CHAPTER XXV
MR. WEATHERLEY'S DISAPPEARANCE
Arnold arrived at Tooley Street only a few minutes after his usual time. He made his way at once into the private office and commenced his work. At ten o'clock Mr. Jarvis came in. The pile of letters upon Mr. Weatherley's desk was as yet untouched.
"Any idea where the governor is?" the cashier asked. "He's nearly half an hour late."
Arnold glanced at the clock.
"Mr. Weatherley is spending the week-end down the river," he said. "I dare say the trains up are a little awkward."
Mr. Jarvis looked at him curiously.
"How do you happen to know that?"
"I was there yesterday for a short time," Arnold told him.
Mr. Jarvis whistled softly.
"Seems to me you're getting pretty chummy with the governor," he remarked; "or is it Mrs. Weatherley, eh?"
Arnold lifted his head and looked fixedly at Mr. Jarvis. The latter suddenly remembered that he had come in to search among the letters for some invoices. He busied himself for a moment or two, sorting them out.
"Well, well," he said, "I hope the governor will soon be here, anyway. There are a lot of things I want to ask him about this morning."
A telephone bell at Arnold's desk began to ring. Arnold lifted the receiver to his ear.
"Is that Mr. Weatherley's office?" a familiar voice inquired.
"Good morning, Mrs. Weatherley," he replied. "This is the office, and I am Arnold Chetwode. We were just wondering what had become of Mr. Weatherley."
"What had become of him?" the voice repeated. "But is he not there?"
"No sign of him at present," Arnold answered.
There was a short silence. Then Mrs. Weatherley spoke again.
"He left here," she said, "absurdly early—soon after seven, I think it was—to motor up."
"Has the car returned?" Arnold asked.
"More than an hour ago," was the prompt reply.
"I can assure you that he has not been here," Arnold declared. "You're speaking from Bourne End, I suppose?"
"Yes!"
"Will you please ask the chauffeur," Arnold suggested, "where he left Mr. Weatherley?"
"Of course I will," she replied. "That is very sensible. You must hold the line until I come back."
Arnold withdrew the receiver for a few minutes from his ear. Mr. Jarvis had been listening to the conversation, his mouth open with curiosity.
"Is that about the governor?" he asked.
Arnold nodded.
"It was Mrs. Weatherley speaking," he said. "It seems Mr. Weatherley left Bourne End soon after seven o'clock this morning."
"Soon after seven o'clock?" Mr. Jarvis repeated.
"The car has been back there quite a long time," Arnold continued. "Mrs. Weatherley has gone to make inquiries of the chauffeur."
"Most extraordinary thing," Mr. Jarvis muttered. "I can't say that I've ever known the governor as late as this, unless he was ill."
Arnold put the receiver once more to his ear. In a moment or two Mrs. Weatherley returned. Her voice was a little graver.
"I have spoken to the chauffeur," she announced. "He says that they called first up in Hampstead to see if there were any letters, and that afterwards he drove Mr. Weatherley over London Bridge and put him down at the usual spot, just opposite to the London & Westminster Bank. For some reason or other, as I dare say you know," she went on, "Mr. Weatherley never likes to bring the car into Tooley Street. It was ten minutes past nine when he set him down and left him there."
Arnold glanced at the clock.
"It is now," he said, "a quarter to eleven. The spot you speak of is only two hundred yards away, but I can assure you that Mr. Weatherley has not yet arrived."
Mrs. Weatherley began to laugh softly. Even down the wires, that laugh seemed to bring with it some flavor of her own wonderful personality.
"Will there be a paragraph in the evening papers?" she asked, mockingly. "I think I can see it now upon all the placards: 'Mysterious disappearance of a city merchant.' Poor Samuel!"
Arnold found it quite impossible to answer her lightly. The fingers, indeed, which held the receiver to his ear, were shaking a little.
"Mrs. Weatherley," he said, "can I see you to-day—as soon as possible?"
"Why, of course you can, you silly boy," she laughed back. "I am here all alone and I weary myself. Come by the next train or take a taxicab. You can leave word for Mr, Weatherley, when he arrives, that you have come by my special wish. He will not mind then."
"There is no sign of Mr. Weatherley at present," Arnold replied, "and I could not leave here until I had seen him. I thought that perhaps you might be coming up to town for something."
He could almost hear her yawn.
"Really," she declared, after a slight pause, "it is not a bad idea. The sun will not shine to-day; there is a gray mist everywhere and it depresses me. You will lunch with me if I come up?"
"If you please."
"I do please," she declared. "I think we will go to our own little place—the Café André, and I will be there at half-past twelve. You will be waiting for me?"
"Without a doubt," Arnold promised.
She began to laugh again.
"Without a doubt!" she mocked him. "You are a very stolid young man, Arnold."
"To tell you the truth," he admitted, "I am a little bothered just now. We want Mr. Weatherley badly, and I don't understand his having been within a few hundred yards of the office nearly two hours ago and not having turned up here."
"He will arrive," she replied confidently. "Have no fear of that. There are others to whom accidents and adventures might happen, but not, I think, to Mr. Samuel Weatherley. I am sorry that you are bothered, though, Mr. Chetwode. I think that to console you I shall wear one of my two new muslin gowns which have just arrived from Paris."
"What is she talking about all this time?" Mr. Jarvis, who was itching with curiosity, broke in.
"I am called away now," Arnold declared down the telephone. "I shall be quite punctual. Good-bye!"
He heard her laugh again as he hung up the receiver.
"Well, well," Mr. Jarvis demanded, "what is it all about? Have you heard anything?"
