suspicion being entertained that Waife had separated himself from Sophy,
and the inquiry being therefore rather directed towards the grandchild
than the grandfather. But that inquiry had altogether ceased of late,
and for this terrible reason--a different section of the police had fixed
its eye upon the father on whose behalf the search had been instituted.
This Jasper Losely (ah! our poor friend might well shudder to think Sophy
should fall into his hands!) haunts the resorts of the most lawless and
formidable desperadoes of London. He appears to be a kind of authority
amongst them; but there is no evidence that as yet he has committed
himself to any participation in their habitual courses. He lives
profusely, for a person in such society (regaling Daredevils whom he awes
by a strength and courage which are described as extraordinary), but with
out any visible means. It seems that the ex-agent, who had been thus
previously employed in Jasper Losely's name, had been engaged, not by
Jasper himself, but by a person in very respectable circumstances, whose
name I have ascertained to be Poole. And the ex-agent deemed it right to
acquaint this Mr. Poole with Jasper's evil character and ambiguous mode
of life, and to intimate to his employer that it might not be prudent to
hold any connection with such a man, and still less proper to assist in
restoring a young girl to his care. On this Mr. Poole became so much
agitated, and expressed himself so incoherently as to his relations with
Jasper, that the ex-agent conceived suspicions against Poole himself, and
reported the whole circumstances to one of the chiefs of the former
service, through whom they reached the very man whom I myself was
employing. But this ex-agent, who had, after his last interview with
Poole, declined all further interference, had since then, through a
correspondent in a country town, whom he had employed at the first,
obtained a clue to my dear old friend's wanderings, more recent, and I
think more hopeful, than any I had yet discovered. You will remember
that when questioning Sophy as to any friends in her former life to whom