THERE are certain winter days when bed and bath seem to be the only two tolerable places in the world.
Katty Winslow, on waking up the next morning, that is, on Saturday, the seventh of January, knew at once, though she was snuggled down deep in her warm bed, that it was very much colder than it had been the evening before. She shivered a little, telling herself that perhaps she was not in as good condition as usual, for she had only just come back from spending Christmas and the New Year away.
The faithful Harber drew back the curtains, letting in gleams of red winter sun. And then she brought her mistress a nice cup of hot tea, and a pretty, wadded, pale-blue bed wrap.
Katty sat up. "I'm not in any hurry to-day," she said. "I'll ring when I want breakfast." And after having taken her tea she lay down again, and began to think.
Oddly, or perhaps naturally, enough, her thoughts turned to Godfrey Pavely. She wondered vaguely where he was, and if he would be home to-day.
There had been a kind of half arrangement between them that they would travel down from London together on the Thursday afternoon. That would have meant for Katty the benefit of The Chase motor—a pleasant as well as an economical plan—and its owner's company as far as Rosedean.
But Katty had not found Godfrey Pavely at the London station, though she had lingered about up to the very last moment before taking, regretfully, a third-class ticket. On arriving at Pewsbury she had also waited some minutes in the vague hope that Godfrey might have dashed up just as the train was leaving—not that he was apt to dash at any time, for he was always very careful of himself, and had a due regard for his personal dignity. But there was no sign of the familiar figure, and so Katty had had to take a fly—a slow, smelly, expensive fly—out to Rosedean.
Yesterday, Friday, had been a rather tiresome, dull day, spent in hearing from Harber all the disagreeable things which had happened while she had been away—how Harber's stupid, untrained girl-help had gone and broken a rather nice piece of china in the drawing-room, and also how it had come to pass that there were two slates off the roof.
Katty had rather expected Godfrey would come in, if only to apologise for having failed her during the journey. But the afternoon had gone slowly by, and at last she felt sure, knowing his ways, that he had not yet come home. Something must have delayed him—something, perhaps, connected with that pleasant Portuguese gambling concession which was to bring them both such a lot of money. But if that were so, she would almost certainly receive from him this morning one of his rather long, explanatory letters. Of late Godfrey had fallen into the way of writing to Katty almost every day when they were apart.
Though Mrs. Winslow meant to keep the factstrictly to herself—for it was one that might have somewhat surprised even the unsuspicious Laura—she and Godfrey had actually spent a long day together during their dual absence from home.
It had fallen out as such pleasant meetings sometimes do fall out, very naturally and innocently, just a week ago to-day.
Katty, on her way from the south to stay with her friends, the Haworths, had run up against Godfrey Pavely at King's Cross. That had been a really extraordinary coincidence, and one of which it would have been foolish not to take advantage. For it turned out that he also was going to Yorkshire, and on the business in which they were both interested, to spend a night with the ex-money-lender, Greville Howard. That gentleman, it seemed, was making certain difficulties about the matter—he wanted to stay his hand till he had seen the French bankers who were concerned with the affair. As he spent each spring in the south of France, that would not be such a difficulty as it seemed. Still, it was a bore, and the other had felt he had better go and see him.
After a pleasant journey together, as they were steaming into York station Godfrey suddenly asked: "Must you go on to your friends at once? Couldn't you telephone to them to meet you by a later train? I'm in no hurry." And, smilingly, she had consented.
Of late Katty's heart had become very soft to her old friend. For one thing he was being so good to her in the matter of money. That two hundred pounds he had given to her some weeks ago had been followed by two fifty-pound notes. And yet, thoughshe knew poor Godfrey was quite unaware of it, her original purpose—the purpose which had so distressed him, and which, as she well knew, had induced in him such extraordinary and unusual generosity—had not faltered at all. Katty still meant to cut the cable, and start a new life elsewhere.
Rosedean was all very well; her close friendship with Godfrey Pavely was all very well; though of late she had been disagreeably aware that Godfrey was ashamed—ashamed of giving her that money, ashamed of his increasing fondness for her, ashamed also of—well, of other little things which sometimes happened, things which Katty thought quite unimportant, which she regarded as part of the payment due from her to Godfrey. But she realised more rather than less, as time went on, that if she wanted to make anything of her life there must come a change. She would wait a while, wait perhaps till next autumn—so she had told those kind friends of hers, the Haworths.
Katty was sometimes surprised to find how sorry she was that things had not fallen out otherwise. But she had always tried, in all the great things of life, to look the truth squarely in the face. Only once had she been caught doing anything else—and that, as we know, had been years and years ago. She was not likely to make that sort of mistake now. She had come to see, with a rather painful clearness, that Godfrey and Laura, however ill they got on together, were not the sort of people to lend themselves to any kind of juggling with the law to obtain their liberty.