"Nothing of any importance, I am afraid," Arnold admitted. "Mrs. Weatherley laughs at the idea of anything having happened to her husband."
"If nothing has happened to him," Mr. Jarvis protested, "where is he?"
"Is there any call he could have paid on the way?" Arnold suggested.
"I have never known him to do such a thing in his life," Mr. Jarvis replied. "Besides, there is no business call which could take two hours at this time of the morning."
They rang up the few business friends whom Mr. Weatherley had in the vicinity, Guy's Hospital, the bank, and the police station. The reply was the same in all cases. Nobody had seen or heard anything of Mr. Weatherley. Arnold even took down his hat and walked aimlessly up the street to the spot where Mr. Weatherley had left the motor car. The policeman on duty had heard nothing of any accident. The shoe-black, at the top of the steps leading down to the wharves, remembered distinctly Mr. Weatherley's alighting at the usual hour. Arnold returned to the office and sat down facing the little safe which Mr. Weatherley had made over to him. After all, it might be true, then, this thing which he had sometimes dimly suspected. Beneath his very commonplace exterior, Mr. Weatherley had carried with him a secret....
At half-past twelve precisely, Arnold stood upon the threshold of the passage leading into André's Café. Already the people were beginning to crowd into the lower room, a curious, cosmopolitan mixture, mostly foreigners, and nearly all arriving in twos and threes from the neighboring business houses. At twenty minutes to one, Mr. Weatherley's beautiful car turned slowly into the narrow street and drove up to the entrance. Arnold hurried forward to open the door and Fenella descended. She came to him with radiant face, a wonderful vision in her spotless white gown and French hat with its drooping veil. Arnold, notwithstanding his anxieties, found it impossible not to be carried away for the moment by a wave of admiration. She laughed with pleasure as she looked into his eyes.
"There!" she exclaimed. "I told you that for a moment I would make you forget everything."
"There is a good deal to forget, too," he answered.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"You are always so gloomy, my young friend," she said. "We will have luncheon together, you and I, and I will try and teach you how to be gay. Tell me, then," she went on, as they reached the landing and she waited for Arnold to open the door leading into the private room, "how is the little invalid girl this morning?"
"The little invalid girl is well," Arnold replied.
"She was not too tired yesterday, I hope?" Fenella asked.
"Not in the least," Arnold assured her. "We both of us felt that we did not thank you half enough for our wonderful day."
"Oh, la, la!" Fenella exclaimed. "It was a whim of mine, that is all. I liked having you both there. Some day you must come again, and, if you are very good, I may let you bring the young lady, though I'm not so sure of that. Do you know that my brother was asking me questions about her until I thought my head would swim last night?" she continued, curiously.
"Count Sabatini was very kind to her," Arnold remarked. "Poor little girl, I am afraid she is going to have rather a rough time. She had quite an alarming experience last night after our return."
"You must tell me all about it presently," Fenella declared. "Shall we take this little round table near the window? It will be delightful, that, for when we are tired with one another we can watch the people in the street. Have you ever sat and watched the people in the street, Arnold?"
"Not often," he answered, giving his hat to a waiter and following her across the little room. "You see, there are not many people to watch from the windows of where I live, but there is always the river."
"A terribly dreary place," Fenella declared.
Arnold shook his head.
"Don't believe it," he replied. "Only a short time ago, the days were very dark indeed. Ruth and I together did little else except watch the barges come up, and the slowly moving vessels, and the lights, and the swarms of people on Blackfriars Bridge. Life was all watching then."
"One would weary soon," she murmured, "of being a spectator. You are scarcely that now."
"There has been a great change," he answered simply. "In those days I was very near starvation. I had no idea how I was going to find work. Yet even then I found myself longing for adventures of any sort,—anything to quicken the blood, to feel the earth swell beneath my feet."
She was watching him with that curious look in her eyes which he never wholly understood—half mocking, half tender.
"And after all," she murmured, "you found your way to Tooley Street and the office of Mr. Samuel Weatherley."
She threw herself back in her chair and laughed so irresistibly that Arnold, in a moment or two, found himself sharing her merriment.
"It is all very well," he said presently, "but I am not at all sure that adventures do not sometimes come even to Tooley Street."
She shook her head.
"I shall never believe it. Tell me now about Mr. Weatherley? Was he very sorry when he arrived for having caused you so much anxiety?"
"I have not yet seen Mr. Weatherley," Arnold replied. "Up till the time when I left the office, he had not arrived."
She set down the glass which she had been in the act of raising to her lips. For the first time she seemed to take this matter seriously.
"What time was that?" she asked.
"Ten minutes past twelve."
She frowned.
"It certainly does begin to look a little queer," she admitted. "Do you think that he has met with an accident?"
"We have already tried the hospitals and the police station," he told her.
She looked at him steadfastly.
"You have an idea—you have some idea of what has happened," she said.
"Nothing definite," Arnold replied, gravely. "I cannot imagine what it all means, but I believe that Mr. Weatherley has disappeared."
CHAPTER XXVI
ARNOLD BECOMES INQUISITIVE
For several moments Fenella sat quite still. She was suddenly an altered woman. All the natural gayety and vivacity seemed to have faded from her features. There were suggestions of another self, zealously kept concealed. It was a curious revelation. Even her tone, when she spoke, was altered. The words seemed to be dragged from her lips.
"You have some reason for saying this," she murmured.
"I have," Arnold admitted.
Just then the waiter entered the room, bringing in a portion of the lunch which they had ordered. Fenella rose and walked to a mirror at the other end of the apartment. She stood there powdering her cheeks for a moment, with her back turned to Arnold. When the waiter had gone, she returned, humming a tune. Her effort at self-rehabilitation was obvious.
