"My love, is anything the matter?"
His wife was bending forward with both hands in the drawer, telling over its contents.
"My diary is not here!"
"Your diary!"
"It is gone."
"But"--he came over to her--"this is very serious. I presume, like all diaries, it is full of----" Instinctively he had been about to say "d.a.m.ning"; he remembered his dear one"s irreproachable character and subst.i.tuted "precious secrets."
"It is full of matter which must never be given to the world--my secret thoughts, my aspirations. The whole history of my soul is there."
"Heavens! It must be found."
They searched the writing-table. They searched the room. No diary.
"Could you have taken it to my room, and left it there?" asked Mr.
Greyne.
They hastened thither, and looked--in vain. By this time the servants were gone to bed, and the two searchers were quite alone on the ground floor of their magnificent mansion. Mrs. Greyne began to look seriously perturbed. Her Roman features worked.
"This is appalling," she exclaimed. "Some thief, knowing it priceless, must have stolen the diary. It will be published in America. It will bring in thousands--but to others, not to us."
She began to wring her hands. It was near midnight.
"Think, my love, think!" cried Mr. Greyne. "Where could you have taken it? You had it last night?"
"Certainly. I remember writing in it that you would be sailing to Algiers on the _General Bertrand_ on Thursday of this week, and that on the night I should be feeling widowed here. The previous night I wrote that yesterday I should have to tell you of your mission. You know I always put down beforehand what I shall do, what I shall even think on each succeeding day. It is a practice that regulates the mind and conduct, that helps to uniformity."
"How true! Who can have taken it? Do you ever leave it about?"
"Never. Am I a madwoman?"
"My darling, compose yourself! We must search the house."
They proceeded to do so, and, on coming into the schoolroom, Mrs.
Greyne, who was in front, uttered a sudden cry.
Upon the table of Mademoiselle Verbena lay the diary, open at the following entry:--
On Thursday next poor Eustace will be on board the _General Bertrand_, sailing for Algiers. I shall be here thinking of myself, and of him in relation to myself. G.o.d help us both. Duty is sometimes stern. Mem. The corner house in Park Lane, next the Duke of Ebury"s, has sixty years still to run; the lease, that is. Thursday--poor Eustace!
"What does this portend?" cried Mrs. Greyne.
"My darling, it pa.s.ses my wit to imagine," replied her husband.
III
The parting of Mr. and Mrs. Greyne on the following morning was very affecting. It took place at Victoria Station, in the midst of a small crowd of admiring strangers, who had recognised the commanding presence of the great novelist, and had gathered round to observe her manifestations.
Mrs. Greyne was considerably shaken by the event of the previous night.
Although, on the discovery of the diary, the house had been roused, and all the servants closely questioned, no light had been thrown upon its migration from the locked drawer to the schoolroom table. Adolphus and Olivia, jerked from sleep by the hasty hands of a maid, could only weep and wan. The powdered footmen, one and all, declared they had never heard of a diary. The butler gave warning on the spot, keeping on his nightcap to give greater effect to his p.r.o.nunciamento. It was all most unsatisfactory, and for one wild moment Mrs. Greyne seriously thought of retaining her husband by her as a protection against the mysterious thief who had been at work in their midst. Could it be Mademoiselle Verbena? The dread surmise occurred, but Mr. Greyne rejected it.
"Her father was a count," he said. "Besides, my darling, I don"t believe she can read English; certainly not unless it is printed."
So there the matter rested, and the moment of parting came.
There was a murmur of respectful sympathy as Mrs. Greyne clasped her husband tenderly in her arms, and pressed his head against her prune-coloured bonnet strings. The whistle sounded. The train moved on.
Leaning from a reserved first-cla.s.s compartment, Mr. Greyne waved a silk pocket-handkerchief so long as his wife"s Roman profile stood out clear against the fog and smoke of London. But at last it faded, grew remote, took on the appearance of a feebly-executed crayon drawing, vanished. He sank back upon the cushions--alone. Darrell was travelling second with the dressing-case.
It was a strange sensation, to be alone, and _en route_ to Algiers. Mr.
Greyne scarcely knew what to make of it. A schoolboy suddenly despatched to Timbuctoo could hardly have felt more terribly emanc.i.p.ated than he did. He was so absolutely unaccustomed to freedom, he had been for so long without the faintest desire for it, that to have it thrust upon him so suddenly was almost alarming. He felt lonely, anxious, horribly unmarried. To divert his thoughts he drew forth a Merrin"s exercise-book and a pencil, and wrote on the first page, in large letters, "_African Frailty, Notes for_" Then he sat gazing at the t.i.tle of his first literary work, and wondering what on earth he was going to see in Algiers.