But she had been disappointed in Oliver Tropenell. She had felt in him accumulated forces of thatexplosive energy which leads to determined action—also she had thought that Gillie would do something.
But the two had disappeared together almost immediately after her talk with Laura's brother. That was over ten weeks ago now, and neither had given any sign of life since.
But Katty intended to keep up with Godfrey. For one thing she was keenly interested in that business in which they were, in a sense, both engaged. Also one never can tell what life—and death—may not bring forth. Whatever happened, the link between herself and Godfrey was too strong ever to be broken. Even if she married again, which she supposed she would do some time or other, there seemed no reason, to her, at any rate, why she should not keep up with Godfrey. He was her trustee now, as well as her oldest friend.
So it was that she had very willingly assented to do him the trifling favour of spending some further hours in his company.
As they wandered about the old city, and lingered awhile in the great Minster, neither of them said a word that the whole world might not have overheard. They visited some of the curiosity shops for which York is famed, and Katty's companion, with that new generosity which sat on him so strangely, bought a beautiful, and very costly, old cut-glass pendant for Rosedean.
They did not meet a soul that either of them knew, excepting, yes, stop——After they had said goodbye (Godfrey, with a rather shocked look on his face, for Katty, imprudent, foolish Katty, had woman-like seemed to expect that he would kiss her in acorner of an empty waiting-room where at any moment they might have been surprised by some acquaintance of one or the other of them!)—after, as arranged, they had said good-bye, and Katty was engaged in taking her ticket for the branch line station for which she was bound, a curious thing happened.
She suddenly heard a voice, a man's voice, which sounded pleasantly familiar.
Who could it be? The association evoked was wholly agreeable, but Katty could not place, in the chambers of her memory, the owner of the rather peculiar accents which were engaged in asking when the next train back to London would start.
She had turned round quickly, only to see a small queue of people behind her, among them surely the owner of that peculiar voice. But no, she did not know any one there—though among them a man attracted her attention, for the simple reason that he was staring at her very hard. He was obviously a foreigner, for his skin was olive-tinted, and he had a small, black, pointed beard. He stared at Katty with an air of rather insolent admiration. And then he broke away from the queue, and walked quickly off, out of the booking-office.
Katty always enjoyed admiration, whatever its source, and yet a queer kind of shiver had gone through her when this impertinent stranger's glance rested full on her face. She had had the odious sensation that the man saw something to be jeered at, as well as admired, in her neat and attractive self.
At last, reluctantly, Katty got up and went into her well-warmed comfortable bathroom. It was niceto be home again, at no one's orders but her own. After she had dressed, she rang, and very soon came her breakfast, daintily served by the devoted Harber, also the one daily paper she felt she could afford to take.
Katty was one of the many women to whom the daily picture-paper supplied a long-felt, if unconscious, want. It gave her just the amount of news, and the kind of news, that her busy mind, absorbed in other things, could assimilate comfortably. She was no reader, though sometimes she would manage to gallop through some book that all the world was talking about. But newspapers had always bored her. Still, she had become very fond of the paper she now held in her hand. It only cost a halfpenny a day, and Katty liked small, sensible economies.
That liking of hers was one of the links which bound her to Godfrey Pavely, but unlike Godfrey, Katty did not care for money for money's sake. She only liked money for what money could buy. And sometimes, when she was in a cheerful, mischievous mood, she would tell herself, with a smile, that if ever her Castle in Spain turned out to have been built on a solid foundation—if ever, that is, she became Godfrey Pavely's wife, she would know how to spend the money he had garnered so carefully. She felt pretty sure, deep in her heart, that should such an unlikely thing come to pass, she would know how to "manage" Godfrey, and that, if surprised, he would not really mind what she did. She always got good value out of everything she acquired, and that would remain true if, instead of spending pence, she was ever able to spend pounds.
A little before eleven, just as Katty was beginning to think it was time for her to finish dressing, she heard the gate of her domain open, and the voice of little Alice Pavely rise up through the still, frosty air, mingling with the deeper, gentler tones of Laura.
It was an odd thing, considering that the two women were at any rate in theory intimate friends, that Laura very, very seldom came to Rosedean. In fact Katty could not remember a single time when Laura had come in the morning, an uninvited, unexpected guest. So suddenly poor Katty felt a little chill of apprehension; she got up from her chair, and waited....
The front door was opened at once. Then came Harber's hurrying footfalls on the staircase—and, simultaneously, the garden door at the back of the house swung to. Laura had evidently sent her little girl out of doors, into the garden. What could she be coming to say?
Quickly Katty examined her conscience. No, there was nothing that Laura could possibly have found out. As to that half day spent with Godfrey in York, Laura was surely the last woman to mind—and if she did mind, she was quite the last woman to say anything about it!