"You gave me a shock, my friend," she declared, sitting down. "Please do not do it again. I am not accustomed to having things put to me quite so plainly."
"I am sorry," Arnold said. "It was hideously clumsy of me."
"It is of no consequence now," she continued. "Please to give me some of that red wine and go on with your story. Tell me exactly what you mean!"
"It is simply this," Arnold explained. "A few days ago, I noticed that Mr. Weatherley was busy writing for several hours. It was evidently some private matter and nothing whatever to do with the business. When he had finished, he put some documents into a small safe, locked them up, and, very much to my surprise, gave me the key."
"This was long ago?"
"It was almost immediately after Mr. Rosario's murder," he replied. "When he gave me the key, he told me that if anything unexpected should happen to him, I was to open the safe and inspect the documents. He particularly used the words 'If anything unexpected should happen to me, or if I should disappear.'"
"You really believe, then," she asked, "that he had some idea in his mind that something was likely to happen to him, or that he intended to disappear?"
"His action proves it," Arnold reminded her. "So far as we know, there is no earthly reason for his not having turned up at the office this morning. This afternoon I shall open the safe."
"You mean that you will open it if you do not find him in the office when you return?"
"He will not be there," Arnold said, decidedly.
Her eyes were filled with fear. He went on hastily.
"Perhaps I ought not to say that. I have nothing in the world to go on. It is only just an idea of mine. It isn't that I am afraid anything has happened to him, but I feel convinced, somehow, that we shall not hear anything more of Mr. Weatherley for some time."
"You will open the safe, then, this afternoon?"
"I must," Arnold replied.
For several minutes neither of them spoke a word. Fenella made a pretense at eating her luncheon. Arnold ate mechanically, his thoughts striving in vain to focus themselves upon the immediate question. It was she who ended the silence.
"What do you think you will find in those documents?"
"I have no idea," Arnold answered. "To tell you the truth," he went on earnestly, "I was going to ask you whether you knew of anything in his life or affairs which could explain this?"
"I am not sure that I understand you," she said.
"It seems a strange question," Arnold continued, "and yet it presents itself. I was going to ask you whether you knew of any reason whatsoever why Mr. Weatherley should voluntarily choose to go into hiding?"
"You have something in your mind when you ask me a question like this!" she said. "What should I know about it at all? What makes you ask me?"
Then Arnold took his courage into both hands. Her eyes seemed to be compelling him.
"What I am going to say," he began, "may sound very foolish to you. I cannot help it. I only hope that you will not be angry with me."
Her eyes met his steadily.
"No," she murmured, "I will not be angry—I promise you that. It is better that I should know exactly what is in your mind. At present I do not understand."
His manner acquired a new earnestness. He forgot his luncheon and leaned across the table towards her.
"Fenella," he said, "try and consider how these things of which I am going to speak must have presented themselves to me. Try, if you can, and put yourself in my position for a few minutes. Before that evening on which Mr. Weatherley asked me to come to your house, nothing in the shape of an adventure had ever happened to me. I had had my troubles, but they were ordinary ones, such as the whole world knows of. From the day when I went to school to the day when I had to leave college hurriedly, lost my father, and came up to London a pauper, life with me was entirely an obvious affair. From the night I crossed the threshold of your house, things were different."
There was a cloud upon her face. She began to drum with her slim forefingers upon the tablecloth.
"I think that I would rather you did not go on," she said.
He shook his head.
"I must," he declared, fervently. "These things have been in my mind too long. It is not well for our friendship that I should have such thoughts and leave them unuttered. On that very first evening—the first time I ever saw you—you behaved, in a way, strangely. You took me into your little sitting-room and I could see that you were in trouble. Something was happening, or you were afraid that it was going to happen. You sent me to the window to look out and see if any one were watching the house. You remember all that?"
"Yes," she murmured, "I remember."
"There was some one watching it," Arnold went on. "I told you. I saw your lips quiver with fear. Then your husband came in and took you away. You left me there in the room alone. I was to wait for you. While I was there, one of the men, who had been watching, stole up through your garden to the very window. I saw his face. I saw his hand upon the window-sill with that strange ring upon his finger. You have not forgotten?"
"Forgotten!" she repeated. "As though that were possible!"
"Very well," Arnold continued. "Now let me ask you to remember another evening, only last week, the night I dined with your brother. I brought you home from the Empire and we found that your sitting-room had been entered from that same window. The door was locked and we all thought that burglars must be there. I climbed in at the window from the garden. You know what I found."
All the time she seemed to have been making an effort to listen to him unconcernedly. At this point, however, she broke down. She abandoned her attempt at continuing her luncheon. She looked up at him and he could see that she was trembling.
"Don't go on!" she begged; "please don't!"
"I must," he insisted. "These things have taken possession of me. I cannot sleep or rest for thinking of them."
"For my sake," she implored, "try and forget!"
He shook his head.
"It isn't possible," he said simply. "I am not made like that. Even if you hate me for it, I must go on. You know what I found in your sitting-room that night."
"But this is cruel!" she murmured.
"I found a dead man, a man who, to all appearance, had been murdered in there. Not only that, but there must have been people close at hand who were connected with him in some way, or who were responsible for the crime. We left the room for five minutes, and when we came back he had disappeared. All that we can judge as to what became of him is that that same night a dead man was left in a taxicab, not far away, by an unknown man whom as yet the police have failed to find."
"But this is all too horrible!" she murmured. "Why, do you remind me of it?"
