ion tortured me; if I went out I wanted to be back and see if
any communication had come. I tried repeatedly to see Tarvrille. I had
an idea of obtaining a complete outfit for an elopement, but I was
restrained by my entire ignorance of what a woman may need. I tried to
equip myself for a sudden crisis by the completest preparation of every
possible aspect. I did some absurd and ill-advised things. I astonished
a respectable solicitor in a grimy little office behind a queer little
court with trees near Cornhill, by asking him to give advice to an
anonymous client and then putting my anonymous case before him.
"Suppose," said I, "it was for the plot of a play." He nodded gravely.

My case as I stated it struck me as an unattractive one.

"Application for a Writ of Habeas Corpus," he considered with eyes that
tried to remain severely impartial, "by a Wife's Lover, who wants to
find out where she is.... It's unusual. You will be requiring the
husband to produce her Corpus.... I don't think--speaking in the same
general terms as those in which you put the circumstances, it would be
likely to succeed.... No."

Then I overcame a profound repugnance and went to a firm of private
detectives. It had occurred to me that if I could have Justin,
Tarvrille, Guy or Philip traced I might get a clue to Mary's
hiding-place. I remember a queer little office, a blusterous,
frock-coated creature with a pock-marked face, iron-grey hair, an
eyeglass and a strained tenor voice, who told me twice that he was a
gentleman and several times that he would prefer not to do business than
to do it in an ungentlemanly manner, and who was quite obviously ready
and eager to blackmail either side in any scandal into which spite or
weakness admitted his gesticulating fingers. He alluded vaguely to his
staff, to his woman helpers, "some personally attached to me," to his
remarkable underground knowledge of social life--"the illicit side."
What could he do for me? There was nothing, I said, illicit about me.
His interest waned a little. I told him that I was interested in
certain financial matters, no matter what they were, and that I wanted
to have a report of the movements of Justin and his brothers-in-law for
the past few weeks and for a little time to come. "You want them
watched?" said my private enquiry agent, leaning over the desk towards
me and betraying a slight squint. "Exactly," said I. "I want to know
what sort of things they are looking at ju