There came a knock at the door: then Harber's voice, "Mrs. Pavely wants to know, ma'am, if she can come up and speak to you, just for a minute."
"Ask Mrs. Pavely to come up," said Katty, pleasantly.
A minute later, Laura walked forward into the room. It was the first time she had been in Katty's bedroom since Rosedean had been first furnished.
She looked round her with a smile. "Why, Katty," she exclaimed, "how charming and pretty you've made it all! You've added quite a number of things since I was here last."
"Only the curtains," said Katty quickly (oh, how relieved she felt!), "only the curtains, and perhaps that arm-chair, Laura."
"Yes, I suppose thatisall, but somehow it looks more."
Laura looked exactly as she always looked, rather paler perhaps than usual, but then Laura was pale. She had that peculiar clear, warm whiteness of skin that is compared by its admirers to a camellia; this morning, her lovely, deep blue eyes looked tired, as if she had been sleeping badly.
"I've really come to ask if you know where Godfrey is? We expected him home on Thursday. Then he sent a telephone message saying that he couldn't be back till yesterday. No time was mentioned, but as he had a lot of appointments at the Bank we of course thought he would be back early. I myself sat up for him last night till after the last train, but now, this morning, I've heard nothing from him—and Mr. Privet has heard nothing."
"What an odd thing!" exclaimed Katty. She really did think it very odd, for Godfrey was the most precise of men.
She waited a moment, then said truthfully, "No, I haven't the slightest idea where he is. He wrote me a line late last week about a little investment of mine. I've got the letter somewhere."
Katty was trying to make up her mind as to whether she should say anything concerning that joint journeyto York. At last she decided not to do so. It had nothing to do with Godfrey's absence now.
"Doesn't Mr. Privet know where he is?" she asked. "That reallyisvery odd, Laura."
"Of course Mr. Privet knows where Godfrey was up to Thursday morning. He stayed where he always does stay when in London, at the Hungerford Hotel, in Trafalgar Square. He's always stayed there—they know him, and make him very comfortable. But Mr. Privet telephoned through there yesterday—as a matter of fact I've only just heard this—and they told him that Godfrey had left the hotel on Thursday morning. But the extraordinary thing is," and now Laura really did look somewhat troubled—"that they were expecting him back there to pack, to leave for here—at least so the manager understood him to say. He went out in the morning, and then he didn't come back, as they thought he would do, to luncheon. All his things are still at the Hungerford Hotel."
Katty began to feel a little uneasy. "Perhaps he's had an accident," she said. "After all, accidentsdohappen. Have you done anything, Laura?"
Laura shook her head. "What seems to make the theory of an accident unlikely is that telephone message. You see, he telephoned quite late on Thursday saying that he would stay in town over the night. But he didn't send a similar message to the Bank, as any one knowing Godfrey would certainly have expected him to do, and he didn't let them know at the Hungerford Hotel that he would be away for the night. It's all rather mysterious."
"Yes, it is," said Katty.
"I wonder—" Laura grew a little pink—"I wonder," she said again, "if you know on what business Godfrey went up to town? Mr. Privet would rather like to know that."
And then Katty grew a little pink, too. She hesitated. "No, I don't know what business took him away. You forget that I myself have been away for quite a long time—I only came back on Thursday afternoon."
"Why, of course!" exclaimed Laura. "I forgot that. You've been away nearly a fortnight, haven't you?"
"Yes. First I went right down to the south, and then up to Yorkshire."
Somehow she felt impelled to say this.
But Katty's visits were of no interest to Laura at any time, least of all just now. "Well, I thought I'd come and just ask you on the chance," she said.
She got up, and for a moment or two the two young women stood together not far from the bow window of Katty's bedroom.
Suddenly Katty exclaimed, "Why, there's Oliver Tropenell! What an extraordinary thing! I thought he was abroad."
"He came back yesterday morning," said Laura quietly.
Katty gave her visitor a quick, searching look. But there was never anything to see in Laura's face.
"Hadn't I better call out to him? He's evidently on his way to The Chase. Hadn't I better say you're here?"
And, as Laura seemed to hesitate, she threw openthe window. "Mr. Tropenell?" she called out, in her clear, ringing voice.
The man who was striding past Rosedean, walking very quickly, stopped rather unwillingly. Then he looked up, and when he saw who it was that was standing by Mrs. Winslow, he turned in through the gate, and rang the door-bell.
"Will you go down to him, Laura? I can't come as I am."
"I'll wait while you put on your dress. We can tell him to go out into the garden with Alice."
She bent over the broad, low bar of the window, and Oliver, gazing up at her, thought of Rossetti's lines: Heaven to him was where Laura was.
"Will you go through the house into the garden? Alice is there. We'll be down soon."
Katty lingered a little, though she only had to put on her blouse, her skirt, and a sports coat. "I feel quite anxious about Godfrey," she said hesitatingly.
