I'm only local agent--as it
were."
"Had any response, Mr. Eldrick?" asked Pratt, throwing aside the paper.
"Any one come forward?"
"Yes," answered Eldrick, watching Pratt narrowly without seeming to do
so. "This morning, a man named Murgatroyd, in Peel Row, who does a bit
of shipping agency, wired to Halstead & Byner to say that he booked
Parrawhite to New York last November. Of course, they at once
communicated with me, and I've just been to see Murgatroyd. He's that
man--watchmaker--we had some proceedings against last year."
"Oh, that man!" said Pratt. "Thought the name was familiar. I remember
him. And what does he say?"
"Just about as much as--and little more than--he said in his wire to
London," replied Eldrick. "Booked Parrawhite to America November 24th
last, and believes he left for Liverpool there and then."
"Ah!" remarked Pratt, "That explains it, then?"
"Explains--what?" asked Eldrick.
Pratt gave his old employer a look--confidential and significant.
"Explains why he took that money out of your desk," he said. "You
remember--forty odd pounds. He'd use some of that for his passage-money.
America eh? Now--I suppose he's vanished for good, then--it's not very
likely he'll ever be heard of from across there."
Eldrick laughed--meaningly, of set purpose.
"We don't know that he's gone there," he observed.
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