One very singular phase of the attendant surroundings was this--so many people appeared to be missing. The one immediately in question, Arthur Channing, was but a unit in the number. Scarcely an hour in the day passed but the police either received voluntary news of somebody's disappearance; or, through their inquiries after Arthur, gained it for themselves. If space allowed, and these volumes were the proper medium for it, a most singularly interesting account might be given of the facts, every word of which would be true.
Henry Ollivera found Mr. Greatorex in the dining-room finishing his luncheon. In point of fact it was his dinner, for he was going out of town that afternoon and would not be home until late. Bede, who rarely took luncheon, though he sometimes made a pretence of going up for it, was biting morsels off a hard biscuit, as he stood against the wall by the mantelpiece, near the handsome pier-glass that in his days of vanity he had been so fond of glancing in. Mrs. Bede Greatorex was at table; also the little girl, Jane, whose dinner it was. The board was extravagantly spread, displaying fish and fowl, and other delicacies, and Mrs. Bede was solacing herself with a pint of sparkling hock, which stood at her elbow. She looked flushed; at least, as much as a made-up face can look, and in her eyes there shone an angry light: perhaps at the non-appearance of two visitors she had expected, perhaps because she had just come from one of her violent-tempered attacks on Miss Channing. Mr. Greatorex, like his son Bede, did not appear to appreciate the good things: he was making his dinner off one plain dish and a glass of pale ale.
"You will sit down and take some, William?"
Mr. Ollivera declined; he had just swallowed his breakfast. From the absence of Miss Channing at the table, he drew an augury that the ill news spoken of by Mrs. Jones must be correct. But Mr. Greatorex said he was not aware of anything fresh; and a smile crossed his lips upon hearing that Roland was the author of the report. Bede laughed outright.
"If you only knew how often he has come in, startling us with extraordinary tales, you'd have learnt by this time what faith to have put in Roland Yorke," said Bede. "A man more sensitively nervous than he is, or ever will be, would have had brain-fever with all this talking and walking and mental excitement."
"He says, I understand, that he is going down to Helstonleigh, to get some information from Mr. Galloway," said the clergyman.
"Oh, is he? As good go there as stay here, for all the work he does. He'd start for the moon if there were a road to convey him to it."
"I wonder you give him so much holiday, Bede," remarked Mr. Ollivera.
"He takes it," answered Bede. "He is of very little use at his best, but we don't choose to discharge him, or in fact make any change until Lord Carrick comes over, who may now be expected shortly. I believe one thing--that he tries to do his utmost: and Brown puts up with him."
"Do you know," began Mr. Ollivera, in a low, meaning tone, when the door Closed upon the luncheon-tray, and the three gentlemen stood around the fire, Mrs. Bede having betaken herself to a far-off window, "I have half a mind to go to Helstonleigh myself."