And Laura, in an absent voice, said, "Yes, so do I. But of course by this time he may be at the Bank. He's quite fond of that very early morning train. He often took it last summer."
"Yes, but now he would have had to get up in the dark to take it."
"I don't think Godfrey would mind that."
At last the two went downstairs, and out into the garden where Oliver Tropenell and the child were talking together.
Oliver turned round, and after shaking hands with Mrs. Winslow, he asked Laura an abrupt question. "Did Godfrey come back last evening after all?"
Katty looked at him inquisitively. Then he had been at The Chase yesterday?
Laura shook her head. "No, I sat up for him till midnight. I thought it almost certain that he'd taken the last train. But we've had no news of him at all. Perhaps he's at the Bank by now—I'll ring up as soon as I get home. Come, Alice, my dear."
Katty heard Oliver Tropenell say in a low voice: "May I walk with you?"
And then Katty cut in: "You'll let me know, Laura, won't you, if you have any special news? Of course I don't want you to let me know if Godfrey's safe at the Bank—I'm not so anxious as all that!" She laughed, her rather affected, little ringing laugh. "But if there's any other news—especially if he's had an accident of any sort—well, Ishouldlike to know."
"Of course I'll send you word." And then Laura roused herself. "Why shouldn't you come up to lunch, Katty? I wish you would! And then I could tell you anything I've heard this morning."
"Thanks, I'd like to do that. I'll follow you in about an hour. I've things to do, and letters to write, now."
She saw the three off, and once more, as had so often been the case in the past, her heart was filled with envy—envy, and a certain excitement.
Oliver Tropenell's return home just now was a complication. She felt sure it would upset Godfrey, but she could not quite tell how much. She wondered if Gilbert Baynton had come back too. She rather hoped that he had.
She wrote her letters, and then, so timing her departure as to arrive exactly at one o'clock, for at TheChase luncheon was at one, she went off, meeting, as she expected to do, Oliver Tropenell on his way home to Freshley.
"Any news?" she called out. And he shook his head. "No—no news at all." Then he added slowly: "But I don't see that there's any cause for alarm. Pavely telephoned the day before yesterday saying he was being detained in town."
"Still, it's odd he didn't write to Laura," said Katty meditatively. "As a rule he writes to Laura every day when he is in London."
She knew that was one of those half-truths which are more misleading than a lie. Godfrey was fond of sending home postcards containing directions as to this or that connected with the house or garden. But Katty saw the instinctive frown which came over Oliver Tropenell's face, and she felt pleased. She enjoyed giving this odd, sensitive, secretive man tiny pin-pricks. She had never really liked him, and now she positively disliked him. Why had he gone away just when things were looking promising? And, having gone away for so long, why had he now come back?
"How is Mr. Baynton?" she asked, smiling.
"He's gone back to Mexico."
And now Katty was really surprised. "Has he indeed?" she exclaimed. "And without seeing Laura again? I'm rather sorry forthat!" And as Oliver made no answer, she went on a trifle maliciously: "I suppose you will be going off soon, too?"
He hesitated, a very long time it seemed to her, before he answered, "Yes, I suppose I shall. Butthings go on all right over there as long as one of us is there."
Then, with a not over civil abruptness, he left her.
Katty stayed most of that cold wintry Saturday afternoon with Laura, and as was her way when she chose to do so, she made herself very pleasant to both the mother and child, and that though little Alice did not like her.
A little before four she asked Laura if she might telephone herself to the Bank, and Laura eagerly assented.
Explaining that she was really speaking for Mrs. Pavely, Katty had quite a long chat with Mr. Privet. She and the old head clerk had always been good friends, though they met seldom. He could remember her as a beautiful child, and then as the popular, because the always good humoured and pleasant-spoken, belle of Pewsbury.
"Yes, I feel very anxious indeed, Mrs. Winslow! I've been wondering whether it wouldn't be a good thing to communicate with the London police, if we don't have any news of Mr. Pavely to-morrow. Could you ascertain for me the exact feelings of Mrs. Pavely?"
"I agree with you, Mr. Privet, for after all, accidentsdohappen! Hold the line a moment. I'll go and inquire."
She hurried off to Laura's boudoir. "Mr. Privet suggests that the London police should be communicated with—if we don't have news of Godfrey by to-morrow morning."
Laura looked up, startled. "Oh, Katty, don't youthink that would make him very angry—if he's all right, I mean?"
"Perhaps it would," Katty agreed uncomfortably.
She went back to the telephone. "Mrs. Pavely thinks we'd better wait a little longer before saying anything to the police," she called out.
And thus it was through Laura, as Katty reminded herself in days to come, that two more precious days were lost.
"WELL, my dear—any more news?" But even as Mrs. Tropenell, looking up from her breakfast-table, asked the question, she knew what the answer would be.
