you know. We may get a bit of information
from that quarter--it's possible. If you like to meet me here at
twelve o'clock I'll tell you anything I've heard. Just now I'm going to
get some breakfast."

"I'll meet you here," said Spargo, "at twelve o'clock."

He watched Rathbury go away round one corner; he himself suddenly set
off round another. He went to the _Watchman_ office, wrote a few lines,
which he enclosed in an envelope for the day-editor, and went out
again. Somehow or other, his feet led him up Fleet Street, and before
he quite realized what he was doing he found himself turning into the
Law Courts.

CHAPTER THREE

THE CLUE OF THE CAP

Having no clear conception of what had led him to these scenes of
litigation, Spargo went wandering aimlessly about in the great hall and
the adjacent corridors until an official, who took him to be lost,
asked him if there was any particular part of the building he wanted.
For a moment Spargo stared at the man as if he did not comprehend his
question. Then his mental powers reasserted themselves.

"Isn't Mr. Justice Borrow sitting in one of the courts this morning?"
he suddenly asked.

"Number seven," replied the official. "What's your case--when's it
down?"

"I haven't got a case," said Spargo. "I'm a pressman--reporter, you
know."

The official stuck out a finger.

"Round the corner--first to your right--second on the left," he said
automatically. "You'll find plenty of room--nothing much doing there
this morning."

He turned away, and Spargo recommenced his apparently aimless
perambulation of the dreary, depressing corridors.

"Upon my honour!" he muttered. "Upon my honour, I really don't know
what I've come up here for. I've no business here."

Just then he turned a corner and came face to face with Ronald Breton.
The young barrister was now in his wig and gown and carried a bundle of
papers tied up with pink tape; he was escorting two young ladies, who
were laughing and chattering as they tripped along at his side. And
Spargo, glancing at them meditatively, instinctively told himself which
of them it was that he and Rathbury had overheard as she made her
burlesque speech: it was not the elder one, who walked by Ronald Breton
with something of an air of proprietorship, but the younger, the girl
with the laughing eyes and the vivacious smile, and it suddenly dawned
upon him that somewhere, deep within him, there had been a notion, a
hope of seeing