For Glassdale, according to all accounts, had known Braden intimately of late years, and was most likely in possession of facts about him--and Bryce had full confidence in himself as an interviewer of other men and a supreme belief that he could wheedle a secret out of anybody with whom he could procure an hour's quiet conversation.
As luck would have it, Bryce had no need to make a call upon the approachable and friendly Duke.

Outside the little village at Saxonsteade, on the edge of the deep woods which fringed the ducal park, stood an old wayside inn, a relic of the coaching days, which bore on its sign the ducal arms.

Into its old stone hall marched Bryce to refresh himself after his ride, and as he stood at the bow-windowed bar, he glanced into the garden beyond and there saw, comfortably smoking his pipe and reading the newspaper, the very man he was looking for.
Bryce had no spice of bashfulness, no want of confidence anywhere in his nature; he determined to attack Glassdale there and then.

But he took a good look at his man before going out into the garden to him.

A plain and ordinary sort of fellow, he thought; rather over middle age, with a tinge of grey in his hair and moustache; prosperous looking and well-dressed, and at that moment of the appearance of what he was probably taken for by the inn people--a tourist.