It was the following Monday morning. The post had just come in, and at once, knowing that the postman called first at The Chase, Oliver had hurried off to the telephone. He had been there a long time—perhaps as long as ten minutes—and when he came back into the dining-room his mother was struck afresh by the look of almost intolerable strain and anxiety in his face and eyes.
They had spent a great part of Sunday with Laura, and during that long, trying day Mrs. Tropenell had felt very much more concerned about her son than she did about Godfrey Pavely.
Godfrey, so she told herself, with a touch of unreason not usual with her, would almost certainly turn up all right—even if, as she was inclined to believe possible, he had met with some kind of accident. But Oliver, her beloved, the only human being in the world that really mattered to her—what was wrong with him? Long after she had gone to bed each evening she had heard him, during the last three nights, wandering restlessly about the house.
After the first almost painful rush of joy which had come over her when he had suddenly walked into her presence last Thursday night, she had regretted,with unceasing bitter regret, his return home. It was so horribly apparent to her, his mother, that Laura,belle dame sans merci, held him in thrall.
"If you don't mind, mother, I think I shall go up to town to-day and see the Scotland Yard people. I think—don't you?—it would-be a comfort to Laura." There was a harassed, questioning note in his voice which surprised Mrs. Tropenell. As a rule Oliver always knew exactly what he meant to do.
She answered slowly, reluctantly (she hated so much his being mixed up in this odd, mysterious matter of Godfrey's temporary disappearance!): "Perhaps it would be. Still, I think Laura ought to communicate with Godfrey's cousins. Of course I know he didn't care for them. Still, after all, those people are his only near relations."
"That old Mr. Privet, Pavely's confidential clerk, is going up to town to-day," observed Oliver inconsequently. "I thought he and I might travel together, and that while he goes to the hotel, I can go to Scotland Yard."
And then Mrs. Tropenell roused herself to try and give what help she could.
"Lord St. Amant knows the new Commissioner of Police very well," she said. "They met in India. Ask him to give you a note of introduction, Oliver. He's in town just now, you would certainly find him, either at his rooms or at his club."
There came a faint flush over her face. By her plate there lay Lord St. Amant's daily letter. On Mondays London letters always arrived by the second post, but yesterday her old friend had had a late-fee stamp put on his letter, so that she mightget it the first thing this morning. He had suggested that Sir Angus Kinross—that was the name of the new Commissioner—should be approached. He had even offered—and it was good of him, for he hated taking trouble and he had always disliked Godfrey Pavely—to go to Scotland Yard himself.
Oliver was still standing, though his breakfast was only half eaten, and he was looking at his mother with that rather impatient, strained look on his face to which she had by now become accustomed. "That's a good idea," he said. And she felt glad that any idea proposed by her should seem to be good. Yesterday her son, who was always so kindly, so respectful in his manner to her, had—yes, snubbed her—when she had proposed something which it had seemed to her would be of use.
"I think I'll go over to The Chase now, mother. It's impossible to say all that one wants to say over the telephone."
She said nervously, "Won't you finish your breakfast?" and to her surprise he obeyed her. To her surprise also, when at last he did get up he seemed in no great hurry to go.
"Shall I come with you, my darling?" she said.
He shook his head. "No, mother. I'd rather discuss the matter with her alone, but I'll make her come over as early as I can. You know she said she would bring Alice to lunch to-day." And then, looking straight down into her troubled face, he asked: "Mother? What doyouthink has happened to Godfrey Pavely?"
It was the first time he had asked her the direct question.
"I don't know what to think! But I suppose the most probable thing is—that he's had an accident. After all, people do meet with bad accidents, especially in wintry, foggy weather, in the London streets. If so, he may be lying unconscious in one of the big hospitals. I can't think why the London police shouldn't have been told of his disappearance on Friday—that, as I told Laura yesterday, is the first thing I should have done myself."
"Both Mrs. Winslow and Laura seemed to think he would dislike that so very much," said Oliver slowly.
There was a defensive note in his voice, for he had made no effort to back up his mother when she had strongly counselled Laura to communicate with Scotland Yard.
"Has it ever occurred to you," he said suddenly, "that Pavely may be dead, mother?"
"No, Oliver. That I confess has not occurred to me. In fact, I regard it as extremely unlikely."
"Why that?" he asked in a hard voice. "People are often killed in street accidents." Then, after a minute's pause: "Do you think Laura would mind much?"
"I think it would give her a great shock!" She added, hesitatingly. "They have been getting on rather better than usual—at least so it has seemed to me."
"Have they indeed?"
His words cut like a whip, and she got up and went and stood by him. "My son," she said very solemnly. "Oh, my darling, don't allow yourself to wish—to hope—for Godfrey Pavely's death!"
