The Lost House | Page 6

of the police, was only too
happy to escape on such easy terms. After Ford had given him a pound
on account, they parted.
From Wimpole Street the amateur detective went to the nearest public
telephone and called up Gerridge's Hotel. He considered his first step
should be to discover if Mr. Pearsall was at that hotel, or had ever
stopped there. When the 'phone was answered, he requested that a
message be delivered to Mr. Pearsall.
"Please tell him," he asked, "that the clothes he ordered are ready to try
on."
He was informed that no one by that name was at the hotel. In a voice
of concern Ford begged to know when Mr. Pearsall had gone away, and
had he left any address.
He was with you three weeks ago," Ford insisted. "He's an American
gentleman, and there was a lady with him. She ordered a riding-habit of
us: the same time he was measured for his clothes."
After a short delay, the voice from the hotel replied that no one of the
name of Pearsall had been at the hotel that winter.
In apparent great disgust Ford rang off, and took a taxicab to his rooms
in Jermyn Street. There he packed a suit-case and drove to Gerridge's.
It was a quiet, respectable, "old- established" house in Craven Street, a
thoroughfare almost entirely given over to small family hotels much
frequented by Americans.
After he had registered and had left his bag in his room, Ford returned
to the office, and in an assured manner asked that a card on which he
had written "Henry W. Page, Dalesville, Kentucky," should be taken to
Mr. Pearsall.
In a tone of obvious annoyance the proprietor returned the card, saying
that there was no one of that name in the hotel, and added that no such

person had ever stopped there. Ford expressed the liveliest distress.
"He TOLD me I'd find him here," he protested., "he and his niece."
With the garrulousness of the American abroad, he confided his
troubles to the entire staff of the hotel. "We're from the same town," he
explained. "That's why I must see him. He's the only man in London I
know, and I've spent all my money. He said he'd give me some he owes
me, as soon as I reached London. If I can't get it, I'll have to go home
by Wednesday's steamer. And, complained bitterly, "I haven't seen the
nor the Tower, nor Westminster Abbey."
In a moment, Ford's anxiety to meet Mr. Pearsall was apparently lost in
a wave of self-pity. In his disappointment he appealing, pathetic figure.
Real detectives and rival newspaper men, even while they admitted
Ford obtained facts that were denied them, claimed that they were
given him from charity. Where they bullied, browbeat, and
administered a third degree, Ford was embarrassed, deprecatory, an
earnest, ingenuous, wide-eyed child. What he called his "working"
smile begged of you not to be cross with him. His simplicity was
apparently so hopeless, his confidence in whomever he addressed so
complete, that often even the man he was pursuing felt for him a
pitying contempt. Now as he stood uncertainly in the hall of the hotel,
his helplessness moved the proud lady clerk to shake her cylinders of
false hair sympathetically, the German waiters to regard his
predicament with respect; even the proprietor, Mr. Gerridge himself,
was ill at ease. Ford returned to his room, on the second floor of the
hotel, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
In connecting Pearsall with Gerridge's, both the police and himself had
failed. Of this there were three possible explanations: that the girl who
wrote the letter was in error, that the letter was a hoax, that the
proprietor of the hotel, for some reason, was protecting Pearsall, and
had deceived both Ford and Scotland Yard. On the other hand, without
knowing why the girl believed Pearsall would be found at Gerridge's, it
was reasonable to assume that in so thinking she had been purposely
misled. The question was, should he or not dismiss Gerridge's as a
possible clew, and at once devote himself to finding the house in
Sowell Street? He decided for the moment at least, to leave Gerridge's
out of his calculations, but, as an excuse for returning there, to still
retain his room. He at once started toward Sowell Street, and in order to

find out if any one from the hotel were following him, he set forth on
foot. As soon as he made sure he was not spied upon, he covered the
remainder of the distance in a cab.
He was acting on the supposition that the letter was no practical joke,
but a genuine cry for help. Sowell Street was a scene set for