"The Morning Post.
Also he took the World, Truth, Modern Society, and M. A. P.
He was fond of the fashionable intelligence."
"Oh, he was, was he?
Would you have called him a gentleman?"
"He always paid his rent duly," hesitated Mrs. Benker, "so far he was a perfect gentleman.
But I have lived as a lady's maid in the best families, sir, and I don't think Mr. Wilson was what you or I would call an aristocrat."
"I see.
So you were a lady's maid once. In what families?"
Mrs. Benker was not at all averse to relating her better days, and did so with pride.
"I was with the Countess of Flint, with Mrs. Harwitch, and with Lady Susan Summersdale."
"Ha!" said Steel, starting. He remembered that Morley had been concerned with Lady Summersdale about the robbery of her jewels. "Did you tell Mr. Wilson this?" he asked.
"Oh, yes.
We had long talks about aristocratic families."
She repeated several tales she had told Wilson, and Steel asked her many questions.
When he took his leave he asked a leading one:
"Did Mr. Wilson wear a red cross as an ornament?"
"On his watch-chain he did," said Mrs. Benker, and Steel departed very satisfied with his day's work. _____
CHAPTER X
ON A FRESH TRAIL
If Giles Ware had not been desperately in love and desperately anxious to find Anne Denham, he would scarcely have gone to Paris on such a wild-goose chase.
The postmark on the letter showed that she was, or she had been, in the French capital; but to find her in that immense city was like looking for a haystack in a league-long desert.
However, Ware had an idea—foolish enough—that some instinct would guide him to her side, and, therefore, as soon as he recovered sufficiently to travel he crossed the Channel with Trim.
He left Rickwell about three weeks after his interview with Morley. Time enough, as he well knew, for Anne to change her place of residence.
But he trusted to luck.
For quite a fortnight he explored the city, accompanied by the faithful old servant.
Trim had sharp eyes, and would be certain to recognize Anne if she came within eyesight.
But in spite of their vigilance and observation, the two saw no one even distantly resembling Anne.
Certainly if Giles had gone to the authorities, who take note of all who come and go, he might have been more successful.
But knowing that Anne was wanted by the English police, he did not dare to adopt this method.
He was forced to rely entirely on himself, and his search resulted in nothing.
"It ain't no good, Master Giles," said Trim for at least the tenth time; "we've lost the scent somehow.
Better go back to London.
I don't want you to be ill over here, sir, with nothing but foreign doctors to look after you."
"I shan't leave Paris until I am certain that she is not in the place," declared Ware resolutely.
"Well, sir, I don't know how much more certain you wants to be.
We've tramped them bullyvardes and Chamy Elizas till our feet are near dropping off.
You're looking a shadow, Master Giles, if you'll excuse an old man as nursed you when you were a baby.
She ain't here.
Now I shouldn't be surprised if she were in London," said Trim wisely.
"What, in the very jaws of the lion?
Nonsense!"
"Oh, but is it, sir?
I always heard it said by them as knows that the jaws of the lion is the very last place any one expects to find them." Trim did not state what "them" he meant. "If she went back to Rickwell she would be safe, especially if she laid up in some cottage and called herself a widder."
"Trim, you've been reading detective novels!"
"Not me, sir; I ain't got no time.
But about this going back——"
"We'll go back to-morrow, Trim," said Ware, with sudden resolution. And Trim joyfully departed to pack.
It just struck Giles that after all Trim might be right, and that having thrown the police off the scent by going abroad in the yacht, Anne might return to London.
She might be there now, living in some quiet suburb, while the police were wasting their time corresponding with the French authorities.