"Monsieur," said he, "I have to make my heartfelt apologies for having caused you so painful, so useless, and so expensive an evening. As for the last aspect I will repay you."
"You will do no such thing, Professor," said I. "My evening has, on the contrary, been particularly useful and instructive. I wouldn"t have missed it for the world."
And I drove off homewards, glad to be in my own company.
Here was an imbroglio! The missing husband found and, like most missing husbands, found to be entirely undesirable. And Lola, obviously imagining her summons to be from me, was at that moment speeding hither as fast as the _Marechal Bugeaud_ could carry her. If I had discovered Captain Vauvenarde instead of Anastasius I would have anathematised him as the most meddlesome, crazy little marplot that ever looked like Napoleon the Third. But as the credit of the discovery belonged to him and not to me, I could only anathematise myself for my dilettanteism in the capacity of a private inquiry agent.
I went to bed and slept badly. The ludicrous scenes of the evening danced before my eyes; the smoke-filled, sordid room, the ign.o.ble faces round the table, the foolish hullaballoo, the collapse of Anastasius, my melodramatic intervention, and the ironical courtesy of the fleshy Captain Vauvenarde. Also, in the small hours of the night, Anastasius"s gigantic combinations a.s.sumed a less trivial aspect. What lunatic scheme was being hatched behind that dome-like brow? His object in taking me to the club was obvious. He could not have got in save under my protection.
But what he had reckoned upon doing when he got there Heaven and Anastasius Papadopoulos only knew. I was also worried by the confounded little pain inside.
On the following afternoon I went down to meet the steamer from Ma.r.s.eilles. I more than expected to find the dwarf on the quay, but to my relief he was not there. I had purposely kept my knowledge of Lola"s movements a secret from him, as I desired as far as possible to conduct affairs without his crazy intervention. I was not sorry, too, that he had not availed himself of my proposal to visit me that morning and continue our conversation of the night before. The grotesque as a decoration of life is valuable; as the main feature it gets on your nerves.
I stood on the sloping stone jetty among the crowd of Arab porters and Europeans and watched the vessel waddle in. Lola and I, catching sight of each other at the same time, waved handkerchiefs in an imbecile manner, and when the vessel came alongside, and during the tedious process of mooring, we regarded each other with photographic smiles. She was wearing a squirrel coat and a toque of the same fur, and she looked more like a splendid wild animal than ever. Something inside me--not the little pain--but what must have been my heart, throbbed suddenly at her beauty, and the throb was followed by a sudden sense of shock at the realisation of my keen pleasure at the sight of her. A wistful radiance shone in her face as she came down the gangway.
"Oh, how kind, how good, how splendid of you to meet me!" she cried as our hands clasped. "I was dreading, dreading, dreading that it might be some one else."
"And yet you came straight through," said I, still holding her hand--or, rather, allowing hers to encircle mine in the familiar grip.
"Didn"t you command me to do so?"
I could not explain matters to her then and there among the hustle of pa.s.sengers and the bustle of porters. Besides, Rogers, who had come down with the hotel omnibus, was at my side touching his hat.
"I have ordered you a room and a private sitting-room with a balcony facing the sea. Put yourself in charge of me and your luggage in charge of Rogers and dismiss all thoughts of worry from your mind."
"You are so restful," she laughed as we moved off.
Then she scanned my face and said falteringly. "How thin and worn you look! Are you worse?"
"If you ask me such questions," said I, "I"ll leave you with the luggage in charge of Rogers. I am in resplendent health."
She murmured that she wished she could believe me, and took my arm as we walked down the jetty to the waiting cab.
"It"s good to hear your voice again," I said. "It"s a lazy voice and fits in with the lazy South." I pointed to the burnous-enveloped Arabs sleeping on the parapet. "It"s out of place in Cadogan Gardens."
She laughed her low, rippling laugh. It was music very pleasant to hear after the somewhat shrill cachinnation of the Misses Bostock of South Shields. I was so pleased that I gave half a franc to a pestilential Arab s...o...b..ack.
"That was nice of you," she said.
"It was the act of an imbecile," I retorted. "I have now rendered it impossible for me to enter the town again. How is Dale?"
She started. "He"s well. Busy with his election. I saw him the day before I left. I didn"t tell him I was coming to Algiers. I wrote from Paris."
"Telling him the reason?"
She faced me and met my eyes and said shortly: "No."
"Oh!" said I.
This brought us to the cab. We entered and drove away. Then leaning back and looking straight in front of her, she grasped my wrist and said:
"Now, my dear friend, tell me all and get it over."
"My dear Madame Brandt--" I began.
She interrupted me. "For goodness" sake don"t call me that. It makes a cold shiver run down my back. I"m either Lola to you or nothing."
"Then, my dear Lola," said I, "the first thing I must tell you is that I did not send for you."
"What do you mean? The telegram?"
"It was sent by Anastasius Papadopoulos."
"Anastasius?" She bent forward and looked at me. "What is he doing here?"
"Heaven knows!" said I. "But what he has done has been to find Captain Vauvenarde. I am glad he has done that, but I am deeply sorry he sent you the telegram."
"Sorry? Why?"
"Because there was no reason for your coming," I said with unwonted gravity. "It would have been better if you had stayed in London, and it will be best if you take the boat back again to-morrow."
She remained silent for a while. Then she said in a low voice:
"He won"t have me?"
"He hasn"t been asked," I said. "He will, as far as I can command the situation, never be asked."
On that I had fully determined; and, when she inquired the reason, I told her.
"I proposed that you should reunite yourself with an honourable though somewhat misguided gentleman. I"ve had the reverse of pleasure in meeting Captain Vauvenarde, and I regret to say, though he is still misguided, he can scarcely be termed honourable. The term "gentleman"
has still to be accurately defined."
She made a writhing movement of impatience.
"Tell me straight out what he"s doing in Algiers. You"re trying to make things easy for me. It"s the way of your cla.s.s. It isn"t the way of mine. I"m used to brutality. I like it better. Why did he leave the army and why is he in Algiers?"
"If you prefer the direct method, my dear Lola," said I--and the name came quite trippingly on my tongue--"I"ll employ it. Your husband has apparently been kicked out of the army and is now running a gambling-h.e.l.l."
She took the blow bravely; but it turned her face haggard like a paroxysm of physical pain. After a few moments" silence, she said:
"It must have been awful for him. He was a proud man."
"He is changed," I replied gently. "Pride is too hampering a quality for a knight of industry to keep in his equipment."
"Tell me how you met him," she said.
I rapidly sketched the whole absurd history, from my encounter with Anastasius Papadopoulos in Ma.r.s.eilles to my parting with him on the previous night. I softened down, as much as I could, the fleshiness of Captain Vauvenarde and the rolls of fat at the back of his neck, but I portrayed the villainous physiognomies of his a.s.sociates very neatly. I concluded by repeating my a.s.sertion that our project had proved itself to be abortive.
"He must be pretty miserable," said Lola.