MISSING.
Danaë sank upon the floor by the empty cot, literally unable to
stand. Wildly she sought for an explanation of Harold’s disappearance.
Had Petros carried him off in revenge, believing she had deceived him,
or had Harold, and not Janni, been his real object all along? But what
good could the possession of Harold do him, unless he meant to take
him to Therma and pass him off as Janni? Prince Romanos was not likely
to jeopardise his own safety by proclaiming the substitution, even if
he realised it, and to his father-in-law one child was as good as the
other. That must be it. Somehow or other she had missed Petros in the
darkness, and he had made his way in and seized Harold, possibly
believing him to be Janni. But here was Janni, sleeping peacefully,
and Harold would be carried off to Magnagrecia, where his parents
would never find him. For--and Danaë saw it clearly--if she gave the
alarm and accused Petros, matters could not stop there. The whole
story must come out, for Petros in his anger would unmask her as he
had threatened to do. And in the few moments of relief she had enjoyed
after the blissful discovery that he was not waiting for her, her
present home and all its ease and comfort and safety had become doubly
dear. No, she could not now renounce it by her own act. She would do
all she could to help in recovering Harold, short of telling what had
actually happened, and if the worst came to the worst she could always
confess Janni’s true parentage, and leave her employers to take what
steps they thought best.
“Why, Kalliopé, whatever in the world are you doing on the floor?”
demanded Linton’s hushed voice. “My lady couldn’t keep me with her
to-night, because of letters just come from Therma, so I just popped
down to the kitchen to see what Artemisia was going to send us up for
supper, and to ask about her son that was ill. But get up, girl, do!
What’s the matter?”
Danaë’s eyes met hers in the dimness like those of a hunted creature.
“The Lord Harold is not here,” she murmured.
“Not here? Who’s taken him?”
“I don’t know. I--I found him gone.”
“You found him gone? Why, you bad girl, you don’t mean to say you left
those blessed children alone, and me just turning my back for a
minute?”
“Some one called out to me that my uncle was here and wanted to speak
to me, and I ran down to see, but there was no one there. I was not
gone long.”
“Not long--I know what that means! And that precious child screaming
his little heart out, no doubt. Of course his papa heard him--the
darling!--and came and carried him away to the drawing-room, giving
him his death of cold, as likely as not. I’ll fetch him back at once;
but you mark my words, Kalliopé, I don’t trust you with the nursery
again in a hurry.”
In the Wylies’ drawing-room an informal council was being held over
the letter Armitage had just received from the Cavaliere Pazzi. Prince
and Princess Theophanis had come in, for the news it brought was
startling. Armitage translated roughly as he referred to the paper in
his hand.
“After all, there’s no doubt that the poor old chap acted wisely, from
his own point of view, in going to Professor Panagiotis,” he said.
“The Professor seems to have found out more in three days than he did
by himself in a month, and things certainly look very black against
Prince Romanos. According to the Cavaliere, these are his principal
points:--There was no notification of the existence of an infectious
disease at the villa, at a time when the Prince declares all its
inmates were mortally ill with diphtheria; no doctor was summoned
there until the day registered as that of the death of Donna Olimpia
and two of her servants; no nurses were seen coming or going, and no
medicines or disinfectants appear to have been purchased.”
“But look here,” said Wylie; “let us give the devil his due. This
absence of doctors and nurses and so on doesn’t necessarily imply that
there was no diphtheria, but it does account for its being so fatal.
According to the story in the last letter, there must have been five
people ill of it, and no one to nurse them.”
“Except Prince Romanos himself on his daily visits, when he went in
and out without apparently taking any precaution against infection.
That seems to be proved by the evidence of the sentries,” said
Armitage. “The Professor certainly doesn’t do things by halves.
Imagine his convicting the Prince out of the mouths of his own
soldiers! But, Wylie, don’t you see the Cavaliere’s point? Even if the
deaths were really due to diphtheria, and not to violence, the poor
creatures were practically murdered by being left without care and
medical attendance. They couldn’t get out to ask for help, I suppose
they couldn’t even cook for themselves--why, they must have starved to
death. It’s worse even than if he had had them killed. Can you
conceive the callousness of a man who could see five people--his own
wife and child among them--dying by inches day after day, and do
nothing to help them?”
“No,” said Zoe decisively, “it is inconceivable. I have no particular
kindness for Prince Romanos, but cruelty of that sort would be
impossible to him. He is a poet, you must remember. If he had
contemplated a crime of the kind, he would never have gone near the
place, either then or afterwards.”
“Then we are thrown back on the hypothesis that he had them murdered,”
said Armitage, “and what makes it look very likely is that on the very
day the deaths took place a number of men in the uniform of the
Prince’s guard were seen by the sentry to enter the grounds of the
villa. He had been informed that an additional guard was to be placed
round the house itself at night, owing to the Prince’s absence from
Therma, and seeing these men enter, apparently by means of a key of
their own, without knocking for admittance, he thought it was the
detachment detailed for that duty. They were there some time, in fact,
until after the old woman-servant--mark this; she died of diphtheria
that very day, you will remember--had come in from her marketing, and
then they marched out again, just before the sentry went off guard.
