LXIX
But when on the following morning I actually found myself riding in the wake of these two and saw Edgar alight with almost a jaunty air before one of the smallest, but most fashionable jeweler shops on the Avenue, I could not but ask myself if my fears had any such foundation as I had supposed. He really did look almost cheerful and walked with a perfectly assured air into the shop.
But he went alone; and when quite some little time had elapsed and he did not reappear, I was ready to brave anything to be sure that all was right. So taking advantage of a little break in the traffic, I ordered my chauffeur to draw up beside the auto waiting at the curb; and when we got abreast of it, I leaned out and asked Clarke, who hastily lowered his window, why he had not gone in with Mr. Bartholomew.
“Because he would not let me. He wanted to feel free to take his own time. He told me that it would take him at least half an hour to choose the article he wanted. He has been gone now just twenty-seven minutes.”
“Can you see the whole length of the shop from where you sit?”
“No, sir. There are several people in front—”
“Get out and go in at once. Don’t you see that this shop is next to the corner? That it may have a side entrance—”
He was out of the car before I had finished and in three minutes came running back.
“You are right, sir. He did not buy a thing. There is no sign of him in the shop or in the street. I deserve—”
“We won’t talk. Pay your chauffeur and dismiss him. Then get in with me, and we will drive as fast as the law allows to that house in Newark where he said the present was to go. If we do not find him there we may as well give up all hope; we shall never see him again.”