"Because I must," he went on. "Listen. There are other things. This man Starling, for instance, whom I met at your house, and who is suspected of the murder of Rosario—both your brother and you seem to be trying to shield him. I don't understand it; I can't understand it. Your brother talked to me strangely the night I dined with him, but half the time I felt that he was not serious. I do not for a moment believe that he would stoop to any undignified or criminal action. I believe in him as I do in you. Yet if Starling is guilty, why do you both protect him?"
"Is there anything else?" she faltered.
"There is the final thing," he reminded her; "the reason why I have mentioned these matters to you at all—I mean the disappearance of Mr. Weatherley. Supposing he does not come back, how am I to keep silent, knowing all that I know, knowing that he was living in a house surrounded by mysteries? I hate my suspicions. They are like ugly shadows which follow me about. I like and admire your brother, and you—you know—"
He could not finish his sentence. She raised her eyes and he saw that they were full of tears.
"Help me," he begged. "You can if you will. Give me your confidence and I will tell you something which I think that even you do not know."
"Something concerned with these happenings?"
"Something concerned with them," he assented. "I will tell you when and by whom the body of that man was removed from your sitting-room."
She sat looking at him like a woman turned to stone. There was incredulity in her eyes, incredulity and horror.
"You cannot know that!" she faltered.
"I do know it," he asserted.
"Why have you kept this a secret from me?" she asked.
"I do not know," he answered. "Somehow or other, when I have been with you I have felt more anxious to talk of other things. Then there was another reason which made me anxious to forget the whole affair if I could. I had some knowledge of one of the men who were concerned in taking him away."
The waiter was busy now with the removal of their luncheon. To Arnold, the necessary exchange of commonplaces was an immense relief. It was several minutes before they were alone again. Then she leaned across towards him. She had lit a cigarette now, and, although she was very thoughtful, she seemed more at her ease.
"Listen," she began. "I do not ask you to tell me anything more about that night—I do not wish to hear anything. Tell me instead exactly what it is that you want from me!"
"I want nothing more nor less," he answered gently, "than permission to be your friend and to possess a little more of your confidence. I want you to end this mystery which surrounds the things of which I have spoken."
"And supposing," she said thoughtfully, "supposing I find that my obligations to other people forbid me to discuss these matters any more with you?"
"I can only hope," he answered, "that you will not feel like that. Remember that these things must have some bearing upon the disappearance of Mr. Weatherley."
She rose to her feet with a little shrug of the shoulders and walked up and down the room for several moments, smoking and humming a light tune to herself. Arnold watched her, struggling all the time against the reluctant admiration with which she always inspired him. She seemed to read in his eyes what was passing in his mind, for when at last she came to a standstill she stood by his side and laughed at him, with faintly upraised eyebrows, the cigarette smoke curling from her lips.
"And it was for a luncheon such as this," she protested, "that I wore my new muslin gown and came all the way from the country. I expected compliments at least. Perhaps I even hoped," she whispered, leaning a little towards him, with a smile upon her lips,—half mirthful, half provocative,—"that I might have turned for a moment that wonderfully hard head of yours."
Arnold rose abruptly to his feet.
"You treat men as though they were puppets," he muttered.
"And you speak of puppets," she murmured, "as though theirs was a most undesirable existence. Have you never tried to be a puppet, Arnold?"
He stepped a little further back still and gripped the back of the chair, but she kept close to him.
"I am to have no other answer from you, then, but this foolery?" he demanded, roughly.
"Why, yes!" she replied, graciously. "I have an answer ready for you. You are so abrupt. Listen to what I propose. We will go together to your office and see whether it is true that Mr. Weatherley has not returned. If he has really disappeared, and I think that anything which I can tell you will help, perhaps then I will do as you ask. It depends a great deal upon what you find in those papers. Shall we go now, or would you like to stay here a little longer?"
"We will go at once," he said firmly.
She sighed, and passed out of the door which he had thrown open.
"It is I who am a heroine," she declared. "I am coming down to Tooley Street with you. I am coming to brave the smells and the fog and the heat."
He handed her into the car. He had sufficiently recovered his self-control to smile.
"In other words," he remarked, "you mean to be there when I open the safe!"
CHAPTER XXVII
THE LETTERS IN THE SAFE
The arrival of Arnold, accompanied by Mrs. Weatherley, created a mild sensation in Tooley Street. Mr. Jarvis, fussier than ever, and blinking continually behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, followed them into the private office.
"You have heard nothing of Mr. Weatherley?" Arnold asked.
"Not a word," the cashier answered. "We have rung up several more places and have tried the hospitals again. We were all hoping that Mrs. Weatherley had brought us some news."
She shook her head.
"Mr. Weatherley left home exceedingly early this morning," she announced. "I believe that it was before half-past seven. Except that he called at the house in Hampstead for the letters, I have not heard of him since."
"It is most mysterious," Mr. Jarvis declared. "The governor—I beg your pardon, Mr. Weatherley—is a gentleman of most punctual habits. There are several matters of business which he knew awaited his decision to-day. You will excuse me, madam, if I ask whether Mr. Weatherley seemed in his usual health when he left this morning?"
Fenella smiled faintly.
"Have I not already told you," she said, "that he left the cottage in the country, where we spent the week-end, before half-past seven this morning? Naturally, therefore, I did not see him. The servants, however, noticed nothing unusual. Last night Mr. Chetwode here was with us, and he can tell you what was apparent to all of us. Mr. Weatherley seemed then in excellent health and spirits."
Mr. Jarvis had the air of a man hopelessly bewildered. Excellent servant though he was, nature had not bestowed upon him those gifts which enable a man to meet a crisis firmly.
"Can you suggest anything that we ought to do, madam?" he asked Mrs. Weatherley.
"I think," she replied, "that Mr. Chetwode has something to tell you."
