“None at all, madam,” was the somewhat depressed admission.  “I am afraid that something must have happened to him.  He was not the kind of gentleman to go away like this and leave no word behind him.”

“Still,” she advised cheerfully, “I shouldn’t despair.  More wonderful things have happened than that your master should return home to-morrow or the next day with a perfectly simple explanation of his absence.”

“I should be very glad to see him, madam,” the man replied, as he backed towards the door.  “If I can be of any assistance, perhaps you will ring.”

The valet departed, closing the door behind him.  Catherine looked around the room into which they had been ushered, with a little frown.  It was essentially a man’s sitting room, but it was well and tastefully furnished, and she was astonished at the immense number of books, pamphlets and Reviews which crowded the walls and every available space.  The Derby desk still stood open, there was a typewriter on a special stand, and a pile of manuscript paper.

“What on earth,” she murmured, “could Mr. Orden have wanted with a typewriter!  I thought journalism was generally done in the offices of a newspaper—­the sort of journalism that he used to undertake.”

“Nice little crib, isn’t it?” Fenn remarked, glancing around.  “Cosy little place, I call it.”

Something in the man’s expression as he advanced towards her brought all the iciness back to her tone and manner.

“It is a pleasant apartment,” she said, “but I am not at all sure that I like being here, and I certainly dislike our errand.  It does not seem credible that, if the police have already searched, we should find the packet here.”

“The police don’t know what to look for,” he reminded her.  “We do.”

There was apparently very little delicacy about Mr. Fenn.  He drew a chair to the desk and began to look through a pile of papers, making running comments as he did so.

“Hm!  Our friend seems to have been quite a collector of old books.  I expect second-hand booksellers found him rather a mark.  Some fellow here thanking him for a loan.  And here’s a tailor’s bill.  By Jove, Miss Abbeway, just listen to this! `One dress suit-fourteen guineas!’ That’s the way these fellows who don’t know any better chuck their money about,” he added, swinging around in his chair towards her.  “The clothes I have on cost me exactly four pounds fifteen cash, and I guarantee his were no better.”

Catherine frowned impatiently.

“We did not come here, did we, Mr. Fenn, to discuss Mr. Orden’s tailor’s bill?  I can see no object at all in going through his correspondence in this way.  What you have to search for is a packet wrapped up in thin yellow oilskin, with `Number 17’ on the outside in black ink.”

“Oh, he might have slipped it in anywhere,” Fenn pointed out.  “Besides, there’s always a chance that one of his letters may give us a clue as to where he has hidden the document.  Come and sit down by the side of me, won’t you, Miss Abbeway?  Do!”