The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne Part 37

"At ten o'clock. She did not come. At eleven I have another pupil. She has not before missed one lesson."

I flew back home, in an agony of hope that her laughing face would meet me there and dispel a dread that chilled me like an icy wind.

There was no Carlotta.

There has been no Carlotta all this awful day.

There will never be a Carlotta again.

I drove to the police station.

"What do you think has happened?" asked the Inspector.

It was only too horribly obvious. Any man but myself would have kept her under lock and key and established a guard round the house. Any man but myself would have never let her out of his sight until he had married her, until he had tracked Hamdi and his myrmidons back to Alexandretta.

"Abduction has happened," I cried wildly. "Between Lingfield Terrace and Avenue Road she has been caught, thrust into a closed carriage, gagged and carried G.o.d knows where by the wiliest old thief in Asia. He is the Prefect of Police in Aleppo. His name is Hamdi Effendi and he is staying at the Hotel Metropole."

The Inspector questioned me. Heaven knows how I answered. I saw the scene. The waiting carriage. The unfrequented bit of road. My heart's darling, her face a radiant flower in the grey morning, tripping lightheartedly along. The sudden dash, the struggle, the swiftly closed door. It was a matter of a few seconds. My brain grew dizzy with the vision.

"You say that he threatened to abduct her?" asked the Inspector.

"Yes," said I, "and a friend of mine promised to kill him. Heaven grant he keep his promise!"

"Be careful, Sir Marcus," smiled the Inspector. "Or if there is a murder committed you will be an accessory before the fact."

I intimated my disregard of the contingency. What did it matter? Nothing in the world mattered save the recovery of the light and meaning of my existence. My friend's name? Sebastian Pasquale, He lived near by in the St. John's Wood Road.

"The best thing you can do, Sir Marcus," said the Inspector, "is to get hold of Mr. Pasquale and take him with you to Scotland Yard. Perhaps two heads will be better than one. In the meanwhile we shall communicate with headquarters and make the necessary inquiries in the neighbourhood."

I drove to St. John's Wood Road, and learned to my dismay that Pasquale had given up his rooms there a week ago. All his letters were addressed to his club in Piccadilly. I drove thither. How has mankind contented itself for these thousands of years with a horse as its chief means of locomotion? Oh, the exasperation I suffered behind that magnified snail!

I dashed into the club. Mr. Pasquale had not been there all day. No, he was not staying there. It was against the rules to give members' private addresses.

"But it's a matter of life and death!" I cried.

"To tell you the truth, sir," said the hall porter, "Mr. Pasquale's only permanent address is his banker's, and we really don't know where he is staying at present."

I wrote a hurried line:

"Hamdi has abducted Carlotta. I am half crazed. As you love me give me your help. Oh, G.o.d! man, why aren't you here?"

I left it with the porter, and crawled to Scotland Yard. The cabman at my invectives against his sauntering beast waxed indignant; it was a three-quarter blood mare and one of the fastest trotters in London.

"She pa.s.ses everything," said he.

"It is because everything is standing still or going backward or turned upside down," said I.

No doubt he thought me mad. Mad as a dingo dog. The thought of the words, the summer and the sun sent a spasm of hunger through my heart.

Then I murmured to myself: "'Save my soul from h.e.l.l and my darling from the power of the dog.' Which dog? Not the dingo dog." I verily believe my brain worked wrong to-day.

Great Scotland Yard at last. I went through pa.s.sages. I found myself in a nondescript room where a courteous official seated at a desk held me on the rack for half an hour. I had to describe Carlotta: not in the imagery wherein only one could create an impression of her sweetness, but in the objective terms of the police report. What was she wearing? A hat, and jacket, a skirt, shoes; of course she wore gloves; possibly she carried a m.u.f.f. Impatient of such commonplace details, I described her fully. But the glory of her bronze hair, her great dark brown eyes, the quivering sensitiveness of her lips; her intoxicating compound of Botticelli and the Venusberg; the dove-notes of her voice; all was a matter of boredom to Scotland Yard. They clamoured for the colour of her feathers and the material of which her dress was made; her height in vulgar figures and the sizes of her gloves and shoes.

