He turned round quickly and left the room.
Mrs. Tropenell did not see her son again till late that night, and then not alone, for Laura spent the evening at Freshley, and after he had taken their guest home to The Chase, he did not come in again for hours.
Old Mr. Privet, G.o.dfrey Pavely"s confidential clerk, had been rather taken aback when he had learnt over the telephone, from Mrs. Pavely, that he was to have Mr. Oliver Tropenell as his travelling companion to London. But very soon, being a truly religious man, he came to see how well and wisely everything had been ordered. To begin with, Mr.
Tropenell called for him at the Bank, thus saving him a very cold, easterly-wind kind of walk to Pewsbury station, which was some way from the town. And once there, Mr. Tropenell had taken two first-cla.s.s return tickets--that again being the action of a true gentleman, for he, Mr. Privet, would have been quite content to go by himself third-cla.s.s.
Also, as it turned out, during the long journey to London they had some very pleasant and instructive conversation together.
Quite at first, in answer to a query as to what he thought of this extraordinary business of Mr. Pavely"s disappearance, Mr. Oliver Tropenell had been perhaps a little short. He had replied that no one could possibly venture an opinion as to what had happened. But then had followed between them, in spite of the fact that the noise of the train was very trying, a most agreeable chat over old times--over those days when Mr. G.o.dfrey Pavely"s father, a fine type of the old country-town banker, was still alive.
Mr. Privet, as a younger man, had had a good deal to do with the final sale and purchase of The Chase, and Mr. Tropenell, as was very natural in one whose own ancestors had lived there for hundreds of years, had shown the greatest interest in that old story. Mr. Tropenell had not been in the least over-curious or indiscreet, but Mr. Privet had been led on to talk of his companion"s grandfather, a gentleman who, if rather wild, and certainly extravagant and headstrong, had been such a grand sportsman--quite a hero among the young men of Pewsbury! What had brought about the poor gentleman"s undoing had been his taking over the hounds, when Lord St. Amant"s great-uncle had given them up.
So pleasant had been that conversation in the first-cla.s.s carriage shared by them, that for the first time since Thursday Mr. Privet had almost forgotten the business on which they two were going to London!
But he had soon remembered it again--for at the station Mr. Oliver Tropenell had suggested that, instead of going to the Hungerford Hotel, he, Mr. Privet, should accompany him to Lord St. Amant"s club, in order to get a letter of introduction from that n.o.bleman to the Commissioner of Police.
Not long ago Mr. Privet had read an interesting book called _In London Club Land_. But he had little thought, when he was reading that book, that he would ever see the famous old political club to which a whole chapter had been devoted, and to which so many of his own special political heroes had belonged in their time!
And then, after Lord St. Amant, who also had treated Mr. Privet with rather exceptional civility, not to say courtesy, had written the letter, Mr. Tropenell suggested that they should go straight on to Scotland Yard--pointing out, what was true enough, that Mr. Privet knew far more of Mr. G.o.dfrey Pavely"s business and habits than any one else.
And so, together, they had driven off in a taxi--also a new, agreeable experience to Mr. Privet--to the famous Bastille-like building on the Thames Embankment.
But when there, the interview with the pleasant-spoken, genial gentleman who wielded such immense powers had been disappointing.
Sir Angus Kinross had listened very carefully to all that he, Mr.
Privet, had had to say, and he had asked a number of acute, clever questions of both his visitors. But very soon he had observed that he feared much valuable time had been lost.
Later on, Mr. Privet, when he thought the interview over, could almost hear the voice of Sir Angus repeating slowly, inexorably: "Thursday? And it"s now Monday afternoon! What a misfortune it is that Mrs.--ah, yes--Mrs. Pavely, did not communicate with us at once. If she had telephoned, here, when she first began to realise that there was something strange in her husband"s prolonged absence, she would almost certainly have had some sort of news by now."
And then he, Mr. Privet, had answered quickly, "But we didn"t begin to feel anxious till the Friday, sir."
"I quite understand that! But if you, Mr.--ah yes--Mr. Privet--had written then, we could have begun our inquiries on the Sat.u.r.day morning.
Did it not occur to you to let the London police know of Mr. Pavely"s non-appearance?"