Vague visions of himself in the bars of African public-houses, in mosques, in the two-pair-backs of dervishes, in bazaars--which he pictured to himself like those opened by royalties at the Queen"s Hall--in Moorish interiors surrounded by voluptuous ladies with large oval eyes, black tresses, and Turkish trousers of spangled muslin, flitted before his mental gaze. When the train ran upon Dover Pier, and the white horses of the turbulent Channel foamed at his feet, he started as one roused from a Rip Van Winkle sleep. Severe illness occupied his whole attention for a time, and then recovery.
In Paris he dined at the buffet like one in a dream, and, at the appointed hour, came forth to take the _rapide_ for Ma.r.s.eilles. He looked for Darrell and the dressing-case. They were not to be seen.
There stood the train. Pa.s.sengers were mounting into it. Old ladies with agitated faces were buying pillows and nibbling biscuits. Elderly gentlemen with yellow countenances and red ribands in their coats were purchasing the _Figaro_ and the _Gil Blas_. Children with bare legs were being hauled into compartments. Rook"s agent was explaining to a muddled tourist in a tam-o"-shanter the exact difference between the words "Oui"
and "Non" The bustle of departure was in the air, but Darrell was not to be seen. Mr. Greyne had left him upon the platform with minute directions as to the point from which the train would start and the hour of its going. Yet he had vanished. The most frantic search, the most frenzied inquiries of officials and total strangers, failed to elicit his whereabouts, and, finally, Mr. Greyne was flung forcibly upward into the _wagonlit_, and caught by the _controleur_ when the train was actually moving out of the station.
A moment later he fell exhausted upon the pink-plush seat of his compartment, realising his terrible position. He was now utterly alone; without servant, hair-brushes, toothbrushes, razors, sponges, pajamas, shoes. It was a solitude that might be felt. He thought of the sea journey with no kindly hand to minister to him, the arrival in Africa with no humble companion at his side, to wonder with him at the black inhabitants and help him through the customs--to say nothing of the manners. He thought of the dread homes of iniquity into which he must penetrate by night in search of the material for the voracious "Catherine." He had meant to take Darrell with him to them all--Darrell, whose joyful delight in the prospect of exploring the Eastern fastnesses of crime had been so boyish, so truly English in its frank, its even boisterous sincerity.
And now he was utterly alone, almost like Robinson Crusoe.
The _controleur_ came in to make the bed. Mr. Greyne told him the dreadful story.
"No doubt he has been lured away, monsieur. The dressing-case was of value?"
"Crocodile, gold fittings."
"Probably monsieur will never see him again. As likely as not he will sleep in the Seine to-night, and at the morgue to-morrow."
Mr. Greyne shuddered. This was an ill omen for his expedition. He drank a stiff whisky-and-soda instead of the usual barley water, and went to bed to dream of b.l.o.o.d.y murders in which he was the victim.
When the train ran into Ma.r.s.eilles next morning he was an unshaven, miserable man.
"Have I time to buy a tooth-brush," he inquired anxiously at the station, "before the boat sails for Algiers?"
The _chef de gare_ thought so. Monsieur had four hours, if that was sufficient. Mr. Greyne hastened forth, had a Turkish bath, purchased a new dressing-case, ate a hasty _dejeuner_, and took a cab to the wharf.
It was a long drive over the stony streets. He glanced from side to side, watching the bustling traffic, the hurry of the nations going to and from the ships. His eyes rested upon two Arabs who were striding along in his direction. Doubtless they were also bound for Algiers. He thought they looked most wicked, and hastily took a note of them for "African Frailty." Beside his sense of loss and loneliness marched the sense of duty. The great woman at home in Belgrave Square, founder of his fortunes, mother of his children, she depended upon him. Even in his own hour of need he would not fail her. He took a lead pencil, and wrote down:
Saw two Arab ruffians. Bare legs. Look capable of anything. Should not be surprised to hear that they had----
There he paused. That they had what? Done things. Of course, but what things? That was the question. He exerted his imagination, but failed to arrive at any conclusion as to their probable crimes. His knowledge of wickedness was really absurdly limited. For the first time he felt slightly ashamed of it, and began to wish he had gone into the militia.
He comforted himself with the thought that in a fortnight he would probably be fit for the regular army. This thought cheered him slightly, and it was with a slight smile upon his face that he welcomed the first glimpse of the _General Bertrand_, which was lying against the quay ready to cast off at the stroke of noon. Most of the pa.s.sengers were aboard, but, as Mr. Greyne stepped out of his cab, and prepared to pay the Maltese driver, a trim little lady, plainly dressed in black, and carrying a tiny and rather coquettish hand-bag, was tripping lightly across the gangway. Mr. Greyne glanced at her as he turned to follow, glanced, and then started. That back was surely familiar to him. Where could he have seen it before? He searched his memory as the little lady vanished. It was a smart, even a _chic_ back, a back that knew how to take care of itself, a back that need not go through the world alone, a back, in fine, that was most distinctly attractive, if not absolutely alluring. Where had he seen it before, or had he ever seen it at all?