Arnold took the key of the safe from his pocket and turned to the cashier.
"A few days ago, Mr. Jarvis," he said slowly, "Mr. Weatherley placed certain documents in that safe and gave me the key. My instructions from him were to open and examine them with you, if he should be, for any unexplained cause, absent from business."
Mr. Jarvis looked blankly incredulous.
"Goodness gracious!" he murmured weakly. "Why, that looks almost as though he expected something of the sort to happen."
"I think," Arnold continued, "that as it is now past three o'clock, and Mr. Weatherley is still absent, we had better open the safe."
He crossed the room as he spoke, fitted the key in the lock, and swung the door open. Mrs. Weatherley and the cashier looked over his shoulder. There were only the two letters there. One was addressed to Messrs. Turnbull & James, Solicitors; the other jointly to Mr. Jarvis and Mr. Arnold Chetwode.
Mrs. Weatherley and the cashier looked over his shoulder. Page 259.
"There is nothing there for me?" Mrs. Weatherley asked, incredulously.
"There is nothing at all," Arnold replied; "unless there may be an enclosure. Mr. Jarvis, will you open this envelope?"
Mr. Jarvis took it to the desk and broke the seal with trembling fingers. He smoothed the letter out, switched on the electric reading light, and they all read it at the same time. It was written in Mr. Weatherley's familiar hand, every letter of which was perfectly distinct and legible.
To Jarvis and Chetwode.
This is a record of certain instructions which I wish carried out in the event of my unexplained absence from business at any time.
Firstly—The business is to continue exactly as usual, and my absence to be alluded to as little as possible. It can be understood that I am away on the Continent or elsewhere, on a business voyage.
Secondly—I have deposited a power of attorney at my solicitors, made out in the joint names of Henry Jarvis and Arnold Chetwode. This will enable you both to make and receive contracts on behalf of the firm. As regards financial affairs, Messrs. Neville, the accountants, have already the authority to sign cheques, and a representative from their firm will be in attendance each day, or according to your request. My letter to Messrs. Turnbull & James empowers them to make such payments as are necessary, on the joint application of you two, Henry Jarvis and Arnold Chetwode, to whom I address this letter.
Thirdly—I have the most implicit confidence in Henry Jarvis, who has been in my employ for so many years, and I beg him to understand that I associate with him one so much his junior, for certain reasons into which I beg that he will not inquire.
Fourthly—I repeat that I desire as little publicity as possible to be given to my absence, and that no money be spent on advertisements, or any other form of search. If within two years from the date of the opening of this letter, I have not been heard from further, I desire that the usual steps be taken to presume my decease. My will and all further particulars are with Messrs. Turnbull & James.
Fifthly—I desire you to pay to my wife the sum of five hundred pounds monthly. All other matters concerning my private estate, etc. are embodied in the letter to Messrs. Turnbull & James.
They all finished reading the letter about the same time. Mr. Jarvis' bewilderment grew deeper and deeper.
"This is the most extraordinary document I ever read in my life!" he exclaimed. "Why, it seems as though he had gone away somewhere of his own accord. After all, it can't be an accident, or anything of that sort."
Neither Arnold nor Mrs. Weatherley made any immediate reply. She pointed to the letter.
"When did he write this?" she asked.
"Last Thursday," Arnold replied; "less than a week ago."
She sighed softly.
"Really, it is most mysterious," she said. "I wonder whether he can have gone out of his mind suddenly, or anything of that sort."
"I have never," Mr. Jarvis declared, "known Mr. Weatherley to display so much acumen and zest in business as during the last few days. Some of his transactions have been most profitable. Every one in the place has remarked upon it."
Mrs. Weatherley took up the lace parasol which she had laid upon the office table.
"It is all most bewildering," she pronounced. "I think that it is no use my staying here any longer. I will leave you two to talk of it together. You have doubtless much business to arrange."
"Are you going back to Bourne End or to Hampstead?" Arnold asked.
She hesitated.
"Really, I am not quite sure," she replied, meeting his gaze without flinching. "I am beginning to find the heat in town insufferable. I think, perhaps, that I shall go to Bourne End."
"In that case," Arnold said, "will you allow me to see you there to-night?"
"To-night?" she repeated, as though in surprise.
"Without a doubt."
She did not answer him for a moment. Meanwhile, the telephone rang, and Mr. Jarvis was presently engrossed in a business conversation with a customer. Arnold lowered his voice a little.
"Our discussion at luncheon was only postponed," he reminded her. "We have seen these documents. We know now that Mr. Weatherley had some reason to fear an interruption to his everyday life. Directly or indirectly, that interruption is connected with certain things of which you and I have spoken together. I am going to ask you, therefore, to keep your promise. I am going to ask you to tell me everything that you know."
"Are you not afraid," she asked, "that I shall consider you a very inquisitive young man?"
"I am afraid of nothing of the sort," Arnold replied. "Mr. Weatherley's disappearance is too serious a matter for me to take such trifles into account."
She pointed to the letter which still lay upon the table.
"Is it not his expressed wish that you should make no effort towards solving the reasons for his disappearance?"
"There is no reason," Arnold answered, doggedly, "why one should not attempt to understand them."
Mr. Jarvis had finished his telephoning. Fenella went up to him with outstretched hand.
"Mr. Jarvis," she said, "there is nothing more I can do here. I am very much upset. Will you take me out to my car, please? I know that you will do the very best you can without Mr. Weatherley, and I am glad that you have Mr. Chetwode to help you. I would come down myself sometimes," she added, "but I am sure that I should only be in the way. Good afternoon, Mr. Chetwode."
