CHAPTER VII
PETER
On reaching home, Stuart found Baldwin Carr awaiting him in the dining-room.
“Hullo! you’re a late visitor.”
“I thought you’d want to know,” said Baldwin, from whose brow the unwonted lines of anxiety had now been ironed away. “The whole business was a fake—and Gobert has vanished off the face of the earth.”
This was sensational. Stuart helped himself to a whisky and soda.
“What do you mean by fake? the envelope——”
“Empty, my boy. Blank bit of paper, that’s all. Jove! you should have seen the faces when it was opened. Old Rosenstein! Of course we smelt a rat, and sent round to Monsieur Antoine’s apartments. Not a sign of him. Left that morning, the landlady said; bag, baggage—and incidentally, our fifty thousand. Still, compared with what it might have cost us—well, what do you think of it?”
“I take off my hat to Gobert,” replied the other, with an amused chuckle; “fifty thou. isn’t too much to pay for the privilege of acquaintance with the swindler who can rob you of it.”
“Well—ah—I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. Pour me out a stiff one, Stuart, I’m just about done up. And then I must be off. Wanted to set your mind at rest first. Where have you been all these hours? Not that I blame you for bunking,”—Stuart smiled—“the strain was intolerable. I’d have escaped from the office myself, only I thought it hardly fair to Derwent.”