Universal Safe Deposit, and a quarter past nine, when he sat down by
Webster's side in the lobby of the House of Commons, nobody seemed to
have any recollection of him except Mr. Fiskie, the hatter, and he only
remembered him faintly, and because Marbury had bought a fashionable
cloth cap at his shop. At any rate, by noon of that day, nobody had
come forward with any recollection of him. He must have gone West from
seeing Myerst, because he bought his cap at Fiskie's; he must
eventually have gone South-West, because he turned up at Westminster.
But where else did he go? What did he do? To whom did he speak? No
answer came to these questions.

"That shows," observed young Mr. Ronald Breton, lazing an hour away in
Spargo's room at the _Watchman_ at that particular hour which is
neither noon nor afternoon, wherein even busy men do nothing, "that
shows how a chap can go about London as if he were merely an ant that
had strayed into another ant-heap than his own. Nobody notices."

"You'd better go and read up a little elementary entomology, Breton,"
said Spargo. "I don't know much about it myself, but I've a pretty good
idea that when an ant walks into the highways and byways of a colony to
which he doesn't belong he doesn't survive his intrusion by many
seconds."

"Well, you know what I mean," said Breton. "London's an ant-heap, isn't
it? One human ant more or less doesn't count. This man Marbury must
have gone about a pretty tidy lot during those six hours. He'd ride on
a 'bus--almost certain. He'd get into a taxi-cab--I think that's much
more certain, because it would be a novelty to him. He'd want some
tea--anyway, he'd be sure to want a drink, and he'd turn in somewhere
to get one or the other. He'd buy things in shops--these Colonials