All new faces, and on the door-plate, "Atkinson & Co." Then he went in, and asked for Mr.Bartley.
Name not known.
"Why, he used to be here.

I was in his employ." No; nobody knew Mr.Bartley.
Could he see Mr.Atkinson?
Certainly.

Mr.Atkinson would be there at two o'clock.
Monckton, after some preamble, asked whether he had not succeeded in this business to Mr.Robert Bartley.
No.

He had bought the business from Mrs.Duplex, a widow residing in this town, and he happened to know that her husband had taken it from Whitaker, a merchant at Boston.
"Is he alive, sir ?" "I believe so, and very well known." Monckton went off to Whitaker, and learned from him that he had bought the business from Bartley, but it was many years ago, and he had never heard of the purchaser since that day.
Monckton returned to London baffled.

What was he to do?
Go to a secret-inquiry office?
Advertise that if Mr.Robert Bartley, late of Hull, would write to a certain agent, he would hear of something to his advantage?
He did not much fancy either of these plans.