[THE FIFTH SCENE: IN LONDON.]
[CHAPTER I.]
"THE MISSING MAN."
Clothed, and in his right mind, Hiram Vraik sat in the bare room, which he and his brother-tenant grandiloquently termed "The Office."
He was absolutely at a loss to account for his employer's disappearance. For several days he had called regularly at Half-Moon Street, only to be told as regularly that Mr. Mallow was still absent. The porter of the chambers was not alarmed by Mr. Mallow's continued failure to put in an appearance, as that young gentleman was most irregular in his comings and goings. But Vraik's reasoning differed from the porter's, perhaps because he knew more than the porter. Mallow was involved with a dangerous gang of Anarchists; and it was always possible, indeed probable, that some incautious speech or misguided confidence might get him into trouble. The more Vraik reflected on this possibility the stronger became his belief that Mr. Mallow was now in difficulties--up to his neck in them.
"He'd hev tole that young lord chap if he'd bin goin' to stop away," said Vraik, stroking his newly-shaven chin; "but the lor' chap he tole me to git Mr. Mallow's orders nex' day, so he don' know nothin', an' he's gone arter the Major cove, as I foun' out by follerin' him to the stashun. But Mr. Maller! here's a rum go."
Later on Vraik put things in this way before his partner, a heavy-jowled, coarse-faced, military ramrod, who answered publicly to the name of Serjeant Jorran, privately to the endearing appellation on the part of Vraik of "m'pal."
"It's a rum go this, m'pal," said the little man, gravely; "an' I'm blest if I knows what's come t'him."
"He may have gone abroad with Lord Aldean," suggested the sergeant.
"He ain't. I sawr the lor' chap orf at Victorier, an' he went with a gal. No, m'pal, I'll lay any odds as them revolutionary busters hev laid Mr. Maller by the heels."