“Not to-night, Gertrude Maud,” said Chester.
“And why not to-night?” demanded the lady with a rising inflection.
“Because,” said Chester, “to-night we are going to the Bijou Palace Theatre. The Prince of the Desert goes on to-night for the first run.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Pilkins understandingly. [193] “I’ll telephone Mrs. Lewinsohn we can’t come—make some excuse or other. Yes, we’ll go to the Bijou Palace.” She said this as though the idea had been hers all along.
Seated in the darkened auditorium they watched the play unfold upon the screen. They watched while the hero, a noble son of the Arabic sands, rescued the heroine, who was daughter to a comedy missionary, from the clutches of the wicked governor-general. They saw the barefoot Armenian maids dragged by mocking nomads across burning wastes to the tented den of a villainous sheik, and in the pinioned procession Chester recognised the damsel of the truant curl and the ticklish nose. They saw the intrepid and imperturbable American correspondent as, unafraid, he stood in the midst of carnage and slaughter, making notes in a large leather-backed notebook such as all newspaper correspondents are known to carry. But on these stirring episodes Chester K. Pilkins looked with but half an eye and less than half his mind. He was waiting for something else.
Eventually, at the end of Reel Four, his waiting was rewarded, and he achieved the ambition which all men bear within themselves, but which only a few, comparatively speaking, ever gratify—the yearning to see ourselves as others see us. While the blood drummed in his heated temples Chester Pilkins saw himself, and he liked himself. I do not overstretch the [194] truth when I say that he liked himself first-rate. And when, in the very midst of liking himself, he reflected that elsewhere over the land, in scores, perhaps in hundreds of places such as this one, favoured thousands were seeing him too—well, the thought was well-nigh overpowering.
For the succeeding three nights Mr. Pilkins’ fireside knew him not. The figure of speech here employed is purely poetic, because, as a matter of fact, the house was heated by steam. But upon each of these three evenings he sat in the Bijou Palace, waiting for that big moment to come when he before his own eyes should appear. Each night he discovered new and pleasing details about himself—the set of his head upon his shoulders, the swing of his arm, the lift of his leg; each night, the performance being ended, he came forth regarding his fellow patrons compassionately, for they were but the poor creatures who had made up the audience, while he veritably had been not only part of the audience but part of the entertainment as well; each night he expected to be recognised in the flesh by some emerging person of a keen discernment of vision, but was disappointed here; and each night he went home at ten-forty-five and told Gertrude Maud that business on the other side of the bridge had detained him. She believed him. She—poor, blinded wretch—did not see in his eyes [195] the flickering reflection of the spark of desire, now fanning into a flame of resolution within the brazier of his ribs.
Thursday night came, and The Prince of the Desert film concluded its engagement at the Bijou Palace. Friday night came, but Chester K. Pilkins did not. He did not come home that night nor the next day nor the next night. Without warning to any one he had vanished utterly, leaving behind no word of whatsoever nature. He was gone, entirely and completely gone, taking with him only the garments in which he stood—a black cutaway, black four-in-hand tie, black derby hat, plain button shoes, plain, white, stiff-bosomed shirt. I am quoting now from the description embodied in a printed general alarm sent out by the police department, which general alarm went so far as to mention considerable bridge-work in the upper jaw and a pair of fairly prominent ears.
At last Chester K. Pilkins, although not present to read what was printed of him, got into the papers. Being questioned by reporters, his late employers declared that the missing man was of unimpeachable habits and that his accounts were straight, and immediately then, in a panic, set experts at work on his books. Remarkable to state, his accounts were straight. In the bank, in his wife’s name, he had left a comfortable balance of savings. His small investments were in order. They likewise were [196] found to be in his wife’s name; it seemed he had sent a written order for their transfer on the eve of his flight—if flight it was. The house already was hers by virtue of a deed executed years before. Discussing the nine-day sensation, the ladies of the neighbourhood said that even if Chester Pilkins had run away with some brazen hussy or other, as to them seemed most probable—because, you know, you never can tell about these little quiet men—at least he had left poor, dear Gertrude well provided for, and that, of course, was something.
Something this may have been; but the deserted wife mourned and was desolate. She wanted Chester back; she was used to having him round. He had been a good husband, as husbands go—not exciting, perhaps, but good. Despite strong evidences to the contrary, she could not bring herself to believe that deliberately he had abandoned her. He was dead, by some tragic and violent means, or else he had been kidnapped. Twice with a sinking heart she accompanied a detective sergeant from borough headquarters to the morgue, there to gaze upon a poor relic of mortality which had been fished out of the river, but which bore no resemblance to her Chester nor, indeed, to anything else that once had been human. After this the police lost even a perfunctory interest in the quest. But the lady was not done. She paid a retainer to a private detective agency having branches over the [197] country, and search was maintained in many places, high and low.