d hear to-day--knew it, by
James! Sent you for me, has he, eh? Is he coming himself or does he
want me to go to him? Speak up, and--Good Lord! what's the matter
with you? What's up? Anything wrong?"

Dollops had turned the colour of an under-baked biscuit and was
looking at him with eyes of absolute despair.

"Sir," he said, moving quickly forward and speaking in the breathless
manner of a spent runner--"Sir, I was a-hopin' it was a fake, and
to hear you speak like that--Gawd's truth, guv'ner, you don't mean
as it's real, sir, do you? That _you_ don't know either?"

"Know? Know what?"

"Where he is--wot's become of him? Mr. Cleek, the guv'ner, sir.
I made sure that you'd know if anybody would. That's wot made me
come, sir. I'd 'a' gone off me bloomin' dot if I hadn't--after you
a-puttin' in that Personal and him never a-turnin' up like he'd
ort. Sir, do you mean to say as you don't know _where_ he is, and
haven't seen him even yet?"

"No, I've not. Good Lord! haven't you?"

"No, sir. I aren't clapped eyes on him since he sent me off to the
bloomin' seaside six months ago. All he told me when we come to part
was that Miss Lorne was goin' out to India on a short visit to Cap'n
and Mrs. 'Awksley--Lady Chepstow as was, sir--and that directly
she was gone he'd be knockin' about for a time on his own, and I
wasn't to worry over him. I haven't seen hide nor hair of him, sir,
since that hour."

"Nor heard from him?" Narkom's voice was thick and the hand he laid
on the chair-back hard shut.

"Oh, yes, sir, I've heard--I'd have gone off my bloomin' dot if I
hadn't done _that_. Heard from him twice. Once when he wrote and
gimme my orders about the new place he's took up the river--four
weeks ago. The second time, last Friday, sir, when he wrote me the
thing that's fetched me here--that's been tearin' the heart out of me
ever since I heard at Charing Cross about wot's happened at Clarges
Street, sir."

"And what was that?"

"Why, sir, he wrote that he'd jist remembered about some papers as
he'd left behind the wainscot in his old den, and that he'd get the
key and drop in at the old Clarges Street house on the way 'ome.
Said he'd arrive in England either yesterday afternoon or this one,
sir; but whichever it was, he'd wire me from Dover before he took
the train. And he never done it, sir--my Gawd! he never done it in
this world!"

"Good God!" Narkom flung out the words in a sort of panic, his lips
twitching, his wh