CHAPTER XVI
As was natural after so restless a night, Hayden slept late the next morning, but when he awoke it was with his usual sense of buoyant optimism. The forebodings of the night had vanished, and the good, glad, fat years stretched before him in an unclouded vista. To‑day in all probability marked the conclusion of his comparatively lean years. A half an hour of conversation with those mysterious "owners," the disclosure of his maps, photographs, ore samples, the report of the assayers, etc., and then, the final arrangements. It might result in a trip to the property; but a journey made, his high heart promised, with Marcia.
At the thought of her a slight cloud obscured the shining towers of his Spanish castles. He recalled with a pang her pallor, her agitation of the night before. Something had evidently lain heavily upon her mind; she had been greatly distressed, even alarmed; but with the confidence of a lover he saw himself a god of the machine, consoling, reassuring, dissipating grief, and causing smiles to take the place of tears.
Upheld by these pleasant reflections, he breakfasted and then strolled through the rooms. They had been put in perfect order. And with the exception of the orchids, now sedately arranged in bowls and vases, instead of fluttering from palm‑trees and lattices, there was no trace of the last night's festivities. Suddenly he bethought himself of getting together his photographs, etc., in readiness for the interview of the afternoon; but they were no longer on the small table between the drawing‑room windows, where he had placed them the night before.
After seeking for them in every likely place for a few moments, Hayden rather impatiently summoned Tatsu and demanded to know what he had done with them. Tatsu, however, was a picture of the grieved ignorance he professed. He said that after every one had left the apartment, the night before, he had locked up very carefully and gone to bed; that he had arisen early in the morning, shortly after five, and had put the rooms in their present and complete order; and he was positive that there were no photographs upon the table then.
Hayden questioned him closely about the extra servants taken on for the occasion; but he insisted that none of them had penetrated farther than the dining‑room, and that he, himself had seen them all leave before the departure of the guests.
"There is a possibility that I may have tucked them away somewhere and have forgotten about them," said Hayden half‑heartedly. "Come, Tatsu, let us get to work and make a systematic search for them. Don't overlook any possible nook or cranny into which they may inadvertently have been thrown."
The two of them, master and man, made a diligent and careful search, taking perhaps an hour, but not a trace of the lost package could they find; then, dazed, puzzled beyond words, unbelieving still, but with a heavy sinking of the heart, Hayden sat down to face the situation, to make some attempt to review it calmly and to get matters clear in his own mind.