It was a long time before the Viscount, still accompanied by the faithful Sir Roland, returned to Grosvenor Square, and Horatia had begun to fret, picturing some hideous scene of combat, convinced that the Viscount’s lifeless body would at any moment be borne in. When at last he walked in, she almost hurled herself on his chest. “Oh, P-Pel, I made sure you were d-dead!” she cried.
“Dead? Why the deuce should I be dead?” said the Viscount v removing his elegant cloth coat from her clutch. “No, I haven’t got the brooch. The fellow wasn’t in, blister him!”
“Not in? Then what are we to d-do?”
“Call again,” replied the Viscount grimly.
But the Viscount’s second call, made shortly before dinner, proved as fruitless as the first. “It’s my belief he’s keeping out of my way,” he said. “Well, I’ll catch him in the morning before he has a chance to go out. And if that damned porter tells me he’s out then, I’ll force my way in and see for myself.”
“Then I think I had better accompany you,” decided Captain Heron. “If you try to break into another man’s house there’s likely to be trouble.”
“Just what I said myself,” nodded Sir Roland, still in attendance. “Better all go. Call for you at your lodging, Pel.”
“Devilishly good of you, Pom,” said the Viscount. “Say nine o’clock.”
“Nine o’clock,” agreed Sir Roland. “Nothing for it but to go to bed betimes.”
Captain Heron was the first to arrive at the Viscount’s lodgings in Pall Mall next morning. He found the Viscount fully dressed, and busy with the loading of one of his silver-mounted pistols.