"You have not answered my question," he persisted.
She looked at him as a great lady would look at a presuming servant.
"I see no necessity," she replied. "I am too much upset to receive visitors to-day. If you are ready, Mr. Jarvis."
She left the room without even a backward glance, closely followed by the cashier. Arnold stood looking after the retreating figures for a moment, then he turned away with a hard little laugh. Once more he read and re-read Mr. Weatherley's letter. Before he had finished, Mr. Jarvis came bustling back into the room.
"Well!" he exclaimed, dramatically. "Well!"
Arnold looked across at him.
"It's a queer business, isn't it?" he remarked.
"Queer business, indeed!" Mr. Jarvis repeated, sitting down and wiping his forehead. "It's the most extraordinary thing I ever heard of in my life. One doesn't read about such things even in books. Mrs. Weatherley seems to take it quite calmly, but the more I think of it, the more confused I become. What are we to do? Shall we go to the police or write to the newspapers? Can't you suggest something?"
Arnold finally laid down the letter, which he now knew pretty well by heart.
"It seems to me, Mr. Jarvis," he said, "that the thing for us to do is to obey orders. Mr. Weatherley expressly writes that he wishes us to take his absence, so far as possible, as a matter of course, and to look after the business. The very fact that he puts it like that makes it quite clear to me that he intends to return. My idea is that we should follow the lines of his letter strictly."
"You are quite right, Chetwode," Mr. Jarvis decided. "I feel exactly that way about the matter myself. We'll go right ahead with those orders now, then, and we can have a chat about the matter again after business hours, if you don't mind. It's hard to reconcile oneself to taking this so easily, but I suppose it's the only thing to do. I'll get out in the warehouse now. You had better send that note round to Turnbull's by express messenger, and ring up Yardley's about the American contracts."
Mr. Jarvis bustled away. Arnold himself found plenty to do. The business of Messrs. Weatherley & Company must go on, whatever happened. He set himself sedulously to make his mind a complete blank. It was not until the offices were closed, and he turned at last westwards, that he permitted himself even to realize this strange thing that had happened. On that first walk was born an impulse which remained with him for many weeks afterwards. He found himself always scanning the faces of the streams of people whom he was continually passing, on foot and in vehicles, half expecting that somewhere among them he would catch a glimpse of the features of the lost Mr. Weatherley.
CHAPTER XXVIII
TALK OF TREASURE SHIPS
In the twilight of the long spring evening, Ruth sat waiting in the bare room which had been Arnold's habitation during these days of his struggle against poverty. She was sitting on the couch, drawn up as usual to the window, her elbows upon her knees, her hands supporting her delicate, thoughtful face. Already the color which the sunshine had brought seemed to have been drained from her cheeks. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, her expression seemed to have borrowed something of that wistful earnestness of one of the earlier Madonnas, seeking with pathetic strenuousness to discover the germs of a truth which was as yet unborn. The clouds, which hung low over the other side of the river, were tinged with an unusual coloring, smoke-stained as they hovered over the chimneys. They grew clearer and more full of amber color as they floated slowly southwards. Through the open window came the ceaseless roar of the city, the undernote of grinding, commonplace life, seeking always to stifle and enchain the thoughts which would escape. Before her was spread out a telegram. She had read it many times, until every word was familiar to her. It was from Arnold, and she had received it several hours ago.
Please be prepared to go out with me directly I return this evening. All well. Love. Arnold.
It was past eight o'clock before her vigil was at an end. She listened to his step upon the stairs, and, as he entered, looked at him with all the eagerness of a wistful child, tremulously anxious to read his expression. A little wave of tenderness swept in upon him. He forgot in a moment the anxieties and worries of the day, and greeted her gayly.
"You got my telegram?"
"You extravagant person!" she answered. "Yes, I have been ready for quite a long time."
He laughed.
"To tell you the truth, I didn't even pay for the telegram. As I had to stay late, I took the liberty of sending it through the firm's accounts. You see, I have become quite an important person in Tooley Street all of a sudden. I'll tell you about it presently. Now hold on tightly to your stick. I'm much too impatient to go down the steps one by one. I'm going to carry you all the way."
"But where to?" she asked.
"Leave it to me," he laughed. "There are all sorts of surprises for you. The lady with the wand has been busy."
He carried her downstairs, where, to her surprise, she found a taxicab waiting.
"But, Arnold," she exclaimed, "how could you think of such extravagance! You know I can walk quite easily a little distance, if I take your arm."
"I'll tell you all about it at dinner-time," he replied.
"Dinner-time?" she cried. "Dinner at this hour?"
"Why not? It's quite the fashionable hour, I can assure you, and, to tell you the truth, I am half starved."
She resigned herself with a sigh of content. After all, it was so delightful to drift like this with some one infinitely stronger to take the responsibility for everything. They drove to a large and popular restaurant close at hand, where Arnold ordered the dinner, with frequent corrections from Ruth, who sat with a menu-card in her hand. A band was playing the music of the moment. It was all very commonplace, but to Ruth it was like a living chapter out of her book of dreams. Even there, though, the shadow pursued. She could bear the silence no longer. She dropped her voice a little. The place was crowded and there were people at the next table.
"Before I touch anything, Arnold, tell me this. Is there any news of Isaac?"
"None at all," he replied. "It all seemed very alarming to us, but it seems to be fizzling out. There is only quite a small paragraph in the evening paper. You can read it, if you like."
He drew the Evening News from his pocket and passed it to her. The paragraph to which he pointed was headed—
ESCAPE OF AN ANARCHIST FROM ADAM STREET.
