The disquiet and confusion in the nave and aisles increased.
A messenger had been sent to look for the missing man; but he could not be found.
What was to be done?
Finally, some friends of Monsieur Lacombe made bold to urge his immediate election, declaring that he had far surpassed all competitors; and they even hinted at cowardice on the part of Raoul Tegot.
This insinuation was indignantly denied by Tegot’s friends, who were very numerous but helpless; they knew their friend too well to believe him capable of such conduct. He was, they said, probably detained somewhere by an accident.
But, wherever he was, he was not present; and when a vote was taken, hastily, by a showing of hands, Monsieur Baptiste Lacombe had ten times as many ballots as any other person, and, of course, poor Monsieur Tegot, not having competed, was not balloted for at all.
The people dispersed to their homes; some in vexation that their favorite had not appeared, others in a little alarm at his strange absence. Young François Tegot had not seen his father since early morning, and could not conjecture where he might be.
The next day the missing organist did not appear, and his friends began to inquire and to search for him; but they were wholly unsuccessful. A little boy said that he had seen him go into the church with Monsieur Lacombe early that morning; but Monsieur Lacombe said, very distinctly and with some vehemence, that the missing man had left the church an hour later to go to a cottage at the edge of the town, where he was to give a lesson in singing.
So the affair lay wrapped in mystery. There were many surmises, but nothing definite was known. A few expressed suspicion of the rival candidate; but the suspicion was too great to be thrown rashly upon anybody. Thus no progress in the inquiry was made. A human life did not mean so much in those stormy days after the Revolution as formerly; and the mysterious disappearance, without being in the least cleared up, gradually faded from men’s minds and passed out of their conversation.
Months and years passed away, and nothing was known of the poor man. His son, now come to the years of manhood, always declared that his father would not have been absent from the trial willingly; and he firmly believed that he had met with a violent death. More than this he would not say; but sometimes when he looked towards Monsieur Baptiste Lacombe,—still the respected organist of the church,—his eyes were observed to flash meaningly.