Medina Villas? Miss Strong resided in Medina Villas, and Miss Wentworth; with which fact Mr. Lawrence was possibly acquainted. Once more in this latest dash for the bag Mr. Paxton seemed to trace that gentleman's fine Roman hand. He thanked the manager for the care which he had taken of his interests.
"I'm glad that you sent the scamp empty away, but, between you and me, the loss wouldn't have been a very serious one if you had given him what he wanted. I took all that the bag contained of value up with me to town, and left it there."
The manager looked at him, as Mr. Paxton felt, a trifle scrutinisingly, as if he could not altogether make him out.
"There seems to be a sort of dead set made at you. First, the attempted burglary last night--which is a kind of thing which has never before been known in the whole history of the hotel--and now this impudent rascal trying to make out that you had authorised him to receive your Gladstone bag. One might almost think that you were carrying something about with you which was of unique importance, and that the fact of your doing so had somehow become known to a considerable proportion of our criminal population."
Mr. Paxton laughed. He had the bag carried upstairs, telling himself as he went that it was already more than time that his sojourn at Makell's Hotel should be brought to a conclusion.
He ate a solitary dinner, lingering over it, though he had but a scanty appetite, as long as he could, in order to while away the time until the hour came for meeting Daisy. Towards the end of the meal, sick to death of his own thoughts, for sheer want of something else to do, he took up an evening paper, which he had brought into the room with him, and which was lying on a chair at his side, and began to glance at it. As he idly skimmed its columns, all at once a paragraph in the City article caught his eye. He read the words with a feeling of surprise; then, with increasing amazement, he read them again.
"The boom in the shares of the Trumpit Gold Mine continues. On the strength of a report that the reef which has been struck is of importance, the demand for them, even at present prices, exceeded the supply. When our report left, buyers were offering £10--the highest price of the day."
After subjecting the paragraph to a second reading, Mr. Paxton put the paper down upon his knees, and gasped for breath. It was a mistake--a canard--quite incredible. Trumpits selling at £10--it could not be! He would have been glad, quite lately, to have sold his for 10d each; only he was conscious that even at that price he would have found no buyer. £10 indeed! It was a price of which, at one time, he had dreamed--but it had remained a dream.
He read the paragraph again. So far as the paper was concerned, there seemed to be no doubt about it--there it was in black and white. The paper was one of the highest standing, of unquestionable authority, not given to practical jokes--especially in the direction of quotations in its City article. Could the thing be true? He felt that something was tingling all over his body. On a sudden, his pulses had begun to beat like sledge-hammers. He rose from his seat, just as the waiter was placing still another plate in front of him, and, to the obvious surprise of that well-trained functionary, he marched away without a word. He made for the smoking-room. He knew that he should find the papers there. And he found them, morning and evening papers--even some of the papers of the day before--as many as he wished. He ransacked them all. Each, with one accord, told the same tale.
The thing might be incredible, but it was true!