Looking straight into her face, he exclaimed, "Ican't help it, mother! I do hope, I do wish, for Godfrey Pavely's death—with all the strength, with all the power that is in me. Why should I be hypocritical—with you? Am I the first man that has committed murder," he waited a moment—"in his heart?"
"If that be really so—then don't let it ever be suspected, Oliver! For God's sake, try and look differently from what you have looked the last few days! If your wish is to be granted, your hope satisfied, then don't let any one suspect that the hope or the wish was ever there!"
She spoke with an intensity of feeling and passion equal to his own.
"You're right, mother," he said in a low voice. "I know you're right! And I promise you that I'll try and follow your advice. No man ever had a wiser and a better mother than I!"
He turned round quickly and left the room.
Mrs. Tropenell did not see her son again till late that night, and then not alone, for Laura spent the evening at Freshley, and after he had taken their guest home to The Chase, he did not come in again for hours.
Old Mr. Privet, Godfrey Pavely's confidential clerk, had been rather taken aback when he had learnt over the telephone, from Mrs. Pavely, that he was to have Mr. Oliver Tropenell as his travelling companion to London. But very soon, being a truly religious man, he came to see how well and wisely everything had been ordered. To begin with, Mr. Tropenell called for him at the Bank, thus saving him a very cold, easterly-wind kind of walk to Pewsbury station, which was some way from the town.And once there, Mr. Tropenell had taken two first-class return tickets—that again being the action of a true gentleman, for he, Mr. Privet, would have been quite content to go by himself third-class. Also, as it turned out, during the long journey to London they had some very pleasant and instructive conversation together.
Quite at first, in answer to a query as to what he thought of this extraordinary business of Mr. Pavely's disappearance, Mr. Oliver Tropenell had been perhaps a little short. He had replied that no one could possibly venture an opinion as to what had happened. But then had followed between them, in spite of the fact that the noise of the train was very trying, a most agreeable chat over old times—over those days when Mr. Godfrey Pavely's father, a fine type of the old country-town banker, was still alive.
Mr. Privet, as a younger man, had had a good deal to do with the final sale and purchase of The Chase, and Mr. Tropenell, as was very natural in one whose own ancestors had lived there for hundreds of years, had shown the greatest interest in that old story. Mr. Tropenell had not been in the least over-curious or indiscreet, but Mr. Privet had been led on to talk of his companion's grandfather, a gentleman who, if rather wild, and certainly extravagant and headstrong, had been such a grand sportsman—quite a hero among the young men of Pewsbury! What had brought about the poor gentleman's undoing had been his taking over the hounds, when Lord St. Amant's great-uncle had given them up.
So pleasant had been that conversation in the first-class carriage shared by them, that for the first timesince Thursday Mr. Privet had almost forgotten the business on which they two were going to London! But he had soon remembered it again—for at the station Mr. Oliver Tropenell had suggested that, instead of going to the Hungerford Hotel, he, Mr. Privet, should accompany him to Lord St. Amant's club, in order to get a letter of introduction from that nobleman to the Commissioner of Police.
Not long ago Mr. Privet had read an interesting book calledIn London Club Land. But he had little thought, when he was reading that book, that he would ever see the famous old political club to which a whole chapter had been devoted, and to which so many of his own special political heroes had belonged in their time!
And then, after Lord St. Amant, who also had treated Mr. Privet with rather exceptional civility, not to say courtesy, had written the letter, Mr. Tropenell suggested that they should go straight on to Scotland Yard—pointing out, what was true enough, that Mr. Privet knew far more of Mr. Godfrey Pavely's business and habits than any one else.
And so, together, they had driven off in a taxi—also a new, agreeable experience to Mr. Privet—to the famous Bastille-like building on the Thames Embankment.
But when there, the interview with the pleasant-spoken, genial gentleman who wielded such immense powers had been disappointing.
Sir Angus Kinross had listened very carefully to all that he, Mr. Privet, had had to say, and he had asked a number of acute, clever questions of both hisvisitors. But very soon he had observed that he feared much valuable time had been lost.
Later on, Mr. Privet, when he thought the interview over, could almost hear the voice of Sir Angus repeating slowly, inexorably: "Thursday? And it's now Monday afternoon! What a misfortune it is that Mrs.—ah, yes—Mrs. Pavely, did not communicate with us at once. If she had telephoned, here, when she first began to realise that there was something strange in her husband's prolonged absence, she would almost certainly have had some sort of news by now."
And then he, Mr. Privet, had answered quickly, "But we didn't begin to feel anxious till the Friday, sir."
"I quite understand that! But if you, Mr.—ah yes—Mr. Privet—had written then, we could have begun our inquiries on the Saturday morning. Did it not occur to you to let the London police know of Mr. Pavely's non-appearance?"
