All was dark as pitch but for the dull glow of the coal fire in the grate.
They knew it was utterly useless to call, yet both at the same moment cried out:
“Capt. Montgomery! Where are you?”
No answer came.
Longman took a match from the safe on the mantelpiece, kindled it at the fire and lighted the astral.
The room was illuminated in an instant, and every nook and cranny clearly visible. Yet no sign of the missing man. Longman hastened to the bed, from which he drew the curtains. It was vacant.
“He has run away, sir. The fraud, who pretended to be so helpless that he couldn’t hold a glass to his lips, has been playing it on us all this time, as I suspected him of doing all along, and now he has run away!” said Longman.
“Oh, I think not. Why should he deceive us? Why should he run off? No one was going to harm him,” said the rector, still peering around the room as if he expected to find Gentleman Geff in some nook or corner.
“He mightn’t have felt so sure of that, sir. A guilty conscience, you know.”
“I cannot think but what he has gone off in a fit of violent mania.”