Up to the time of going to press, the man Isaac Lalonde, whom the police failed to arrest last night on a charge not at present precisely stated, has not been apprehended. The police are reticent about the matter, but it is believed that the missing man was connected with a dangerous band of anarchists who have lately come to this country.
"Poor Isaac!" she murmured, with a little shiver. "Do you know, I remember him years ago, when he was the kindest-hearted man breathing. He went to Russia to visit some of his mother's relatives, and when he came back everything was changed. He saw injustice everywhere, and it seemed almost to unbalance his mind. The very sight of the west-end, the crowds coming out of the theatres, the shops in Bond Street, seemed to send him half mad. And it all started, Arnold, with real pity for the poor. It isn't a personal matter with him at any time."
Arnold nodded thoughtfully.
"Poor chap!" he remarked. "Just at first I really used to like talking to him. He was so earnest, and so many of his arguments were absolutely sound."
"It is only lately," Ruth said, "that he has changed so much."
"I think it is quite time that you and he were separated," Arnold declared. "It is evident, nowadays, that he isn't responsible for his actions."
"Separated!" she repeated bitterly. "You talk as though I had a choice of homes."
"You have," he assured her. "However, we won't say anything about that just now. I want to talk about myself."
"And I want to listen, dear!" she exclaimed. "You must tell me what has happened, Arnie. Has Mr. Weatherley taken you into partnership, or has some one of your disagreeable relatives found you out and been pouring money into your pockets?"
"Neither," he replied. "As a matter of fact, there is no Mr. Weatherley just at present."
"No Mr. Weatherley?" she repeated, wonderingly. "I don't understand."
The slightly worn look came back to Arnold's face. Young and strong though he was, he was beginning to feel the strain of the last few days.
"A most extraordinary thing has happened, Ruth," he declared. "Mr. Weatherley has disappeared."
She looked at him blankly.
"Disappeared? I don't understand."
"He simply didn't turn up at business this morning," Arnold continued. "He left Bourne End about seven, and no one has set eyes on him since."
She was bewildered.
"But how is it that that makes such a difference to you?" she asked. "What can have happened to him?"
"No one knows," he explained; "but in a little safe, of which he had given me the keys, he left behind some letters with instructions that during his absence from business Mr. Jarvis and I should jointly take charge. I can't really imagine why I should have been put in such a position, but there it is. The solicitors have been down this afternoon, and I am drawing six pounds a week and a bonus."
She took his hand in hers and patted it gently.
"I am so very glad, Arnold," she said, "so very glad that the days of your loneliness are over. Now you will be able to go and take some comfortable rooms somewhere and make the sort of friends you ought to have. Didn't I always foretell it?" she went on. "I used to try and fancy sometimes that the ships we saw were bringing treasure for me, too, but I never really believed that. It wasn't quite likely."
He turned and looked at her. The first flush of excitement had left her cheeks. She was very pale, and her soft gray eyes shone like stars. Her mouth was tremulous. It was the passing of a single impulse of self-pity.
"Foolish little girl!" he exclaimed, under his breath. "You don't really suppose that the treasure which came for me wasn't yours, too? But there, we'll talk about our plans later on. At present, what you have to do is to eat and to drink that glass of Burgundy and to listen to me. I want to talk about myself."
It was the subtlest way to distract her thoughts. She listened to him with keen interest while he talked of his day's work. It was not until she mentioned Fenella's name that his face clouded over.
"Curiously enough, Mrs. Weatherley is displeased with me. I should have thought it entirely through her influence and suggestions that Mr. Weatherley had been so kind to me, but to-day I asked her some questions which I felt that I had a right to ask, and have been told to mind my own business. She left me at the office without even saying 'Good afternoon.'"
"What sort of questions?"
"I don't know that I can tell you exactly what the questions were," Arnold continued, "because they concerned some matters in which Mrs. Weatherley and her brother were chiefly concerned. To tell you the truth, ever since that night when I went to Hampstead to dine, the oddest things seem to have happened to me. I have to pinch myself sometimes to realize that this is London and that I am a clerk in the office of a wholesale provision merchant. When I let myself go, I seem to have been living in an unreal world, full of strange excitements—a veritable Arabian Nights."
"There was that terrible murder," she murmured. "You saw that, didn't you?"
"Not only saw it," he agreed, "but I seem, somehow, to have been mixed up with people who know a great deal about it. However, I have been told to mind my own business and I am going to. I have plenty to occupy my thoughts in Tooley Street. I am going to close in my little world and live there. The rest I am going to forget."
"You are coming back!" she whispered, with a joy in her tone which amazed him.
"I suppose I am," he admitted. "I like and admire Mrs. Weatherley's brother, Count Sabatini, and I have a genuine affection for Mrs. Weatherley, but I don't understand them. I don't understand these mysterious matters in which they seem mixed up."
"I do not believe," she declared, "that Count Sabatini would be mixed up in anything dishonorable. Women so seldom make a mistake, you know," she continued, "and I never met any one in my life who seemed so kind and gentle."
Arnold sighed.
"I wish I could tell you everything," he said, "then I think you would really be as bewildered as I am. Mr. Weatherley's disappearance coming on the top of it all simply makes my brain reel. I can't do anything to help straighten things out. Therefore, I am going to do what I am told—I am going to mind my own business."
"To think only of Tooley Street," she murmured.
"I shall find it quite enough," he answered. "I want to understand all the details of the business, and it isn't easy at first. Mr. Jarvis is very sound and good, but he's a very small man moving in a very small way. Even Mr. Weatherley used to laugh at his methods."
She was silent for several moments. He studied her expression curiously.
"You don't believe that I shall be able to immerse myself in business?" he asked.
