The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 seemed somewhat 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 if a 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 to my kind 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 manager to 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....

      Chapter XVI

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      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, СКАЧАТЬ