watch after a stare of kindly consternation.

"I really am rather rushed," said he; "but I can give you four minutes, if
that's any good to you."

Now, at first sight, before a word was spoken, Mr. Upton would have said
four hours or four days of that boiled salmon in spectacles would have
been no good to him; but the precise term of minutes, together with a
seemlier but not less decisive manner, had already quickened the business
man's respect for another whose time was valuable. This is by no means to
say that Thrush had won him over in a breath. But the following
interchange took place rapidly.

"I understand you're a detective, Mr. Thrush?"

"Hardly that, Mr.----I've left your card in the other room."

"Upton is my name, sir."

"I don't aspire to the official designation, Mr. Upton, an inquiry agent
is all I presume to call myself."

"But you do inquire into mysteries?"

"I've dabbled in them."

"As an amateur?"

"A paid amateur, I fear."

"I come on a serious matter, Mr. Thrush--a very serious matter to me!"

"Pardon me if I seem anything else for a moment; as it happens, you catch
me dabbling, or rather meddling, in a serious case which is none of my
business, but strictly a matter for the police, only it happens to have
come my way by a fluke. I am not a policeman, but a private inquisitor.
If you want anything or anybody ferreted out, that's my job and I should
put it first."

"Mr. Thrush, that's exactly what I do want, if only you can do it for me!
I had reason to fear, from what I heard this morning, that my youngest
child, a boy of sixteen, had disappeared up here in London, or been
decoyed away. And now there can be no doubt about it!"

So, in about one of the allotted minutes, Thrush was trusted on grounds
which Mr. Upton could not easily have explained; but the time was up
before he had concluded a briefly circumstantial report of the facts
within his knowledge.

"When can I see you again?" he asked abruptly of Thrush.

"When? What do you mean, Mr. Upton?"

"The four minutes must be more than up."

"Go on, my dear sir, and don't throw good time after bad. I'm only dining
with a man at his club. He can wait."

"Thank you, Mr. Thrush."

"More good time! How do you know the boy hasn't turned up at school or at
home while you've been fizzing in a cloud of dust?"

"I was to have a wire at the hotel I always stop at; there's nothing
there; but the first thing they told me was th