, I have no doubt. All you require is something to set the
mechanism at work, and I tell you frankly I am ready to supply that
something liberally."
"You would not consider those two notes ill spent for a little certain
information, I suppose, sir?"
"No, nor double!" said Charley hastily.
"Good," said Mr Whittrick; and rising, he took a whistle from the mouth
of a speaking-tube in the wall, whispered a few words, and then applied
his ear.
The answer came in half a minute; and then he gave some other order,
replugged the tube, and sitting down, made some remark touching the
present ministry.
"But I am keeping you," said Charley, who took the remark as an
intimation that he might go. "Tell me when I may come again?" he said,
rising.
"Stop a bit--stop a bit, Mr Vining: I never like doing things in a
hurry. Let's economise time; and we can now you are here," said Mr
Whittrick. "It may save my sending to Long's Hotel, and wasting time,
and men, and cab-hire, and perhaps not then to find you. I shall have a
reply directly to a question I have asked. And, besides, you have
entirely omitted to give me the young lady's age and name.--Ah, Smith,
that will do," he said, as a clerk entered the room with a sheet of
paper.
The clerk left the room; and then, after running through the manuscript
note, Mr Whittrick took out a double eyeglass, rubbed it leisurely, and
then fixed it by its spring upon the bridge of his nose.
"You'd be surprised, Mr Vining," he said, "what a deal of difficulty I
have to get clerks who write a plain legible hand. I'm a terrible
scrawler myself; but then my writing has to keep up with my thoughts,
and has to struggle hard, with the certainty of failure always before
it. But my clerks are well paid to do nothing else but copy; and really
at times, either from hurry or carelessness, their stuff is almost
undecipherable. But let me see; I think I have managed this, though."
"Is that anything relating to my search?" said Charley excitedly.
"Stop a minute, my dear sir, and we'll see," said Mr Whittrick; and
then he held the slip of paper in his hand as if about to read aloud.
Volume 2, Chapter XVIII.