When I sent him a telegram from Fairtown, merely requesting him to join
me there, I felt certain he would come by the first available train, and
was at the station to meet him.

"Fine, invigorating air this, Wigan," he remarked. "Is there really a
case for us to deal with, or did you merely telegraph for the purpose of
giving me a holiday?"

"The case is for you rather than for me. I am still--"

"Still waiting for something to turn up in the Beverley affair?" he
asked.

"Were I answering a layman, or even a rival detective, I should look very
wise and talk indefinitely of clues; to you I will admit a blank ten
days, not a forward step in any direction whatever."

"So you send for me."

"Upon a different matter altogether," I returned.

I had come to Fairtown ten days ago on the lookout for a man named
Beverley. His friends were anxious about him, and said they believed he
was suffering from a loss of memory; the police had reason to suspect
that he was implicated in some company-promoting frauds, and thought the
family only wanted to find him to get him out of the country. His people
were certainly not aware that I was looking for him in Fairtown, and I
need not go into the reasons which made me expect to run my quarry to
earth in this particular spot; they were sound ones, or I should not have
spent ten days on the job.