"It isn't exactly that," she replied. "I believe that you mean to try, and I believe that to some extent you will succeed, but I think, Arnold, that before very long you will hear the voices calling again from the world where these strange things happened. You are not made of the clay, dear, which resists for ever."
He moved uneasily in his seat. Her words sounded ominous. He was suddenly conscious that his present state of determination was the result of a battle, and that the war was not yet ended.
"She is so beautiful, that Mrs. Weatherley," Ruth continued, clasping her hands together and looking for a moment away from her surroundings. "No one could be blamed for climbing a little way out of the dull world if she held out her hands. I have seen so little of either of them, Arnold, but I do know that they both of them have that curious gift—would you call it charm?—the gift of creating affection. No one has ever spoken to me more kindly and more graciously than Count Sabatini did when he sat by my side on the lawn. What is that gift, Arnold? Do you know that with every word he spoke I felt that he was not in the least a stranger? There was something familiar about his voice, his manner—everything."
"I think that they are both quite wonderful people," Arnold admitted.
"Mrs. Weatherley, too, was kind," Ruth went on; "but I felt that she did not like me very much. She has an interest in you, and like all women she was a little jealous—not in the ordinary way, I don't mean," she corrected herself hastily, "but no woman likes any one in whom she takes an interest to be very kind to any one else."
They had reached the stage of their coffee. The band was playing the latest waltz. It was all very commonplace, but they were both young and uncritical. The waltz was one which Fenella had played after dinner at Bourne End, while they had sat out in the garden, lingering over their dessert. A flood of memories stirred him. The soft sensuousness of that warm spring night, with its perfumed silence, its subtly luxurious setting, stole through his senses like a narcotic. Ruth was right. It was not to be so easy! He called for his bill and paid it. Ruth laid her fingers upon his arm.
"Arnold," she began timidly, "there is something more. I scarcely know how to say it to you and yet it ought not to be difficult. You talk all the time as though you were my brother, or as though it were your duty to help me. It isn't so, dear, really, is it? If you could manage to lend me your room for one week, I think that I might be able to help myself a little. There is a place the clergyman told us of who came to see me once—"
Arnold interrupted her almost roughly. A keen pang of remorse assailed him. He knew very well that if she had not been intuitively conscious of some change in him, the thought which prompted her words would never have entered her brain.
"Don't let me hear you mention it!" he exclaimed. "I have made all the arrangements. It wouldn't do for me to live in an attic now that I am holding a responsible position in the city. Come along. Lean on my arm and mind the corner."
They had purposely chosen a table close to the door, so that they had only a few steps to take. Arnold called a taxi and handed Ruth in before he told the man the address.
"Now close your eyes," he insisted, when they were together in the cab.
Ruth did as she was told.
"I feel that it is all wrong," she murmured, leaning back, "but it is like little bits out of a fairy book, and to-night I feel so weak and you are so strong. It isn't any use my saying anything, Arnold, is it?"
"Not a bit," he answered. "All that you have to do is to hold my hand and wait."
In less than ten minutes the cab stopped. He hurried her into the entrance hall of a tall, somewhat somber building. A man in uniform rang a bell and the lift came down. They went up, it seemed to her, seven or eight flights. When they stepped out, her knees were trembling. He caught her up and carried her down a corridor. Then he fitted a Yale key from his pocket into a lock and threw open the door. There was a little hall inside, with three doors. He pushed open the first; it was a small bedroom, plainly but not unattractively furnished. He carried her a little way further down the corridor and threw open another door—a tiny sitting-room with a fire burning.
"Our new quarters!" he exclaimed cheerfully. "The room at the other end of the passage is mine. A pound a week and a woman to come in and light the fires! Mr. Jarvis let me have some money and I paid three months' rent in advance. What do you think of them?"
"I can't think," she whispered. "I can't!"
He carried her to the window.
"This is my real surprise, dear," he announced, in a tone of triumph. "Look!"
The blind flew up at his touch. On the other side of the street was a row of houses over which they looked. Beyond, the river, whose dark waters were gleaming in the moonlight. On their left were the Houses of Parliament, all illuminated. On their right, the long, double line of lights shining upon the water at which they had gazed so often.
"The lighted way, dear," he murmured, holding her a little more closely to him. "While I am down in the city you can sit here and watch, and you can see the ships a long way further off than you could ever see them from Adam Street. You can see the bend, too. It's always easier, isn't it, to fancy that something is coming into sight around the corner?"
She was not looking. Her head was buried upon his shoulder. Arnold was puzzled.
"Look up, Ruth dear," he begged. "I want you to look now—look along the lighted way and hold my hand very tightly. Don't you think that, after all, one of your ships has come home?"
She lifted her face, wet with tears, and looked in the direction where he pointed. Arnold, who felt nothing himself but a thrill of pleasure at his new quarters, was puzzled at a certain trouble which he seemed to see in her features, a faint hopelessness of expression. She looked where he pointed but there was none of the eager expectancy of a few weeks ago.
"It is beautiful, Arnold," she murmured, "but I can't talk just now."
"I am going to leave you to get over it," he declared. "I'm off now to fetch the luggage. You won't be afraid to be left here?"
She shook her head. A certain look of relief flashed across her face.
"No, I shall not be afraid," she answered.
He wheeled the easy-chair up to the window which he had flung wide open. He placed a cushion at the back of her head and left her with a cheerful word. She heard his steps go down the corridor, the rattle of the lift as it descended. Then her lips began to tremble and the sobs to shake her shoulders. She held out her hands toward that line of lights at which he had pointed, and her fingers were clenched.
"It is because—I am like this!" she cried, half hysterically. "I don't count!"