"Then you will not be able to take us out?" Millicent said.

"I trust to do so later on, but I cannot say how long I shall be engaged. However, I hope to get away so as to go out with you after lunch, and may possibly be able to postpone my getting regularly to work until after you have gone, so as to be able to devote myself to your service."

"But what sort of work? I cannot make out how you are going to begin."

"I can tell you this much, that to begin with I shall go in company with a constable to various places where such a man is likely to be found. It will take some time to acquaint myself with all these localities; the next step will be to find out, if possible, if anyone at all answering to his description is in the habit of coming there occasionally, and whom he visits; another thing will be to find out the places where receivers of stolen goods do their business, and to watch those with whom highwaymen are suspected of having dealings. All this, you see, will entail a lot of work, and require a very large amount of patience. Of course, if nothing whatever comes of such inquiries, I shall have to try quiet places in the suburbs; you must remember that this fellow during his time as a convict must have had opportunities of getting a vast amount of information likely to be useful to him, such as the addresses of men holding positions of apparent respectability, and yet in alliance with thieves. You may be sure that when he returned he took every imaginable pains to obtain a safe place of concealment before he began his work; my own opinion is that I am more likely to find him living quietly in a suburban cottage than in a London slum."