For a moment Mr. Privet had felt vaguely uncomfortable, for his questioner had given him such a very odd, keen look, as he asked that simple question. But he had answered, honestly enough, for after all "Tho" truth may be blamed, it can never be shamed": "Mr. Pavely, sir, did not like to be interfered with when he was away on business, and we thought it would annoy him if we were to make too great a fuss. Once, many years ago now--Mr. Pavely went over to Paris for some days, and omitted to leave his address at the Bank. I couldn"t help remembering last week that Mr. Pavely, on that former occasion, had seemed somewhat put out with me for expressing what I thought at the time a very natural anxiety, sir."
They hadn"t been very long at Scotland Yard, a little under half an hour in all, and during the last ten minutes a shorthand writer had made some notes of the conversation, which, indeed, had been almost entirely carried on between him, Mr. Privet, and the Commissioner of Police. Mr.
Oliver Tropenell, as was bound to be the case, had had very little to say, seeing that he was there merely as Mrs. Pavely"s representative, she having her only brother in Mexico.
After leaving Scotland Yard they had gone on to the Hungerford Hotel, and there a lot of information had been afforded them. But it hadn"t amounted to very much--when all was said and done! They already knew that all trace of Mr. Pavely had disappeared after eleven o"clock on the Thursday morning. His room was even now exactly as he had left it; neat, for he was always a most particular gentleman, but with nothing put away. In fact the only news of him after that morning had been that telephone message to The Chase--a message given by some one, the butler by now wasn"t even sure if it was a man or a woman, who was evidently in a great hurry.
One thing the manager of the hotel had done which had rather surprised and shocked both Mr. Privet and his companion. He had consulted a detective about the affair, and, at Mr. Tropenell"s request, the detective was sent for.
Mr. Privet had thought this secret inquiry agent (as he called himself) a queer kind of chap--in fact he had seemed much more anxious to ascertain if a reward was going to be offered, than to offer any useful advice as to this perplexing matter of Mr. Pavely"s disappearance.
He had, however, seemed to think that the Thursday evening telephone call was very important, and he had asked permission to come down to The Chase to cross-examine the servant who had taken the message. But that--so Mr. Tropenell had very properly said--was impossible, now that the matter had been placed in the hands of Scotland Yard. In answer to Mr. Privet"s natural curiosity as to why the detective thought that telephone call so important, the man had answered, rather crossly: "You see, there"s no record kept of telephone calls! There"s a record kept of telegrams, so one can always recover the original of a telegram."
Mr. Tropenell had been quite surprised on hearing this.
"I should have thought telephone calls quite as important as telegrams?"
he had exclaimed.
"So they are, with regard to _my_ kind of work," the man had replied.
"But even with regard to trunk-calls you"ve only got to go into a Post Office and plank down your money and wait till you"re through! Still, the young woman at your country Exchange would probably have remembered the call if she had been asked sooner. But it"s all such a long time ago."
A long time ago? What nonsense! He, Mr. Privet, felt quite put out with this detective, and he began to see why Mr. Tropenell thought the man ought not to have been brought into the business at all. It was certainly rather cool of the hotel manager to have gone and brought such a person into the affair, without asking Mr. Pavely"s friends if he was at liberty to do so.
They had managed to catch the six o"clock express back to Pewsbury, and then Mr. Tropenell very kindly insisted on driving Mr. Privet home. Mr.
and Mrs. Privet owned a pretty, old-fashioned house on the other side of the town. When Mr. Privet had married--a matter of forty years ago now--he had made up his mind that it would do him good to be obliged to take a good walk to and from the Bank every day.
On their arrival at the house--which, funnily enough, was called Southbank--Mr. Tropenell, at the request of Mr. Privet, had come in for a few minutes to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Privet. He had said how much he liked their house, how much prettier it was, how much more dignified--that had been his curious word--than the red brick villas which had sprung up all over the outskirts of their beautiful old town.
And Mr. Privet had been secretly rather pleased, for lately "Mother"--as he called Mrs. Privet--had become somewhat restless, being impressed by certain improvements those gimcrack villas possessed, which their house lacked, and that though he had put in a nice bathroom a matter of twenty years ago.
Yes, of the several people who, that day, had been engaged in trying to probe the mystery of G.o.dfrey Pavely"s disappearance, the only one who found a great deal of natural pleasure and simple enjoyment out of it all was Mr. Privet; and he, alone of them all, really cared for the missing man, and, perhaps, alone of them all, had a genuine longing to see him again.
