Love and hatred

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

For a moment Mr. Privet had felt vaguely uncomfortable, for his questioner had given him such a very odd, keen look, as he asked that simple question. But he had answered, honestly enough, for after all 'Tho' truth may be blamed, it can never be shamed': "Mr. Pavely, sir, did not like to be interfered with when he was away on business, and we thought it would annoy him if we were to make too great a fuss. Once, many years ago now—Mr. Pavely went over to Paris for some days, and omitted to leave his address at the Bank. I couldn't help remembering last week that Mr. Pavely, on that former occasion, had seemed somewhat put out with me for expressing what I thought at the time a very natural anxiety, sir."

They hadn't been very long at Scotland Yard, a little under half an hour in all, and during the last ten minutes a shorthand writer had made some notes of the conversation, which, indeed, had been almost entirely carried on between him, Mr. Privet, and the Commissioner of Police. Mr. Oliver Tropenell, as was bound to be the case, had had very little to say, seeing that he was there merely as Mrs. Pavely's representative, she having her only brother in Mexico.

After leaving Scotland Yard they had gone on to the Hungerford Hotel, and there a lot of information had been afforded them. But it hadn't amounted to very much—when all was said and done! They already knew that all trace of Mr. Pavely had disappeared after eleven o'clock on the Thursday morning. His room was even now exactly as he had left it; neat, for he was always a most particular gentleman, but with nothing put away. In fact the only news of him after that morning had been that telephone message to The Chase—a message given by some one, the butler by now wasn't even sure if it was a man or a woman, who was evidently in a great hurry.

One thing the manager of the hotel had done which had rather surprised and shocked both Mr. Privet and his companion. He had consulted a detective about the affair, and, at Mr. Tropenell's request, the detective was sent for.

Mr. Privet had thought this secret inquiry agent (as he called himself) a queer kind of chap—in fact he had seemed much more anxious to ascertain if a reward was going to be offered, than to offer any useful advice as to this perplexing matter of Mr. Pavely's disappearance.

He had, however, seemed to think that the Thursday evening telephone call was very important, and he had asked permission to come down to The Chase to cross-examine the servant who had taken the message. But that—so Mr. Tropenell had very properly said—was impossible, now that the matter had been placed in the hands of Scotland Yard. In answer to Mr. Privet's natural curiosity as to why the detective thought that telephone call so important, the man had answered, rather crossly: "You see, there's no record kept of telephone calls! There's a record kept of telegrams, so one can always recover the original of a telegram."

Mr. Tropenell had been quite surprised on hearing this.

"I should have thought telephone calls quite as important as telegrams?" he had exclaimed.

"So they are, with regard to my kind of work," the man had replied. "But even with regard to trunk-calls you've only got to go into a Post Office and plank down your money and wait till you're through! Still, the young woman at your country Exchange would probably have remembered the call if she had been asked sooner. But it's all such a long time ago."

A long time ago? What nonsense! He, Mr. Privet, felt quite put out with this detective, and he began to see why Mr. Tropenell thought the man ought not to have been brought into the business at all. It was certainly rather cool of the hotel manager to have gone and brought such a person into the affair, without asking Mr. Pavely's friends if he was at liberty to do so.