For a moment Mr. Privet had felt vaguely uncomfortable, for his questioner had given him such a very odd, keen look, as he asked that simple question. But he had answered, honestly enough, for after all 'Tho' truth may be blamed, it can never be shamed': "Mr. Pavely, sir, did not like to be interfered with when he was away on business, and we thought it would annoy him if we were to make too great a fuss. Once, many years ago now—Mr. Pavely went over to Paris for some days, and omitted to leave his address at the Bank. I couldn't help remembering last week that Mr. Pavely, on that former occasion, had seemedsomewhat put out with me for expressing what I thought at the time a very natural anxiety, sir."
They hadn't been very long at Scotland Yard, a little under half an hour in all, and during the last ten minutes a shorthand writer had made some notes of the conversation, which, indeed, had been almost entirely carried on between him, Mr. Privet, and the Commissioner of Police. Mr. Oliver Tropenell, as was bound to be the case, had had very little to say, seeing that he was there merely as Mrs. Pavely's representative, she having her only brother in Mexico.
After leaving Scotland Yard they had gone on to the Hungerford Hotel, and there a lot of information had been afforded them. But it hadn't amounted to very much—when all was said and done! They already knew that all trace of Mr. Pavely had disappeared after eleven o'clock on the Thursday morning. His room was even now exactly as he had left it; neat, for he was always a most particular gentleman, but with nothing put away. In fact the only news of him after that morning had been that telephone message to The Chase—a message given by some one, the butler by now wasn't even sure if it was a man or a woman, who was evidently in a great hurry.
One thing the manager of the hotel had done which had rather surprised and shocked both Mr. Privet and his companion. He had consulted a detective about the affair, and, at Mr. Tropenell's request, the detective was sent for.
Mr. Privet had thought this secret inquiry agent (as he called himself) a queer kind of chap—in fact he had seemed much more anxious to ascertain ifa reward was going to be offered, than to offer any useful advice as to this perplexing matter of Mr. Pavely's disappearance.
He had, however, seemed to think that the Thursday evening telephone call was very important, and he had asked permission to come down to The Chase to cross-examine the servant who had taken the message. But that—so Mr. Tropenell had very properly said—was impossible, now that the matter had been placed in the hands of Scotland Yard. In answer to Mr. Privet's natural curiosity as to why the detective thought that telephone call so important, the man had answered, rather crossly: "You see, there's no record kept of telephone calls! There's a record kept of telegrams, so one can always recover the original of a telegram."
Mr. Tropenell had been quite surprised on hearing this.
"I should have thought telephone calls quite as important as telegrams?" he had exclaimed.
"So they are, with regard tomykind of work," the man had replied. "But even with regard to trunk-calls you've only got to go into a Post Office and plank down your money and wait till you're through! Still, the young woman at your country Exchange would probably have remembered the call if she had been asked sooner. But it's all such a long time ago."
A long time ago? What nonsense! He, Mr. Privet, felt quite put out with this detective, and he began to see why Mr. Tropenell thought the man ought not to have been brought into the business at all. It was certainly rather cool of the hotel managerto have gone and brought such a person into the affair, without asking Mr. Pavely's friends if he was at liberty to do so.
They had managed to catch the six o'clock express back to Pewsbury, and then Mr. Tropenell very kindly insisted on driving Mr. Privet home. Mr. and Mrs. Privet owned a pretty, old-fashioned house on the other side of the town. When Mr. Privet had married—a matter of forty years ago now—he had made up his mind that it would do him good to be obliged to take a good walk to and from the Bank every day.
On their arrival at the house—which, funnily enough, was called Southbank—Mr. Tropenell, at the request of Mr. Privet, had come in for a few minutes to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Privet. He had said how much he liked their house, how much prettier it was, how much more dignified—that had been his curious word—than the red brick villas which had sprung up all over the outskirts of their beautiful old town. And Mr. Privet had been secretly rather pleased, for lately "Mother"—as he called Mrs. Privet—had become somewhat restless, being impressed by certain improvements those gimcrack villas possessed, which their house lacked, and that though he had put in a nice bathroom a matter of twenty years ago.
Yes, of the several people who, that day, had been engaged in trying to probe the mystery of Godfrey Pavely's disappearance, the only one who found a great deal of natural pleasure and simple enjoyment out of it all was Mr. Privet; and he, alone of them all, really cared for the missing man, and, perhaps, alone of them all, had a genuine longing to see him again.
Mr. Privet thought it was particularly kind of Mr. Oliver Tropenell to be taking all this trouble for poor Mrs. Pavely; though of course he, Mr. Privet, was well aware that Mrs. Pavely's brother was partner to Mr. Tropenell in Mexico. He knew the sad truth—the sad truth, that is, as to the disgraceful circumstances under which Gilbert Baynton had had to leave England. No one else in the Bank had known—at least he and Mr. Pavely hoped not. It had been very, very fortunate that the forged signature had been on one of their own cheques. But for that fact, nothing could have saved that good-for-nothing scoundrel—so Mr. Privet always called Gillie Baynton in his own mind—from a prosecution.
