“A couple of days, then another, elapsed, and still no sign of Mr. Morton.  The police were doing their best.  The gentleman was so well known in Brighton—­as he had been a resident two years—­that it was not difficult to firmly establish the one fact that he had not left the city, since no one saw him in the station on the morning of the 17th, nor at any time since then.  Mild excitement prevailed throughout the town.  At first the newspapers took the matter somewhat jocosely.  ’Where is Mr. Morton?’ was the usual placard on the evening’s contents bills, but after three days had gone by and the worthy Brighton resident was still missing, while Mrs. Morton was seen to look more haggard and careworn every day, mild excitement gave place to anxiety.

“There were vague hints now as to foul play.  The news had leaked out that the missing gentleman was carrying a large sum of money on the day of his disappearance.  There were also vague rumours of a scandal not unconnected with Mrs. Morton herself and her own past history, which in her anxiety for her husband she had been forced to reveal to the detective-inspector in charge of the case.

“Then on Saturday the news which the late evening papers contained was this: 

“’Acting on certain information received, the police to-day forced an entrance into one of the rooms of Russell House, a high-class furnished apartment on the King’s Parade, and there they discovered our missing distinguished townsman, Mr. Francis Morton, who had been robbed and subsequently locked up in that room since Wednesday, the 17th.  When discovered he was in the last stages of inanition; he was tied into an arm-chair with ropes, a thick wool shawl had been wound round his mouth, and it is a positive marvel that, left thus without food and very little air, the unfortunate gentleman survived the horrors of these four days of incarceration.

“’He has been conveyed to his residence in Sussex Square, and we are pleased to say that Doctor Mellish, who is in attendance, has declared his patient to be out of serious danger, and that with care and rest he will be soon quite himself again.

“’At the same time our readers will learn with unmixed satisfaction that the police of our city, with their usual acuteness and activity, have already discovered the identity and whereabouts of the cowardly ruffian who committed this unparalleled outrage.’”

CHAPTER XXV

THE PRISONER

“I really don’t know,” continued the man in the corner blandly, “what it was that interested me in the case from the very first.  Certainly it had nothing very out of the way or mysterious about it, but I journeyed down to Brighton nevertheless, as I felt that something deeper and more subtle lay behind that extraordinary assault, following a robbery, no doubt.