The Mission of Poubalov. Frederick Burton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Mr. Strobel came out," replied the driver. "And while I was there a fellow crossed the street and spoke to me. He stood in the street kind o' leaning on the wheel. 'Go'n' to take Mr. Strobel to his wedding?' says he. 'I'm go'n' to take a gent of that name,' says I 'but I don't know nothing 'bout his wedding.' 'That's what 'tis,' says he, 'and a very fine man he is, and a fine day it is for the ceremony; and that's a fine horse you have,' and all that kind of palaver, till I thought he'd talk me blind. After a while he said good-morning, and went on, bad luck to him."

      Paul looked at the stableman in surprise. "Could the nut have been removed then without the driver knowing it?" he asked.

      "Yes, but it wasn't necessarily removed. It may have been started. You get up on the seat and sit back indifferently, as a driver would be likely to sit. Just try it. I want you to be satisfied."

      Paul climbed to the driver's seat on the coupé, and the stableman leaned over the wheel.

      "You see," said the latter, "unless you bent over and looked down sharply you wouldn't make out what I was up to, and not having any reason to suspect a trick, you'd likely sit still; more likely than not, if you was an ordinary driver, you'd look the other way most of the time; and – but I don't need to talk any longer for here is the nut!" and he held up a small wrench in which was the nut of the wheel by which he was standing.

      "Great Scott!" exclaimed Paul, smiling, in spite of his anxiety, at the dexterous way in which the stableman had proved that the trick might have been done. "What sort of man was this, Mike, who talked to you?"

      "I dunno, sir. Medium sized, young, I should say."

      "Would you know him again?"

      "I would that!"

      "By the way, did you see anybody call at the house while you were waiting?"

      "Yes, a gentleman went in. I heard him ask for Mr. Strobel, and he came out again inside of five minutes."

      "What was he like and where did he go?"

      "I couldn't tell you what he was like. I paid no attention to him. He went away toward Somerset Street. The fellow at the wheel was talking to me as he went along."

      This was all the information of value that Paul could obtain, although he asked many more questions. He found Ralph waiting for him in Ivan's room, and Mrs. White was there, overcome with anxiety on account of the continued absence of her daughter.

      "I think," said Ralph when he had heard his friend's report, "that we'd better speak of this at police headquarters."

      "Are you going to say anything about Lizzie?" asked Mrs. White.

      "Certainly not, unless you wish it. She will doubtless come in before evening."

      "I don't know," murmured the landlady, despairingly; "she didn't say a word about going out, and I'm dreadfully afraid! I can't find her little traveling bag – "

      She stopped suddenly as Paul wheeled about and glanced at her with a startled glance. There was a moment of silence, and then the Russian said quietly: "I will come back early in the evening, Mrs. White, and if your daughter has not appeared, I'll help you to make inquiries. We must look after Strobel now."

      The young men reported the circumstances at police headquarters and then went to Roxbury. It was five o'clock when they arrived at Mr. Pembroke's house, and they cherished a hope that some word from Ivan, if not Ivan himself, would be found there. They were disappointed. Louise Pembroke told them that nothing had occurred except that Clara had succumbed to the shock and strain, and was under the care of a physician.

      "About an hour ago she broke down and cried," said Louise, "and the physician said it was the best thing that could have happened to her. He would have been afraid to have Ivan return before that. Now she is not in any immediate danger."

      "Are you going to tell her what we have done?" asked Ralph.

      "Yes. I'll do so now."

      Louise found her cousin calm and hopeful.

      "Ralph has come back," said Clara. "I heard the bell, and knew it must be he. Well?"

      "Ralph says, dear," replied Louise, "that Ivan started for the church in a carriage, and that there was a breakdown on the way that appears to have been caused by a trick. He then took another carriage, and after that they do not know what became of him."

      "Lou," said the sufferer, "I suppose people would expect that I should feel humiliation most of all, but I don't, and if I did I should no longer feel it now that I know Ivan started for the church. Don't you see? He meant to come, of course! Something dreadful has happened to him – " Her eyes filled with tears, and she paused a moment before continuing: "There must be more details, of course, but I am not well enough yet to hear them. Ask Ralph and Paul to come to-morrow morning, will you, please? I must talk with them."

      "I will," replied Louise; "Ivan may come before that."

      Ralph went to his home immediately after leaving Mr. Pembroke's, but Paul, who had no other home than a furnished room in a lodging house, returned according to his promise to see Mrs. White. He felt that there might be a chance that the daughter, Lizzie, could throw some light on Ivan's movements, but he had no doubt whatever that she herself had returned. He reached the house just as a postman was leaving it. Mrs. White stood in the hall, the door remaining open, nervously opening a letter. When she had read it she screamed, and would have fallen to the floor had not Paul sprung forward to catch her. She recovered in a moment sufficiently to sob:

      "I'm so glad you've come. Lizzie has gone! Read what she says."

      Paul took the letter which she tremblingly handed him and read:

      "Dear Mother: I am going away and shall not come back for a long time. Do not be anxious, and do not try to find me. You are not to blame for anything, and I cannot now tell you why I go. Some time I may do so, and I may write to you. I don't know yet. Do not think unkindly of me. You will know some time that it is best. I love you and – "

      Two words here had been laboriously scratched out. Then came the signature, "Lizzie." Paul made out the erased words to be "I love."

      In spite of himself a dreadful fear came over him, a fear of something more painful for all of Ivan's friends to bear than an accident, no matter how serious.

      CHAPTER III.

      AN IMPERFECT VISION

      Ivan Strobel had been a lodger in Mrs. White's house for more than two years. During the greater part of that period he had been the only lodger, and from the beginning his relations with his landlady had been more as if he were a friend of the family than merely a tenant. His evenings were not infrequently spent in Mrs. White's sitting-room, where his strongly domestic nature found some comfort in reading aloud to the old lady and her daughter, or in playing cards, or in telling them stories of European life. Sometimes his friends would call, and find him there instead of in his own room, and more than once he had been the target for good-humored chaffing relative to his supposed fondness for the landlady's daughter.

      On such occasions Strobel laughed lightly, as if it were out of the question that anybody should seriously harbor a supposition that he was in love with Lizzie. That was in the comparatively early days of his residence there; and one afternoon, about a year before his eventful wedding morning, Ralph Harmon and Paul Palovna called together and found him in his own quarters, serving Russian tea to Mrs. White and her daughter. He was evidently delighted to see his friends, СКАЧАТЬ