Mr. Fairfax came out, surprised at the visit.
"I had a special reason for wishing to know if you were at home this evening," said Daniel Granger. "I am sorry to have disturbed you, and will not detain you from your friends."
And then the question flashed upon him—Was she there? No; that would be too daring. Any other refuge she might seek; but surely not this.
George Fairfax had flung the door wide open in coming out. Mr. Granger saw the dainty bachelor room, with its bright pictures shining in the lamp-light, and two young men in evening-dress lolling against the mantelpiece. The odours of an elaborate dinner were also perceptible. The valet had told the truth. Daniel Granger murmured some vague excuse, and departed.
"Queer!" muttered Mr. Fairfax as he went back to his friends.
"I'm afraid the man is going off his head; and yet he seemed cool enough to-day."
From the Champs Elysees Mr. Granger drove to the Rue du Chevalier Bayard. There was another possibility to be considered: if Austin the painter were indeed Austin Lovel, as George Fairfax had asserted, it was possible that Clarissa had gone to him; and the next thing to be done was to ascertain his whereabouts. The ancient porter, whom Mr. Granger had left the night before in a doubtful and bewildered state of mind, was eating some savoury mess for his supper comfortably enough this evening, but started up in surprise, with his spectacles on his forehead, at Mr. Granger's reappearance.
"I want to know where your lodger Mr. Austin went when he left here?" Mr.
Granger demanded briefly.
The porter shrugged his shoulders.
"Alas, monsieur, that is an impossibility. I know nothing of Mr. Austin's destination; only that he went away yesterday, at three o'clock, in a hackney-coach, which was to take him to the Northern Railway."