ms
some where? Where, now?"

"Paper Buildings, Temple," replied the clerk. "He'd a suite of rooms
there--he's had 'em for years."

"Bachelor, then?" inquired the detective.

"Yes--he's a bachelor," agreed Simmons.

"You know he hasn't been at his rooms since Saturday--you've ascertained
that?" continued Starmidge.

"He's never been at his rooms since he left them after breakfast on
Saturday morning," replied Simmons. "I went there at eleven o'clock
Monday--that was yesterday--again at four: twice on Tuesday. I was
coming away from the Temple when I got the paper and read about this
affair."

"When did you see him last?" asked Starmidge.

"Half-past-twelve Saturday. He went out--dressed just as it says in your
description. And," concluded the clerk, with a shake of his head which
suggested his own inability to understand matters, "he never said a word
to me about coming down here."

"Did he say anything to anybody at his rooms about going away?--for the
week-end, for instance?" asked the detective. "There'd be somebody
there, of course."

"Only a woman who tidied up for him and got his breakfast ready of a
morning," said Simmons. "He took all his other meals out. No--he said
nothing to her. But he wasn't a week-ender: he very rarely left his
rooms except for the office."

"Any of his relations been after him?" inquired Starmidge.

"I don't know anything about his relations--nor friends, either,"
answered the clerk. "Don't even know the address of one of them, or I'd
have gone to seek him on Monday--everything's at a standstill. He was a
lonely sort of man--I never heard of his relations or friends."

"How long have you been with him, then?" asked the detective. "Some
time?"

"Six years," replied Simmons.

"And you've no doubt, from the description in the papers, that the
gentleman who came here on Saturday last is Mr. Hollis?" asked
Starmidge.

The clerk shook his head with an air of conviction.

"None!" he answered. "None whatever!"

Starmidge helped himself to a cigar out of an open box which lay on
Polke's table. He lighted it carefully, and smoked for a minute or two
in silence. Then he looked at Polke.

"Well, there's a very obvious question to put to Mr. Simmons after all
that," he remarked. "Have you any idea," he continued, turning to the
clerk, "of any reason that would bring Mr. Hollis to Scarnham?"

Simmons shook his head more vigorously than before.

"Not the ghost of an idea!" he