I had now spent six weary months prosecuting my search, the most extraordinary and unfortunate that ever man was engaged in, and up to the day I started for Dieppe I had failed to obtain the smallest clew. I had left nothing untried. I had stimulated the activity of Scotland Yard by reckless liberality; I had set the whole detective force in motion, but to no purpose.
I had had recourse to the mysterious column in the Times for months together; but the agony of feeling that my appeals to Isabel to “come back to her husband, or communicate with him by letter,” was making all the breakfast-tables in the kingdom laugh, brought no response from the fugitive herself. All this time my uncle seconded me by his exertions and supported me by his kindness. [pg 749] I think I should have gone mad, if it had not been for him. He never tired of my lamentations, my long, sullen fits of gloom, the wearisome refrain of my self-reproach, my endless wondering at the behavior of Isabel, and my cursing and swearing at the stupidity of the Scotland Yard people. He bore with me as patiently as a mother with a sick child. My step-mother had talked him into her belief that Isabel had been on the stage, and that the most likely place to hear of her would be amongst managers and play-actors. There was something utterly revolting to me in this notion, and I burst out into such uncontrollable anger one day when my uncle was arguing in favor of it with a degree of sense that was quite unanswerable, that he determined never to broach the supposition again to me. This did not prevent him from following up the idea by employing agents in every direction to hunt the theatres both of London and the provincial towns. Meanwhile, I was secretly doing the same. I could not look the thing bravely in the face, even with him; but I had in my innermost heart a dread, amounting at times to certainty, that he was right, and that if ever I found my wife it would be in the green-room or on the stage. I discovered afterwards that my dear old uncle knew perfectly well the game I was playing, but he left me under the delusion that he believed in my disbelief, and so spared me the shame I morbidly shrank from. More than once a false alarm led me to fancy that these were realized, and that she was in the hands of a manager, and then my sensation was one of poignant misery, almost of despair. While I knew nothing I might yet hope. My feelings resembled that of the French miser who, while looking for the will that if found would rob him of a legacy, confessed naively: “Je cherche en priant Dieu de ne pas trouver.”
I was sitting at breakfast in my lodgings in Piccadilly one morning when my uncle came suddenly in, and said abruptly:
“You told me once that the sign by which the police could positively identify her was a silver tooth?”
“Yes,” I replied, and my heart thumped against my ribs; “a silver tooth in the left jaw, rather far back.”
“Did it never occur to you to make inquiries amongst the dentists?”
“No, that never occurred to me! But now that you mention it, it seems very strange that it should not. I quite remember her speaking to me of a clever one who had put in the silver tooth for her; how he had at first been obstinate and annoyed about it, and then when it was done how pleased he was with it. How stupid of me not to have thought of it before!” I cried in vexation; “but to-morrow I will begin and set inquiries on foot in this direction.”
“You needn't trouble about it,” said my uncle; “I've found the man who did it.”
“You have!” I cried. “And he has seen her! He has told you something! For heaven's sake, uncle, speak at once. What does the man know?”
“No great things,” answered my uncle, stepping from the hearth-rug, where he had been standing with his back to the clock, and flinging himself into an arm-chair. “It seems that your step-mother's fancy was the right one after all; the child was brought up for public singing, and she was here ten days ago. For aught this dentist can tell, she may be here still; but I think not. She came to him to have something [pg 750] done to this identical silver tooth. It was hurting her, and she was in a great state about it, because she had just got an engagement to sing at a provincial theatre this season; she didn't say where, but the last time he saw her—she went to him for several days running—she was fidgetting about the weather—you remember we had some stiffish gales last week—and wondering what sort of passage the people would have who were crossing the Channel with the wind so high. He could give me no idea what port she had in her mind, or in fact anything but just what I tell you. Well, I thought it was as well to make inquiries before I set you on the go again, so I telegraphed to the police at all the French ports, and just a minute ago I got this from Dieppe.”