He was Hugo, with extraordinary resources at hand, but a quite ordinary circumstance, such as ten minutes spent in a registry-office, will sometimes outweigh all the resources in the world when the success of a scheme hangs in the balance.
What could he do, in London or in Paris, civilized and police-ridden cities?
Civilization left him but one thing to do—to acknowledge his defeat, and to mourn the incomparable beauty and the distinguished spirit which had escaped his passionate grasp. And to this acknowledgment and this mourning he was reduced, feeling that he was no longer Hugo.
It was perhaps natural, however, that his employés should have been made to feel that he was more Hugo than ever. For a month he worked as he had never worked before, and three thousand five hundred people, perspiring under his glance and under the sun of a London August, knew exactly the reason why. The intense dramatic and sentimental interest surrounding Camilla Payne's disappearance from Department 42 was the sole thing which atoned to the legionaries for the inconvenience of Hugo's mistimed activity.
Then suddenly he fell limp; he perceived the uselessness of this attempt to forget in Sloane Street, and he decided to try the banks of a certain trout-stream on Dartmoor. He knew that with all the sun-glare of that season, and the water doubtless running a great deal too fine, he would be as likely to catch trout on Dartmoor as on the Thames Embankment; but he determined to go, and he announced his determination, and the entire personnel, from the managers to the sweepers, murmured privily, 'Thank Heaven!'
The moment came for the illustrious departure. His electric coupé stood at his private door, and his own luggage and Simon Shawn's luggage—for Simon never entrusted his master to other hands—lay on the roof of the coupé. Simon, anxiously looking at his watch, chatted with the driver. Hugo had been stopped on emerging from the lift by the chief accountant concerning some technical question. At length he came out into the street.
'Shaving it close, aren't we, Simon?' he remarked, and sprang into the vehicle, and Simon banged the door and sprang on to the box, and they seemed to be actually off, much to the relief of Simon, who wanted a holiday badly.
But they were not actually off. At that very instant, as the driver pulled his lever, Albert Shawn came frantically into the scene from somewhere, and signalled the driver to wait. Simon cursed his brother.
'Mr. Hugo,' Albert whispered, as he put his head into the coupé.
'Well, my lad?'