No one dreamed of his having fled straight to the country, and search was confined to the city.
The murderers were at length discovered, tried, and executed.

They protested their innocence with regard to the child, and therein nothing appeared against them beyond the fact that he was missing.
The result, so far as concerned Gibbie, was, that the talk of the city, where almost everyone knew him, was turned, in his absence, upon his history; and from the confused mass of hearsay that reached him, Mr.Sclater set himself to discover and verify the facts.

For this purpose he burrowed about in the neighbourhoods Gibbie had chiefly frequented, and was so far successful as to satisfy himself that Gibbie, if he was alive, was Sir Gilbert Galbraith, Baronet; but his own lawyer was able to assure him that not an inch of property remained anywhere attached to the title.

There were indeed relations of the boy's mother, who were of some small consequence in a neighbouring county, also one in business in Glasgow, or its neighbourhood, reported wealthy; but these had entirely disowned her because of her marriage.

All Mr.Sclater discovered besides was, in a lumber-room next the garret in which Sir George died, a box of papers--a glance at whose contents showed that they must at least prove a great deal of which he was already certain from other sources.