Instantly Mr. Blake stopped, looked at him blankly for a moment, then replied in a tone sufficiently loud for me to hear: 

“I am sorry, sir, if my description could have done you any good, but I have not the remotest idea how the girl looked.  I did not know till this morning even, that there was such a person in my house as a sewing-woman.  I leave all such domestic concerns entirely with Mrs. Daniels.”

Mr. Gryce again bowed low and ventured another question.  The answer came as before, distinctly to my ears.

“O, I may have seen her, I can not say about that; I very often run across the servants in the hall; but whether she is tall or short, light or dark, pretty or ugly, I know no more than you do, sir.”  Then with a dignified nod calculated to abash a man in Mr. Gryce’s position, inquired,

“Is that all?”

It did not seem to be, Mr. Gryce put another question.

Mr. Blake give him a surprised stare before replying, then courteously remarked,

“I do not concern myself with servants after they have left me.  Henry was an excellent valet, but a trifle domineering, something which I never allow in any one who approaches me.  I dismissed him and that was the end of it, I know nothing of what has become of him.”

Mr. Gryce bowed and drew back, and Mr. Blake, with the haughty step peculiar to him, passed by him and reentered his house.

“I should not like to get into that man’s clutches,” said I, as my superior rejoined me; “he has a way of making one appear so small.”

Mr. Gryce shot an askance look at his shadow gloomily following him along the pavement.  “Yet it may happen that you will have to run the risk of that very experience.”

I glanced towards him in amazement.

“If the girl does not turn up of her own accord, or if we do not succeed in getting some trace of her movements, I shall be tempted to place you where you can study into the ways of this gentleman’s household.  If the affair is a mystery, it has its centre in that house.”

I stared at Mr. Gryce good and roundly.  “You have come across something which I have missed,” observed I, “or you could not speak so positively.”

“I have come across nothing that was not in plain sight of any body who had eyes to see it,” he returned shortly.

I shook my head slightly mortified.

“You had it all before you,” continued he, “and if you were not able to pick up sufficient facts on which to base a conclusion, you mustn’t blame me for it.”

More nettled than I would be willing to confess, I walked back with him to the station, saying nothing then, but inwardly determined to reestablish my reputation with Mr. Gryce before the affair was over.  Accordingly hunting up the man who had patrolled the district the night before, I inquired if he had seen any one go in or out of the side gate of Mr. Blake’s house on ----- street, between the hours of eleven and one.