“I don’t know that you can do anything for me,” said Mr. Carr, seating himself; “but I hope you can.  At the present moment I am engaged in sifting a piece of complicated business for a friend; a private matter entirely, which it is necessary to keep private.  I am greatly interested in it myself, as you may readily believe, when it is keeping me from circuit.  Indeed it may almost be called my own affair,” he added, observing the eyes of the lawyer fixed upon him, and not caring they should see into his business too clearly.  “I fancy you have a clerk, or had a clerk, who is cognizant of one or two points in regard to it:  can you put me in the way of finding out where he is?  His name is Gordon.”

“Gordon!  We have no clerk of that name.  Never had one, that I remember.  How came you to fancy it?”

“I heard it from my own clerk, Taylor.  One day last week I happened to say before him that I’d give a five-pound note out of my pocket to get at the present whereabouts of this man Gordon.  Taylor is a shrewd fellow; full of useful bits of information, and knows, I really believe, three-fourths of London by name.  He immediately said a young man of that name was with Messrs. Kedge and Reck, of Gray’s Inn, either as clerk, or in some other capacity; and when he described this clerk of yours, I felt nearly sure that it was the man I am looking for.  I got Taylor to make inquiries, and he did, I believe, of one of your clerks; but he could learn nothing, except that no one of that name was connected with you now.  Taylor persists that he is or was connected with you; and so I thought the shortest plan to settle the matter was to ask yourselves.”

“We have no clerk of that name,” repeated Mr. Kedge, pushing back some papers on the table.  “Never had one.”

“Understand,” said Mr. Carr, thinking it just possible the lawyer might be mistaking his motives, “I have nothing to allege against the man, and do not seek to injure him.  The real fact is, that I do not want to see him or to be brought into personal contact with him; I only want to know whether he is in London, and, if so, where?”

“I assure you he is not connected with us,” repeated Mr. Kedge.  “I would tell you so in a moment if he were.”

“Then I can only apologise for having troubled you,” said the barrister, rising.  “Taylor must have been mistaken.  And yet I would have backed his word, when he positively asserts a thing, against the world.  I hardly ever knew him wrong.”

Mr. Kedge was playing with the locket on his watch-chain, his head bent in thought.

“Wait a moment, Mr. Carr.  I remember now that we took a clerk temporarily into the office in the latter part of last year.  His writing did not suit, and we kept him only a week or two.  I don’t know what his name was, but it might have been Gordon.”

“Do you remember what sort of a man he was?” asked Mr. Carr, somewhat eagerly.

“I really do not.  You see, I don’t come much into contact with our clerks.  Reck does; but he’s not here to-day.  I fancy he had red hair.”