Now he must study it in a very different spirit, and for the nonce he repaired betimes to the newspaper room at the British Museum.
By midday he had mastered most details of the complex case, and made a note of every name and address which had found their way into the newspaper reports.

But there was one name which did not appear in any account.

Langholm sought it in bound volume after bound volume, until even the long-suffering attendants, who trundle the great tomes from their shelves on trolleys, looked askance at the wanton reader who filled in a new form every five or ten minutes.

But the reader's face shone with a brighter light at each fresh failure.

Why had the name he wanted never come up in open court?
Where was the evidence of the man who had made all the mischief between the Minchins?
Langholm intended having first the one and then the other; already he was on the spring to a first conclusion.