“Yes, but somehow I miss the oriental sumptuousness of my house at Therapia, down on the Bosphorus. Still, when one is forced to live in London, one must adopt London’s ways.”
The man had served us with excellent clear soup and had left the room when my host suddenly looked up at me and said:—
“Oh, by the way, what is the latest concerning your little friend of Mürren and her husband?”
“Well, Mr. Humphreys,” I said, “the fact is she’s disappeared. That is what I want to consult you about.”
“Disappeared!” he exclaimed, staring at me. “Then she’s followed her husband into oblivion—eh?”
“It certainly appears so,” I said.
“Very curious! I didn’t see it in the paper,” he declared. “Tell me what you know.”
“Well—what I know only puzzles me the more,” was my reply. “She simply left her mother at Bexhill, saying she was going to London, and disappeared. But one very curious fact I’ve discovered is that a few days ago she and her husband called upon Doctor Feng.”
“Called on Feng!” he cried, starting up. “You—you’re mistaken, surely! Audley has called on Feng—impossible!”
“Why?” I asked, surprised to see how perturbed he was. He saw my surprise and the next instant concealed his keen anxiety. But it had struck me as very unusual. I knew that Feng and he were close friends. I suspected the former of knowing more than he had revealed to me, and it seemed now that old Mr. Humphreys was equally annoyed that his friend had concealed Audley’s visit from him.