The three gentlemen had chanced to meet on the doorstep of the club, and the General had already commenced to impart to the other two an item of news which he had picked up on the way from his house. He now began it all over again for the benefit of the larger audience.
"Most extraordinary thing," he bellowed in his foghorn tones. "As I was just telling these fellows, Nugent, I looked in at the Plume Hotel as I came through the town, and they're in a rare pucker there. A chap staying at the hotel went out last night after dinner, saying he was going for a walk, and he hasn't come back."
"Bolted to save paying his bill, I suppose," suggested Nugent, stealing a glance at Leslie Chermside, who, however, was invisible behind his newspaper. "It is not an unprecedented occurrence at a seaside resort in the summer season, is it?"
But General Kruse with great gusto proceeded to demolish any such commonplace theory. "It wasn't that," he roared. "The chap—Levison his name was—had paid his charges pretty near up to the hilt. It is the custom to render bills weekly, and as he had been at the Plume a week yesterday, his account was presented to him. He paid it like a shot. There is only his last night's dinner owing for, and he has left luggage that would square that twenty times over."
"I expect he will turn up before the day is over," said Nugent, with the air of becoming bored with all this fuss about a stranger. And, as if to put an end to the General's prosing, he turned to Montague Maynard.
"When I was lunching with you the other day, Miss Violet consulted me about a picnic tea she was thinking of giving," he said. "Your daughter was good enough to want my advice as to a good camping-ground, and I told her I would take time to consider. Will you tell her from me that I should recommend that grassy patch on the marsh, half-way between the beach and the Manor House? It is sheltered from the sun at four o'clock in the afternoon, and that means everything at this time of year."
"Thanks very much; I'll tell Vi; she's sending out short invitations for to-morrow," replied Mr. Maynard, wondering why, in making a communication that concerned him alone of those present in the room, the speaker should have been looking at some one else. For, after claiming the screw manufacturer's attention, Nugent allowed his eyes to wander to Leslie Chermside, who was still hidden by the newspaper.
Mr. Vernon Mallory, of whom it had once been remarked that he noticed everything while appearing to notice nothing, happened to choose this moment for addressing a trivial but direct question to the diligent reader, calling him by his name, and leaving him no alternative but for an equally direct answer. Leslie laid aside the paper and replied courteously, but in doing so disclosed a twitching mouth, and a face from which every drop of red blood had fled, leaving it ashen grey.
Mr. Mallory did not pursue the subject of his interrogation further, but, turning to General Kruse, started a fresh and congenial topic by suggesting that that thirsty old warrior would be the better for a whisky and soda. The invitation being promptly accepted, Mr. Mallory, who eschewed spiritual indulgence in the morning, ordered a cigar for himself, and plunged into a discussion of the delinquencies of the urban district council, in which Travers Nugent and Mr. Maynard were presently included.
Under cover of these amenities Leslie Chermside rose and, followed by two pairs of observant eyes, left the club. Avoiding the crowded parade, he crossed the pebbly beach to an upturned and discarded boat, and flinging himself down in the shade of it, abandoned himself to his thoughts. Gradually the colour came back to his cheeks, and the agonized expression which Mr. Mallory had surprised yielded to one of dogged determination.