Mr. Petre grew a shell. He was the despair of Terrard.
That young gentleman was happy enough all the same, and so he ought to be! The dogs also get the crumbs that fall from the table, and considering the scale of his intelligence, he was a lucky dog. He rode in the magnificent car which the Hooter people had forced on Mr. Petre with two chauffeurs and garage complete—to the huge discomfiture of the Paramount people, who spread the perfectly true rumor that it was a gift for advertisement. He moved into a very sumptuous flat. He got engaged to Dada Beeston, who had refused him fifteen times. She had thought better of it; he even promised to introduce her to the Midas and to turn her own dross into gold, which was beyond his power. He floated on a sea of Petre. But Petre himself had grown invisible. Terrard saw him frequently enough, putting all his business through and winding up the Paddenham Site affair. But that was not enough. Terrard wanted to display the animal; he boasted of him. All the smart women regarded Charlie as the keeper. They pestered him with their invitations. They put down the silence and absence of the millionaire to some scheme of poor Charlie’s own, whereas poor Charlie was dying to trot him out. But whether it was that so incredible an access of fortune had in some way strengthened him, or whether it was that long strain had turned him inward upon himself, Mr. Petre was adamant; he would not move. He took the air solemnly when he was in town in the Temple Gardens an hour a day; and even so, passed back and forth in short stretches to keep his eyes on the dangerous human species and be ready for immediate flight. And Charlie Terrard knew that it was as much as his place was worth to disturb him then. Long intervals he spent in his country retreat, where his old false name still held and where he was secure. Yet even here his accursed fate pursued him. He had now taken the rooms at the inn by the year, and the landlady, treating him as a god, could not but gossip and wonder; for why should a man to whom money seemed to be nothing bring his splendor beneath her roof? When he found that she had gossiped he did an odd thing; he paid her an astonishing percentage and told her it would cease on the day when he heard that the gossip had been renewed.
Dada Beeston (Dorothea Madua, second and younger daughter of Henry, 10th Baron Beeston, of Beeston Abbey, Beeston, Rutlandshire; and of Desirée Waldschwein, his wife).
So even in that tiny Hampshire village all tittle-tattle about the man was stopped dead.
Terrard did not dare reveal Mr. Petre’s Temple address and name to the hunters. Mr. Petre had succeeded in making himself of his own volition in his new life what apparently he had made of himself in his old life: a man entirely remote from mankind, inaccessible, unknown.
For all his researches—and he had tried desperately and well—told him no more of John K. Petre than all the world knew. And at times he caught himself wondering whether indeed he were he.
Go back and inquire in the States themselves he dared not. If here in England questions were to be fled—what would it be there? Come, he would wait. Some day in a flash his soul would return to him.