"How on earth can I tell you?" I cried in desperation.

"Perhaps one of your servants can give the necessary information,"

replied the urbane official. If I had lost an umbrella he could not have viewed my plight with more inhuman blandness!

A miracle happened. As I was writing a summons to Stenson to obtain these details from Antoinette and attend at once, a policeman entered and I learned that my confidential man was at the door. My heart leapt within me. He had tracked me hither and had come to tell me that Carlotta was safe. But the first glance at his face killed the wild hope. He had tracked me hither, it is true; but only apologetically to offer what information might be useful. "It is a very great liberty, Sir Marcus, and I will retire at once if I have overstepped my duties, but there are important details, sir, in catastrophes of this nature with which my experience has taught me only servants can be acquainted."

There must be a book of ten thousand pages ent.i.tled "The Perfect Valet,"

dealing with every contingency of domestic life which this admirable fellow has by heart. He uttered his Ciceronian sentence with the gravity of a pasteboard figure in the toy theatre of one's childhood.

"Can you describe the young lady's dress?" asked the official.

"I have made it my business," said Stenson, "to obtain accurate information as to every detail of Mademoiselle Carlotta's attire when she left the house this morning."

I faded into insignificance. Stenson was a man after the Inspector's heart. A few eager questions brought the desired result. A dark red toque with a grey bird's wing; a wine-coloured zouave jacket and skirt, black braided; a dark blue bodice; a plain gold brooch (the first trinket I had given her--the occasion of her first clasp of arms around my neck) fastening her collar; a silver fox necklet and m.u.f.f; patent leather shoes and brown suede gloves.

"Any special mark or characteristics?"

"A white scar above the left temple," said Stenson.

Lord have mercy! The man has lived day by day for five months with Carlotta's magical beauty, and all he has noticed as characteristic is the little white scar--she fell on marble steps as a child--the only flaw, if flaw can be in a thing so imperceptible, in her perfect loveliness.

"Mademoiselle has also a tiny mole behind her right ear," said Stenson.

The Inspector's conception of Stenson expanded into an apotheosis. He paid him deference. His pen wrote greedily every syllable the inspired creature uttered. When the fount of inspiration ran dry, Stenson turned to me with his imperturbable, profoundly respectful air.

"Shall I return home, Sir Marcus, or have you any further need of my service?"

I bade him go home. He withdrew. The Inspector smiled cheerfully.

"Now we can get along," said he. "It's a pity Mr.--Mr. Pasquale" (he consulted his notes) "is out of touch with us for the moment. He might have given us great a.s.sistance."

He rose from his chair. "I think we shall very soon trace the young lady. An accurate personal description like this, you see, is invaluable."

He handed me the printed form which he had filled in. In spite of my misery I almost laughed at the fatuity of the man in thinking that those mere unimaginative statistics applicable to five hundred thousand young females in London, could in any way express Carlotta.

"This is all very well," said I; "but the first thing to do is to lay that Turkish devil by the heels."

"You can count on our making the most prompt and thorough investigation," said he.

"And in the mean time what can I do?"

"Your best course, Sir Marcus," he answered, "is to go home and leave things in our hands. As soon as ever we have the slightest clue, we shall communicate with you."

He bowed me out politely. In a few moments I found myself in the greyness of the autumn afternoon wandering on the Thames Embankment like a lost soul on the banks of Phlegethon. It seemed as if I had never seen the sun, should never see the sun again. I was drifting sans purpose into eternity.

I pa.s.sed by some railings. A colossal figure looming through the misty air struck me with a sense of familiarity. It was the statue of Sir Bartle Frere, and these were the gardens beneath the terrace of the National Liberal Club. It was here that I had first met her. The dripping trees seemed to hold the echo of the words spoken when their leaves were green: "Will you please to tell me what I shall do?" I strained my eyes to see the bench on which I had sat, and my eyes tricked me into translating a blurr at the end of the seat into the ghostly form of Carlotta. My misery overwhelmed me; and through my misery shot a swift pang of remorse at having treated her harshly on that sweet and memorable afternoon in May.