save his man-of-all-work, the mute. Secondly, he had lived in a portion
of the city where no neighbors were possible; and he had even lacked, as
it now seemed, any very active friends. Though some hours had elapsed
since his death had been noised abroad, no one had appeared at the door
with inquiries or information. This seemed odd, considering that he had
been for some months a marked figure in this quarter of the town. But,
then, everything about this man was odd, nor would it have been in
keeping with his surroundings and peculiar manner of living for him to
have had the ordinary associations of men of his class.

This absence of the usual means of eliciting knowledge from the
surrounding people, added to, rather than detracted from, the interest
which Mr. Gryce was bound to feel in the case, and it was with a feeling
of relief that a little before midnight he saw the army of reporters,
medical men, officials, and such others as had followed in the coroner's
wake, file out of the front door and leave him again, for a few hours at
least, master of the situation.

For there were yet two points which he desired to settle before he took
his own much-needed rest. The first occupied his immediate attention.
Passing before a chair in the hall on which a small boy sat dozing, he
roused him with the remark:

"Come, Jake, it's time to look lively. I want you to go with me to the
exact place where that lady ran across you to-day."

The boy, half dead with sleep, looked around him for his hat.

"I'd like to see my mother first," he pleaded. "She must be done up
about me. I never stayed away so long before."