"Au revoir, monsieur, a thousand thanks," cried the proprietor, popping up from his speaking-tube. "But where are you going? Where do you hope to find this man?"
"I go not to find the man," I replied airily.
"Comment!" he exclaimed in his astonishment.
"I go to seek the woman," I said in imposing accents. And waving my hand amicably I sallied forth into the dingy little street.
But alas for human anticipations! The whole of that day I paced the dead and alive streets of North London without striking the faintest indication of a trail. After a week's futile wanderings I began to realize the immensity of the English metropolis—immense not only by its actual area, but by the multiplicity of its streets and windings, and by the indifference of each household to its neighbors, which makes every roof the cover of manifold mysterious existences and potentialities. To look for a needle in a bundle of hay were child's play to the task of finding a face in a London suburb, even assuming as I did my enigma lived in the northern district. I dared not return to the restaurant to inquire if perchance he had been seen. I was ashamed to confess myself baffled. I shifted my quarters from Leicester Square to Green Lanes and walked every day within a four mile radius of the restaurant, but fortune turned her face (and his) from me and I raged at my own folly in undertaking so futile a quest. At last, "Patience!" I cried. "Patience, and shuffle the cards!" It was my pet proverb when off the track of anything. To cut yourself adrift from the old plan and look at the problem with new eyes—that was my recipe. I tried it by going into the country for some stag hunting, which I had ascertained from a farmer whom I met in a coffee-house, could be obtained in some of the villages in the next county. But English field-sports I found little to my taste, for the deer had been unhorned and was let out of a cart, and it was only playing at sport. The Holy Mother save me from such bloodless make-believe! Though the hunting season was in full swing I returned in disgust to the town, and again confiding my fortunes to a common or garden omnibus, I surveyed the street panorama from my seat on the roof till the vehicle turned round for the backward journey. This time I found myself in Canonbury, a district within the radius I had previously explored. The coincidence gave me fresh hope—it seemed a happy augury of ultimate success. The saints would guide my footsteps after all; for he who wills aught intensely cajoles Providence. The dusk had fallen and the night lamps had been lit in the heavens and on the earth, though without imparting cheerfulness to the rigid rows of highly respectable houses. I walked through street after street of gray barracks, tall narrow structures holding themselves with the military stiffness and ranged in serried columns, the very greenery that relieved their fronts growing sympathetically symmetrical and sombre. I sighed for my native orange-groves, I longed for a whiff of the blue Mediterranean, I strove to recall the breezy expanses of the South American Pampas whence I had come, and had it not been for the interest of my search, I should have fled like St. Anthony from the lady, though for very opposite reasons. It seemed scarcely possible that romance should brood behind those dull façades; the grosser spirit of prose seemed to shroud them as in a fog.
Suddenly, as I paced with clogged footsteps in these heavy regions, I heard a voice calling somebody, and looking in the direction of the sound I could not but fancy it was myself whose attention was sought. A gentleman standing at the hall-door of one of the houses, at the top of the white steps, was beckoning in my direction. I halted, and gazing on all sides ascertained I was the sole pedestrian. Puzzled as to what he could want of me, I tried to scan his features by the rays of a street lamp which faced the house and under which I stood. They revealed a pleasant but not English-looking face, bearded and bronzed, but they revealed nothing as to the owner's designs. He stood there still beckoning, and the latent hypnotism of the appeal drew me towards the gate. I paused with my hand on the lock. What in the name of all the saints could he possibly want with me? I had sundry valuables about my person, but then they included a loaded revolver, so why refuse the adventure?
"Do come in," he said in English, seeing my hesitation. "We are only waiting for you."
I accepted the strange invitation.
The mysterious language of the invitation sealed my fate. Evidently I had again been mistaken for somebody else. Was it that I resembled someone this man knew? If so, it would probably be the same someone the other man had dreaded. I seemed to feel the end of a clew at last, the other end which was tied to him I sought. Putting my hand to my breast pocket to make sure it held my pistol, I drew back the handle of the gate and ascended the steps. There was an expression of satisfaction on the face of my inviter, and, turning his back upon me he threw the door wide open and held it courteously as I entered. A whiff of warm stuffy air smote my nostrils as I stepped into the hall where an india-rubber plant stood upon a rack heavily laden with overcoats. My host preceded me a few paces and opened a door on the right. A confused babble of guttural speech broke upon my ear, and over his shoulder I caught a glimpse of a strange scene—a medley of swarthy men, wearing their hats, a venerable-looking old man who seemed their chief being prominent in a grim, black skull cap; there was a strange weird wick burning in a cup of oil on the mantelpiece, and on a sofa at the extreme end of the room sat a beautiful young lady weeping silently.