It was not until he had pocketed the half-crown Charles gave him that he added a piece of information of some importance.

“You’re not the first who’s been inquiring about this particular young lady,” he said.  “There was somebody before you—­let me see—­Thursday it was.  He came strolling along, affable as you please, and seemed to know all about it before he started.  ’That young lady who arrived by the Cornwall train on Tuesday night, porter, and asked you the way to Euston Square—­what was she like?’ That took me back a bit, but I told him, just as I’ve told you.  He asked me another question or two, and then went into the station-master’s office.”

“What was he like?”

“Not much older than yourself, in a brown suit, tall and thin, with sharpish features and quick smiling eyes.”

Barrant!  Charles recognized the description with a sinking heart.  He turned away with a sickening sense of the impotence of his own efforts.  Scotland Yard was searching for Sisily, and no doubt had warned all the London police to look out for her.  She might be arrested any minute.  Outside the station he bought an evening paper from a yelling newsboy, and hastily scanned the headlines under the flare of a street lamp.  There was nothing about the Cornwall murder.  So far they were safe.  His own departure from Cornwall had apparently caused no suspicion, and Sisily was still free—­somewhere in London.

Where?  To find her—­that was his task.  He rallied sharply from his despondency.  He would pit himself against the police.  A desperate man, guided by love, could do much—­might even outwit the tremendous forces of Scotland Yard.  He would not be worthy of Sisily if he lost heart because the odds were against him.  Fortune’s wheel might have a lucky turn in store for him.

He beckoned a passing taxi-cab.  “Euston Square,” he said as he entered.  That was obviously the next point of his search.

But Fortune vouchsafed him no more favours that day.  His dive into the crowded depths of Euston Square brought forth no result—­no clue which would help in his search.  He interviewed many keepers of the “temperance hotels” and boarding-houses which abounded in that quarter, all sorts of women, but all alike in their quick suspicious resentment of his guarded inquiries and in their pretended ignorance of past visitors to their dingy portals.  He had little experience of the embittered sordid outlook of a class which earned its own bread by supplying indifferent food and shelter to London’s floating population, but after his fiftieth repulse he had no difficulty in reaching the conclusion that the police were again ahead of him with their inquiries.