“Then I will call at two. You will not neglect to give him this card?” He wrote a line in pencil on it announcing his visit at two next day, and returned to the hotel. As he was crossing the hall he heard the heavy tramp of hobnailed shoes on the stairs, and a noise as of men toiling under a weight. It was a piano. Clide walked slowly up after the carriers, saw them halt at the rooms on the first floor, saw the doors thrown open and the instrument carried in; there was no mistake about it; the occupants meant to remain there for some few days at least.
He sat down and wrote a long letter to the admiral, lit a cigar, and killed time as best he could with the newspapers until, physically worn out, he lay down in hopes of catching a few hours’ sleep. Stanton, satisfied with the information he already possessed, felt it might be unwise to ask further questions, and contented himself with hanging about the corridors in the neighborhood of Mrs. Brack’s rooms, in hopes of seeing her coming in or out, and catching a glimpse, perhaps, of another inmate who interested him more closely. It may seem irrational in him, and especially in his master, to have jumped at a positive conclusion as to the identity of that inmate on such a flimsy tissue of evidence; but when our minds are entirely possessed by an idea, we magnify trifles into important facts, and see all things colored by the medium of our prepossessions, and go on hooking link after link in the chain of witnesses till we have completed it, and made our internal evidence do the work of substantial testimony.
It was a glorious day, and when Clide had breakfasted he was glad to go out and reconnoitre the town instead of sitting in his dingy room, or lounging about the reading-room. He was a trained walker, thanks to his years of travel, and once set going he would go on for hours, oblivious of time, and quite unconscious of fatigue as long as the landscape offered him beauty or novelty enough to interest him. It was about half-past ten when he left the house, and he tramped on far beyond the town, and walked for nearly two hours, when the chimes of a village Angelus bell reminded him that time was marching too, and that he had better be retracing his steps. It was close upon two o’clock when he appeared at the consul’s door. On entering the hall, the first person he saw was Stanton.
“Sir, I’ve been waiting here these two hours for you. You’d better please let me have a word with you before you go in”; and Clide turned into the dining-room, which the servant of the house civilly opened for him. “We’ve been sold. They were off this morning at six. The three started together. They are gone to Berlin—at least so one of the kellners let out to me; the one I spoke to yesterday was coached-up by the landlord and the people themselves, I suppose, for he told me it was Vienna they were gone to; he had a trumped-up story about the fraulein’s mother being taken suddenly ill and telegraphing for them. They are a cunning lot. That piano was a dodge to put us to sleep, sir.”
“What proof have you that they are gone to Berlin? That other man may be mistaken, or lying to order like the rest? I must see the consul and take advice with him. This scoundrel of a landlord shall pay for his lies,” said Clide, beating his foot with a quick, nervous movement on the ground; “he must be forced to speak, and to speak the truth.”
“No need, sir; I’ve found it out without him. I’ve been to the railway. I made believe I was the servant following with luggage that was forgotten, and they told me the train they started by and the hour it arrives, and described them all three as true as life,” said Stanton.
“And it is she?”
“Not a doubt of it, sir. As certain as I’m Stanton.” Clide felt nevertheless that it would be well to see the consul; the case was so delicate, so fraught with difficulties on all sides, that it was desirable at any cost of personal feeling to furnish himself with all the information he could get as to how he should now proceed, so as not to entangle things still further.
On hearing his visitor’s strange tale, the consul’s advice was that he should see with his own eyes the person whom he took for granted was his wife, before venturing on any active steps. “The fact is quite clear to you,” he remarked, “and from what you say it is equally clear to me; but the evidence on which we build this assumption would not hold water for one minute before a magistrate. Suppose, after all, it turns out to be a case of mistaken identity; what a position you would be in!”
“That is impossible,” affirmed Clide.