Mr. Privet thought it was particularly kind of Mr. Oliver Tropenell to be taking all this trouble for poor Mrs. Pavely; though of course he, Mr. Privet, was well aware that Mrs. Pavely"s brother was partner to Mr.
Tropenell in Mexico. He knew the sad truth--the sad truth, that is, as to the disgraceful circ.u.mstances under which Gilbert Baynton had had to leave England. No one else in the Bank had known--at least he and Mr.
Pavely hoped not. It had been very, very fortunate that the forged signature had been on one of their own cheques. But for that fact, nothing could have saved that good-for-nothing scoundrel--so Mr. Privet always called Gillie Baynton in his own mind--from a prosecution.
Do any of us ever think, reader, of the way in which our most secret business is known, nay, must be known, to a certain number of people of whose existence we ourselves are scarcely aware?
Laura, when she came and talked, as she sometimes did talk, kindly, if a little indifferently, to her husband"s confidential clerk, would have been disagreeably surprised had she been able to see into Mr. Privet"s heart and mind. As for G.o.dfrey Pavely, nothing would have made him credit, high as was his opinion of Mr. Privet"s business ac.u.men, the fact that his clerk had a very shrewd suspicion where those three hundred pounds in notes, lately drawn out by his employer for his own personal use, had made their way....
CHAPTER XVI
It was the morning of the 15th of January, and already G.o.dfrey Pavely"s disappearance had excited more than the proverbial nine days" wonder.
Laura had gone to her boudoir after breakfast, and she was waiting there, sitting at her writing-table, feeling wretchedly anxious and excited, for all last night she had had a curious, insistent presentiment that at last something was going to happen. She had sent Alice off to her lessons, for there was no object in allowing the child to idle as she had idled during that first bewildering week.
At last she got up, pushed her chair aside, and went and lay down on a sofa. She felt very, very tired; worn out partly by suspense and anxiety, partly by the many interviews with strangers she had been compelled to have during the last ten days.
Oliver Tropenell was again in London, and since he had left Freshley, for the second time, it was as though a strong, protecting arm on which she leant had suddenly been withdrawn from her. And yet she knew that he was engaged upon her business, upon this extraordinary, unutterably strange business of her husband"s disappearance.
Oliver wrote to her daily--brief, coldly-worded notes describing what had been, and was being, done both by the police and by the big firm of private detectives who were now also engaged in a search for the missing man. But there was very little to report--so far every one was completely baffled.
Against the wish and advice of both Oliver Tropenell and the Scotland Yard authorities, Laura had offered a reward of a thousand pounds for any information which would lead to the discovery of G.o.dfrey Pavely, alive or dead. It had been Katty"s suggestion, and Laura, somehow, had not liked to disregard it.
But now, to-day, Laura, as she moved restlessly this way and that, told herself that she was sorry she had a.s.sented to a suggestion that Katty Winslow should come and stay with her during those long days of waiting which were at once so dreary and so full of excitement and suspense.
Katty had got hopelessly on Laura"s nerves. Katty could not keep silent, Katty could not keep still.
Mrs. Winslow, in a sense, had taken possession of The Chase. It was she who saw to everything, who examined every letter, who went and answered the telephone when the police either at Pewsbury or from London rang up.
She was apparently in a state of great excitement and of great anxiety, and some of the critics in the servants" wing said to each other with a knowing smile that Mrs. Winslow might have been Mrs. Pavely, so much did that lady take Mr. Pavely"s disappearance to heart!
Katty had not seemed as worried as Laura had seemed the first two or three days, but now she appeared even more upset. Yesterday she had admitted to sleepless nights, and the hostess had felt greatly relieved when her guest had at last confessed that if dear Laura would not mind she would like to stay in bed every morning up to eleven o"clock; nothing ever happened before then.
The only person with whom Laura, during those long, dreary days, felt comparatively at ease was Mrs. Tropenell, for Mrs. Tropenell seemed to understand exactly what she, poor Laura, was feeling during those miserable days of waiting for news that did not come. But Laura did not see very much of the older woman--not nearly as much as she would have liked to do just now, for Mrs. Tropenell disliked Katty, and avoided meeting her.