her he was or was not in England? They said that when they had
last heard from him he was not.

Then I went down to Fleet Street, to his editor, my editor. He couldn't
give me Jevons's address because he hadn't got it. He rang up the office.
In the office they rather thought Jevons was in Belgium. They'd had a
manuscript from him posted at Ostend. They looked up the date. It was
three days ago.

I sailed that night for Ostend.

Of course I had no business to follow Jevons. He had a perfect right to
travel--to travel anywhere he liked, without interference from anybody.
And in fixing on a time to travel in, nothing was more likely than with
his mania upon him he would choose a time that had become valueless to
him--a time that he had no other use for, the time when Viola Thesiger
was away. The poverty of his resources was such that he couldn't afford
to waste any opportunity of seeing her. So that I really could not have
given any satisfactory answer if I had been asked why I had jumped to the
preposterous conclusion that, because they were away at the same time,
they were away together. It ought to have been as inconceivable to me as
it was to Reggie. I can only say that in following him I acted on an
intimation that amounted to certainty, founded on I know not what
underground flashes of illumination and secret fear.

I must have trusted to more flashes in pursing his trail. For when I
reached Folkestone there wasn't any trail at all. My only clue was that
three days ago Jevona had posted a manuscript at Ostend. He might not be
in Belgium at all. He might be in Holland or in France or Germany by this
time.

When we got to Ostend I made systematic inquiries at the Post Office and
at all probable hotels. At the eleventh hotel (a very humble one) I heard
that a "Mr. Chevons" had stayed there one night, three nights ago. No, he
had nobody with him. He had left no address. They didn't know where he
was going on to. I found out under another rubric that Englishmen never
came to this hotel. There was no point in making a separate search for
Viola; if my intuition held good, all I had to do was to find out where
Jevons was.

I went on to Bruges. Why, I cannot tell you. I had never heard either
Viola or Jevons say they would like to see Bruges. But Bruges was the
sort of place that people did like to see.

No trace of Jevons or of Viola in Bruges.

I went on to Antwerp (it was another of the likely places), and then, i