Sir Gregory had become very silent. His face was drawn with anxiety. “What can have happened?” he kept muttering to himself.
To divert his thoughts, Gimblet recalled the suspicion he had harboured at first—that Mrs. Vanderstein had flown with some other admirer. But the fear that she was in danger, or that worse had befallen her, had taken hold of the man, and it was he who now pooh-poohed the idea and found arguments to show its improbability.
“She had no need to run away,” he objected in his turn, “she could marry whom she liked. And whoever heard of a woman’s taking a friend on a wedding trip? No, if it had been anything of the sort, Miss Turner would have been left behind, we may be sure of that.”
At Covent Garden they learnt very little. The box had been cleaned out, and bore no sign of having been used the night before. Gimblet went sniffing round it, but could find no trace of lingering Arome de la Corse. The box opener told them that Mrs. Vanderstein and the young lady who generally came with her had occupied it at the gala performance, and had left before the end of the last scene. She hadn’t noticed anything strange or otherwise about either of them, and as far as she knew no one had visited the box during the intervals.
No one, it appeared, had observed their departure from the doors of the theatre. One commissionaire thought he remembered two ladies coming out early and driving off in a carriage, but he couldn’t say, he was sure, what they were like. Might have been young and lovely, or again, might have been old and ugly. He had seen a powerful lot of ladies in the course of the evening, and never had enjoyed what you might call a memory for faces. If it had not been for the lack of that useful talent, the commissionaire concluded regretfully, he would, as likely as not, have been sitting in the hall of a West End club at the present moment, with no more to do than to answer the inquiries of one gentleman for another gentleman. Never had been what you might call the victim of good luck.
They left him testing a shilling doubtfully with his teeth, as if unwilling to believe that his fortune could have changed sufficiently for the coin to be other than a bad one.
It was growing late, the doors of the theatres would soon be open. Already shutters were up in front of shop windows, and the crowds that still filled the streets had no excuse for loitering now there was nothing to look at, nowhere left for noses to be flattened. Instead, every one seemed to be hurrying in one direction, the direction of railway station or tram, or whatever would carry them to their homes. The sinking sun had at last left the streets full of shadows and, though the pavements and walls still radiated heat, a cool breeze had arisen and was rushing in from the river. In open spaces, where the tall walls of houses did not prevent a glimpse of the western sky, one could see a cloud or two slowly climbing the heavens.
The two men walked together in silence for a little way, and then Gimblet stopped, holding out his hand.
“I don’t think we can do any more to-night,” he said. “Put away your anxieties for a few hours, Sir Gregory; it does no good to worry. To-morrow, if fresh tidings come, we must see what else can be done. I think perhaps you will be wise to consult the police.”
But at this Sir Gregory raised an outcry.