Why should he go to the Continent, where he could be so easily traced, if anybody wished to track him? Why should he not hide himself in London, where he could inform himself, through the newspapers, of every detail of the trial at Wainford? Then, if all went well—that is, if Faradeane were found guilty and—and——Even mentally he could not conclude the sentence. But if “all went well,” then he could go back and claim Olivia; then he could leave England with her—with her!—forever!
In some of the quiet streets leading off the Strand there are several private hotels, as quiet as the streets in which they stand. The patrons of these hotels are colonial and provincial folk, who come and go, appearing on the scene once only, perhaps, and then disappearing, unquestioned and unnoticed—caught up, as it were, on the wheel of the great city, and lost like a drop in the ocean.
He called a cab and told the man to drive to Barlow’s Hotel, Denmark street. A minute or so of delay occurred in the hoisting of his portmanteau on to the roof, and in that space of time Seth, with the unobtrusive movements of a gypsy, had got into another cab.
“Just follow my master, will you?” he said.
The two cabs sped on their way; but suddenly the first came to a stop.
Bartley Bradstone, in sheer absence of mind, had opened his newspaper, which he had put in his pocket unglanced at when he bought it, and the first words that met his eyes were:
“Disaster in the City. Failure of the South Indian Bank!”
For a moment the line of large type conveyed no special significance to his mind; then suddenly it flashed upon him that the bank was one of the schemes in which he had taken a part, and a large part.
He put his hand to his aching brow and tried to remember what he had lately done in the matter. It seemed to him that he recollected sending his tool, Ezekiel Mowle, instructions to sell out his shares and close his connection with the affair; but his brain would not act with its usual readiness in the direction of his ordinary business; it was all too absorbed in the more important matter of life and death.
Had he or had he not given the proper instructions to Mowle? He tried to put the question, the whole business out of his head; but the instincts of the money-spinner overreached the cunning caution of the criminal, and with a muttered oath, he put up the trapdoor in the cab and told the man to drive him to Ethelred Chambers in the city.