Page:Krakatit (1925).pdf/119



find Thomas as if that were a simple matter! Prokop again made a general examination of the whole flat; he rooted in all the cupboards and drawers, finding old bills, love letters, photographs and other relics of Thomas’s youth, but nothing which was likely to help him with his quest. Well, it was natural enough that a person who had brought down so much on himself would have to disappear very definitely!

He again cross-questioned the caretaker’s wife; he certainly learnt all sorts of stories, but nothing which put him on Thomas’s trail. He tried to find out from the caretaker from where Thomas had sent the money from abroad. He had to listen to a whole sermon from an ungracious and rather unpleasant old man, who had suffered from every possible sort of catarrh and who enlarged upon the depravity of the young men of to-day. At the price of superhuman patience Prokop finally learnt that the money in question was not sent by Mr. Thomas but by an agent of the Dresdner Bank “Auf Befehl des Herrn Thomas.” He dashed off to the solicitor who had a claim prepared against the delinquent. The solicitor withdrew to an unnecessary extent into his professional secrecy; but when Prokop stupidly blurted out that he had some money to give to Thomas, the solicitor became more alive and