Feeling certain at last that he must have left Brazil, I bade Brockford and Montezma, both of whom were most assiduous in the help they rendered me, good-bye, and proceeded to Buenos Ayres. I could hear nothing of him, however, in the Argentine Republic. Thence, almost heartbroken, I caught the mail steamer and returned to England, once more to confess myself a failure.
CHAPTER XIV.
Having described to you the failure of my attempt to find Max in Rio, I will now continue the record of his adventures, as narrated by himself in his diary, from the moment that he caught sight of me in the cab en route for Señor Montezma's office. Scarcely conscious of what he was doing, he had gained the pavement once more, muttering, as he did so, "Good heavens! Paul is searching for me. What am I to do?" A frantic desire to hasten after me and speak to me, so his diary confesses, took possession of him, but he put it away from him. He knew that to do so would only be to re-open the old wound, and later on to draw him back to the life he had made up his mind never to lead again. Consequently, he walked, even faster than before, in the opposite direction to which he had been proceeding when he caught sight of me. He scarcely knew what action to take. To return to Señor Montezma's office was impossible. But if he were going to give up his employment, what was he to do for a living? One thing was quite certain—he could not remain in Rio, and he could not starve. Then he remembered the offer Moreas had made him. If the latter had returned from Buenos Ayres, here was the chance he wanted. The thought was no sooner born in his brain than he searched his pocket-book for the piece of notepaper on which the address was written, and, having found it, set off to find the house. As he soon discovered, it was at the further end of the city, a fact for which he was more than grateful, when he remembered that I should scarcely be likely to venture so far in search of him. At last, after half an hour's walk, he reached the house. From the style Moreas had put on on board the steamer, he had expected to find a comfortable, if not a luxurious residence. To his great surprise, however, the house was situated in a back street, was tall, narrow, and inexpressibly dirty. Every window of that dismal thoroughfare was occupied by male and female heads, craned out in true Rio fashion to scrutinise the passers-by. His reason for being in the street at all, his personal appearance, even the very details of his walk were discussed. He paid no attention, however, but when he had located the house, entered it and made his way upstairs to the second floor. Having ascertained from a woman whom he met on the landing that he had selected the right door, he knocked. A voice within immediately bade him enter, and he did so, to find himself in a large room, scantily furnished, if indeed it could be said to have been furnished at all, and as dirty as the street outside. Moreas, in a state of déshabillé, was reclining on a cane settee beside the window, and, as usual, he had a cigar in his mouth. On seeing Max he sprang to his feet.
"Señor Mortimer, by all that's wonderful!" he cried, with an expression of the liveliest satisfaction upon his face. "I was only thinking of you a few moments ago, and now you turn up like the genii in the children's fairy stories. I hope your appearance means that you have been thinking over what I said to you some weeks back, and that you are prepared to accept my offer?"
"It is for that purpose that I am here," Max answered. "If we can come to a satisfactory arrangement together, I shall be glad to fall in with your plans."
"My dear fellow," the other cried enthusiastically, "I am quite sure we can agree on that and every other point. What is it you want to know?"
"Well, in the first instance, I want you to tell me when you intend starting on this expedition?" asked Max. "It is most imperative."
"The deuce it is!" returned Moreas, "what is the reason of it all—forgery, murder, or only petty larceny? I thought you had settled down to a respectable business career, and that you were determined to emulate the clinging propensities of the limpet?"
"My business career, as you call it, has suddenly come to a standstill," said Max gloomily, without thinking or caring very much what construction the other might place upon his statement. "It is sufficient that I must not be seen in Rio for some time to come, if ever."