The Greatest Murder Mysteries of Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Mary Elizabeth Braddon

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      There was nothing more for Robert Audley to do but to return to town. He re-entered his chambers at six o’clock that evening, thoroughly worn out once more with his useless search.

      Mrs. Maloney brought him his dinner and a pint of wine from a tavern in the Strand. The evening was raw and chilly, and the laundress had lighted a good fire in the sitting-room grate.

      After eating about half a mutton-chop, Robert sat with his wine untasted upon the table before him, smoking cigars and staring into the blaze.

      “George Talboys never sailed for Australia,” he said, after long and painful reflection. “If he is alive, he is still in England; and if he is dead, his body is hidden in some corner of England.”

      He sat for hours smoking and thinking — trouble and gloomy thoughts leaving a dark shadow upon his moody face, which neither the brilliant light of the gas nor the red blaze of the fire could dispel.

      Very late in the evening he rose from his chair, pushed away the table, wheeled his desk over to the fire-place, took out a sheet of fools-cap, and dipped a pen in the ink.

      But after doing this he paused, leaned his forehead upon his hand, and once more relapsed into thought.

      “I shall draw up a record of all that has occurred between our going down to Essex and to-night, beginning at the very beginning.”

      He drew up this record in short, detached sentences, which he numbered as he wrote.

      It ran thus:

      “Journal of Facts connected with the Disappearance of George Talboys, inclusive of Facts which have no apparent Relation to that Circumstance.”

      In spite of the troubled state of his mind, he was rather inclined to be proud of the official appearance of this heading. He sat for some time looking at it with affection, and with the feather of his pen in his mouth. “Upon my word,” he said, “I begin to think that I ought to have pursued my profession, instead of dawdling my life away as I have done.”

      He smoked half a cigar before he had got his thoughts in proper train, and then began to write:

      “1. I write to Alicia, proposing to take George down to the Court.”

      “2. Alicia writes, objecting to the visit, on the part of Lady Audley.”

      “3. We go to Essex in spite of that objection. I see my lady. My lady refuses to be introduced to George on that particular evening on the score of fatigue.”

      “4. Sir Michael invites George and me to dinner for the following evening.”

      “5. My lady receives a telegraphic dispatch the next morning which summons her to London.”

      “6. Alicia shows me a letter from my lady, in which she requests to be told when I and my friend, Mr. Talboys, mean to leave Essex. To this letter is subjoined a postscript, reiterating the above request.”

      “7. We call at the Court, and ask to see the house. My lady’s apartments are locked.”

      “8. We get at the aforesaid apartments by means of a secret passage, the existence of which is unknown to my lady. In one of the rooms we find her portrait.”

      “9. George is frightened at the storm. His conduct is exceedingly strange for the rest of the evening.”

      “10. George quite himself again the following morning. I propose leaving Audley Court immediately; he prefers remaining till the evening.”

      “11. We go out fishing. George leaves me to go to the Court.”

      “12. The last positive information I can obtain of him in Essex is at the Court, where the servant says he thinks Mr. Talboys told him he would go and look for my lady in the grounds.”

      “13. I receive information about him at the station which may or may not be correct.”

      “14. I hear of him positively once more at Southampton, where, according to his father-in-law, he had been for an hour on the previous night.”

      “15. The telegraphic message.”

      When Robert Audley had completed this brief record, which he drew up with great deliberation, and with frequent pauses for reflection, alterations and erasures, he sat for a long time contemplating the written page.

      At last he read it carefully over, stopping at some of the numbered paragraphs, and marking some of them with a pencil cross; then he folded the sheet of foolscap, went over to a cabinet on the opposite side of the room, unlocked it, and placed the paper in that very pigeon-hole into which he had thrust Alicia’s letter — the pigeon-hole marked Important.

      Having done this, he returned to his easy-chair by the fire, pushed away his desk, and lighted a cigar. “It’s as dark as midnight from first to last,” he said; “and the clew to the mystery must be found either at Southampton or in Essex. Be it how it may, my mind is made up. I shall first go to Audley Court, and look for George Talboys in a narrow radius.”

      Chapter 14

       Phoebe’s Suitor.

       Table of Contents

      “Mr. George Talboys. — Any person who has met this gentleman since the 7th inst., or who possesses any information respecting him subsequent to that date, will be liberally rewarded on communicating with A.Z., 14 Chancery Lane.”

      Sir Michael Audley read the above advertisement in the second column of the Times, as he sat at breakfast with my lady and Alicia two or three days after Robert’s return to town.

      “Robert’s friend has not yet been heard of, then,” said the baronet, after reading the advertisement to his wife and daughter.

      “As for that,” replied my lady, “I cannot help wondering that any one can be silly enough to advertise for him. The young man was evidently of a restless, roving disposition — a sort of Bamfyld Moore Carew of modern life, whom no attraction could ever keep in one spot.”

      Though the advertisement appeared three successive times, the party at the Court attached very little importance to Mr. Talboys disappearance; and after this one occasion his name was never again mentioned by either Sir Michael, my lady, or Alicia.

      Alicia Audley and her pretty stepmother were by no means any better friends after that quiet evening on which the young barrister had dined at the Court.

      “She is a vain, frivolous, heartless little coquette,” said Alicia, addressing herself to her Newfoundland dog Caesar, who was the sole recipient of the young lady’s confidences; “she is a practiced and consummate flirt, Caesar; and not contented with setting her yellow ringlets and her silly giggle at half the men in Essex, she must needs make that stupid cousin of mine dance attendance upon her. I haven’t common patience with her.”

      In proof of which last assertion Miss Alice Audley treated her stepmother with such very palpable impertinence that Sir Michael felt himself called upon to remonstrate with his only daughter.

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