Do any of us ever think, reader, of the way in which our most secret business is known, nay, must be known, to a certain number of people of whose existence we ourselves are scarcely aware?
Laura, when she came and talked, as she sometimes did talk, kindly, if a little indifferently, to her husband's confidential clerk, would have been disagreeably surprised had she been able to see into Mr. Privet's heart and mind. As for Godfrey Pavely, nothing would have made him credit, high as was his opinion of Mr. Privet's business acumen, the fact that his clerk had a very shrewd suspicion where those three hundred pounds in notes, lately drawn out by his employer for his own personal use, had made their way....
IT was the morning of the 15th of January, and already Godfrey Pavely's disappearance had excited more than the proverbial nine days' wonder.
Laura had gone to her boudoir after breakfast, and she was waiting there, sitting at her writing-table, feeling wretchedly anxious and excited, for all last night she had had a curious, insistent presentiment that at last something was going to happen. She had sent Alice off to her lessons, for there was no object in allowing the child to idle as she had idled during that first bewildering week.
At last she got up, pushed her chair aside, and went and lay down on a sofa. She felt very, very tired; worn out partly by suspense and anxiety, partly by the many interviews with strangers she had been compelled to have during the last ten days.
Oliver Tropenell was again in London, and since he had left Freshley, for the second time, it was as though a strong, protecting arm on which she leant had suddenly been withdrawn from her. And yet she knew that he was engaged upon her business, upon this extraordinary, unutterably strange business of her husband's disappearance.
Oliver wrote to her daily—brief, coldly-worded notes describing what had been, and was being, done both by the police and by the big firm of private detectives who were now also engaged in a search for the missing man. But there was very little to report—so far every one was completely baffled.
Against the wish and advice of both Oliver Tropenell and the Scotland Yard authorities, Laura had offered a reward of a thousand pounds for any information which would lead to the discovery of Godfrey Pavely, alive or dead. It had been Katty's suggestion, and Laura, somehow, had not liked to disregard it.
But now, to-day, Laura, as she moved restlessly this way and that, told herself that she was sorry she had assented to a suggestion that Katty Winslow should come and stay with her during those long days of waiting which were at once so dreary and so full of excitement and suspense. Katty had got hopelessly on Laura's nerves. Katty could not keep silent, Katty could not keep still.
Mrs. Winslow, in a sense, had taken possession of The Chase. It was she who saw to everything, who examined every letter, who went and answered the telephone when the police either at Pewsbury or from London rang up. She was apparently in a state of great excitement and of great anxiety, and some of the critics in the servants' wing said to each other with a knowing smile that Mrs. Winslow might have been Mrs. Pavely, so much did that lady take Mr. Pavely's disappearance to heart!
Katty had not seemed as worried as Laura had seemed the first two or three days, but now she appeared even more upset. Yesterday she had admitted to sleepless nights, and the hostess had felt greatly relieved when her guest had at last confessed that if dear Laura would not mind she would like to stay in bed every morning up to eleven o'clock; nothing ever happened before then.
The only person with whom Laura, during those long, dreary days, felt comparatively at ease was Mrs. Tropenell, for Mrs. Tropenell seemed to understand exactly what she, poor Laura, was feeling during those miserable days of waiting for news that did not come. But Laura did not see very much of the older woman—not nearly as much as she would have liked to do just now, for Mrs. Tropenell disliked Katty, and avoided meeting her.
The stable clock struck ten. And Laura suddenly heard the sound of firm steps hurrying down the passage. She got off the sofa, expecting to see the now disagreeably familiar blue uniform and flat blue cap of the Pewsbury Police Inspector. He came up to see her almost every day, but he had never come quite so early as this morning.
She gathered herself together to answer with calm civility his tiresome, futile questions. There was nothing—nothing—she could say that she had not said already as to Godfrey's usual habits, and as to his probable business interests outside Pewsbury. The Inspector had been surprised, though he had tried to hide the fact, to find that Mrs. Pavely knew so very little of her husband's business interests and concerns. The last two times he had been there Katty had been present, and she had been very useful—useful and tactful. Laura, feeling rather ashamed of her late uncharitable thoughts concerning Katty, wished that Katty could be present at the coming interview, but unfortunately Katty was still in bed.
The door opened, and she stood up expectantly.
It was only Preston, the butler. There was a large envelope on the salver he held in his hand.
"It's from the Bank, ma'am. Marked 'Urgent,'" he said.
"Is there an answer?" she asked.
And he hesitated. "We have kept the messenger, ma'am."
Laura knew Mr. Privet's small, neat handwriting—if he marked an envelope "Urgent," then it was urgent.
There were two enclosures—a note and a letter.
She first read the note:—