“He behaved to her very handsomely.  At this moment she is living in a pleasant little villa out Leatherhead way.  You see her driving herself in a little donkey-carriage, and throwing bits of meat to pussy-cats at the cottage doors.  Touch of nature that, isn’t it?  By the by, you were speaking of a family named Gildersleeve.”

He added this, absently looking about the little room, which just now they had to themselves.

“Know anything about them?” asked Gammon, eyeing him curiously.

“I was just going to say—­ah, yes, to be sure, the Gildersleeves.  Now I wonder, Gammon—­forgive me, I can’t help wondering—­why this family interests you.”

“Oh, nothing.  I came across the name.”

“Evidently.”  Greenacre’s tone became a little more positive.  “I’m sure you have no objection to telling me how and where you came across it.”

Gammon had an uncomfortable sense of something unfamiliar in his friend.  Greenacre had never spoken in this way to him; it sounded rather too imperative, too much the tone of a superior.

“I don’t think I can tell you that,” he said awkwardly.

“No?  Really?  I’m sorry.  In that case I can’t tell you anything that I have learnt.  Yet I fancy it might be worth your while to exchange.”

“Exchange?”

“Your information for mine, you know.  What I have is substantial, reliable.  I think you can trust me in matters of genealogy.  Come now.  Am I right in supposing this curiosity of yours is not altogether unconnected with Your interest in Francis Quodling the silk broker?  Nothing to me, Gammon; nothing, I assure you.  Pure love of genealogical inquiry.  Never made a penny out of such things in my life.  But I have taken a little trouble, etc.  As a matter of friendship—­no?  Then we’ll drop the subject.  By the by have you a black-and-tan to dispose of?”

He passed into a vein so chatty and so amiable that Gammon began to repent of distrusting him.  Besides, his information might be really valuable and could not easily be obtained in any other way.

“Look here, Greenacre, I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you.  The fact is, a man I used to know has disappeared, and I want to find him.  He was seen at the theatre with a lady who lives at that house; that’s the long and the short of it.”

“Good!  Now we’re getting on in the old way.  Age of the man about fifty, eh?  And if I remember you said he was like Quodling in the face, Francis Quodling?  Just so.  H’m.  I can assure you, then, that no such individual lives at the house we’re speaking of.”

“No, but perhaps—­”

“One moment.  The Gildersleeves are a young married couple.  With them lives an older lady—­”

Greenacre paused, meditating.

“The name of the missing man?” he added gently.

“Fellow called Clover.”

“Clover—­clover? Clo—­”

Greenacre’s first repetition of the name was mechanical, the next sounded a note of confused surprise, the third broke short in a very singular way, just as if his eyes had suddenly fallen on something which startled him into silence.  Yet no one had entered the room, no face had appeared at the door.