A Mysterious Disappearance

“Because there is a woman in the case.”

“Another woman?”

“Yes; Mensmore’s sister, or half-sister, to be exact. She also lives in Raleigh Mansions.”

“Indeed. So all kinds of things have been going on without my knowledge. Yet you promised faithfully to keep me informed of every incident that transpired.”

“I am sorry, Dyke; but you were so upset – ”

“Upset, man. Don’t you realize that this affair is all I have to think about in the world?”

The baronet was so disturbed that Claude at once made up his mind to tell him as little as possible in the future. These constant possibilities of rupture between them must be avoided at all hazard.

To change the conversation he said: “Never mind; this time you must pardon my inadvertence. How do your wife’s people bear the continued mystery of her disappearance?”

“At first they were awfully cut up. But lately they have been reconciled to her death, which they say must have resulted from accident, and that her identity must have been mixed up with that of some other person. Such things do happen, you know. Anyway, her sister has gone into mourning for her. You didn’t hear, I suppose, that I have made my little nephew my heir?”

“Was that step necessary at your time of life?”

“I shall never marry again, Bruce.”

“Well, let us drop the subject. You have done right as regards the boy under present circumstances; but, as a man of the world, I only point out that it is an unwise thing to bring up a youngster in expectation of something which chance might determine differently.”

“Chance! There is no chance! My wife cannot return from the grave!”

“True. You have done right, no doubt. But the suddenness of the thing caused me to speak unwittingly.”

They were silent for a little while, when Sir Charles returned to the subject nearest his heart.

“Has your search developed in other directions?”

Bruce fenced with the query. “To be candid,” he said, “I am now most busily engaged in the not very difficult task of throwing dust in the eyes of the police. My motives are hardly definite to myself, but I do not want this unfortunate man, Mensmore, to be arrested until I have personally become convinced of his guilt.”

“You are right. Your instinct seldom fails you. I question if he ever, to his own knowledge, saw my wife.”

“Ah! You see you have hit upon the difficulty. Show me her reason for making that secret journey, and I will tell you how she met her death.”

His concluding words sank to a murmur. An old friend of Dyke’s had entered the room and came toward them.

A few minutes later Bruce quitted the Imperial and drove to his chambers, where he found a note from the ticket collector stating that Foxey’s name was William Marsh.

The day was still young, and the barrister paid a visit to the West London Police Court, where the records soon revealed the conviction of the cab-driver and the period of his sentence.

“Let me see,” said the resident inspector, “his time at Holloway is up on February 6. That is a Monday, and as Sunday doesn’t count, he will be liberated on the 4th, about 8 A.M. That is the habit, sir, in the matter of short sentences. If you want to see him when he leaves the jail you can either wait at the gates or at the nearest public-house, where the prisoners go for their first drink. They seldom or never miss.”

Bruce thanked the official and returned home.

He was on the point of going out to drive, when he received a letter from Sir Charles Dyke. It ran:

“My Dear Claude, – Today’s experiences have taught me to take the inevitable step of announcing my wife’s death. Hence, I have forwarded the enclosed notice to an advertisement agency, with instructions to insert it in the principal papers. I have also decided to follow your advice and leave town for a few days. I am going to Wensley, my place in Yorkshire, should you happen to want me.

    “Yours,
    “Charles Dyke.”

The notice read:

“Dyke. – On November 6, Alice, wife of Sir Charles Dyke, Bart., suddenly, at London.”

Next morning it figured in the obituary columns of many newspapers. Bruce, though taken back by the suddenness of his friend’s resolve, saw no reason to endeavor to dissuade him. In the words of the letter, it was “the inevitable step.”

CHAPTER XVIII

WHAT HAPPENED ON THE RIVIERA

The White Heather swung quietly at her moorings in the harbor of Genoa the Superb. The lively company on board, tired after a day’s sight-seeing, had left the marble streets and palace cafés to the Genoese, and sought the pleasant seclusion of the yacht’s airy promenade deck.

“Dinner on board, followed by a dance,” said Phyllis, as arbiter of the procedure. A few hasty invitations sent out to British residents in Genoa met with general acceptance, and the lull between afternoon tea and the more formal meal was a grateful interlude.

Genoa is so shut in by its amphitheatre of hills that unless a gale blows from the west its bay is unruffled, and its atmosphere oppressively hot during the day, even in the winter months.

Sir William Browne’s excursion had proved so attractive to those invited that the White Heather was taken farther along the coast than was originally intended. When all the best known resorts of the Riviera itself were exploited, some one, probably prompted thereto by Phyllis or Mensmore, suggested a run to Genoa.

They had been in the port three days, and on the morrow would hand the yacht over to the owner’s agents, those on board separating on their different routes. The Brownes went to Florence and Rome, and Mensmore was pretending to hold out against a pressing request to accompany them, cordially given by his prospective father-in-law.

This afternoon Phyllis and he were leaning over the taffrail and discussing the point.

The young lady was slightly inclined to be angry. Her eyes roamed over the magnificent panorama of church-crowned hills and verdant valleys, with the white city in front and the picturesque quays looking as though they had been specially decked for a painting by Clara Montalba. But Phyllis paid heed to none of these things. She wanted her lover to come with her, and not to fly away to smoke-covered London.

“Business!” she cried, “it is always business that men think of. Of course I know that affairs must be attended to, but now that everything is settled and we are quite happy, it is too bad of you to run away immediately.”

“But, dearest – ”

“There! Take your hand off my arm. You are not going to coax me into agreement. Just because you receive a horrid letter this morning you go and upset all the arrangements.”

“Phyllis, listen to me. I – ”

“You shan’t go. I think it is mean of you to insist upon it when I am so urgent.”

“I am not insisting. You might at least help me to settle matters; otherwise they will get terribly mixed.”

“And you will stay?”

“What else can I do when you ask me?”

“Oh, you darling!”

This little quarrel was very delightful, and made them feel ever so much more in love than before; but it did not help Mensmore out of his difficulty.