Most unfortunately, the man who relieved him cannot be found. He took
his discharge from the army shortly afterwards, and all trace of him
has been lost. But it is known that the Prince visited the villa that
afternoon, and sent off in hot haste for a doctor. The doctor has also
disappeared. He was a foreigner, and having signed the certificate
that Donna Olimpia and the two servants died of diphtheria, which was
required by the municipal regulations before the bodies could be
buried, he returned presumably to his own country--but no one knows.”
Maurice rose from his chair in uncontrollable emotion. “Don’t go any
further, Armitage. We have no right to push this inquiry without
giving Romanos a chance to defend himself. Certainly it looks like a
dastardly murder, but there may possibly be some explanation. We know
that the man is a brave soldier, and I can’t believe it of him.”
“Just let me finish,” pleaded Armitage. “If he is innocent, it is most
unfortunate that he has made away with another witness whose evidence
might have helped to clear him--or at least acquiesced in her
disappearance. Don’t you remember the nurse who, according to his
revised story, ran away in a fit of delirium and drowned herself in
the harbour with the child in her arms? Well, in Pazzi’s last letter,
which I read to you, Princess--” to Zoe--“he said that the missing
nurse was a Roumi, and rather elderly than not. That description,
according to the evidence of eye-witnesses, exactly fits the woman who
threw herself into the water--some of them knew her. But now the
Cavaliere has unearthed a letter of Donna Olimpia’s in which she
speaks of the nurse as a rough handsome girl from Strio.”
The rest looked at each other, and Armitage went on hurriedly--
“Her name was Eurynomé Andropoulos, and she was the niece of the
Prince’s servant Petros. Donna Olimpia wrote that she had always
disliked Petros, and would not have had a relation of his in the
house, but her husband had a fancy for the child to be brought up on
the Striote nursery tales and songs.”
“How long ago exactly did Donna Olimpia die?” asked Maurice.
“Janni calls Kalliopé Nono,” murmured Zoe.
“She told us that Petros would say he was her uncle, but he denied it
as earnestly as she did,” said Wylie.
“Then that child is a descendant of John Theophanis, after all!” said
Eirene. “But his mother--his mother was a schismatic! There is no need
to fear him.”
“Fear him--a baby like that!” said Maurice, with a mingling of scorn
and affection in his tone. “My dear Eirene, would you propose to turn
the poor little chap out in the cold, if we had reason to fear him, as
you call it?”
“We ought to be thankful that we have been able to save anyone from
such a wholesale murder,” said Zoe.
“Wait!” said Wylie suddenly. “Please remember, all of you, that we
know nothing yet for certain. We do know enough of this
girl--Kalliopé or Eurynomé or whatever else she may call herself--to
be sure that if we have her in and cross-question her she will deny
everything without a qualm, and probably seize the first opportunity
of taking the baby and running away somewhere else. She may be in the
pay of Romanos--paid to keep out of the way until the story of Donna
Olimpia has died down--or she may have been merely mad with fright
when she told us her rigmarole of contradictory stories at first.
Or--she may even not be the girl we are thinking of at all. At any
rate, we have her here safe, and the child too. I should advise very
strongly that we say nothing whatever to her at present, but that we
get old Pazzi up from Therma, and spring the thing upon her in his
presence. I doubt if we shall get the truth from her even then, but
there’s just a chance of it.”
“Then I think Romanos should be asked to come as well,” said Maurice,
“and perhaps Panagiotis too. There is so much at stake that we
ought----”
“Please, ma’am, may I have Master Harold?” Linton’s voice, reproving
at first, became insensibly frightened as she looked round the room
and failed to see her charge anywhere.
“Master Harold, Linton? Why, you told me yourself he was in bed an
hour ago!” cried Zoe.
“And so he was, ma’am, but I made sure Master had heard him crying and
brought him down here. If I’ve said so to myself once as I come down
from the nursery, I’ve said it on every stair. And where is the
precious lamb if he isn’t here, may I ask, ma’am?”
“Why, in bed, of course,” said Wylie, while Zoe, with a scared face,
ran out of the room.
“No, sir, that he isn’t, begging your pardon, and if any of you
gentlemen are playing a joke on me, I take the liberty to say it’s not
what I should have expected of you. Oh, do tell me where my little
lamb is, anybody that knows!”
“We don’t know, Linton, any more than you do,” said Maurice kindly,
“but we will come upstairs and help you look for him. I suppose the
little rascal might have crept out of bed and be hiding somewhere, or
even have walked in his sleep?”
“How could he, sir, and me fastening him safe into his crib before I
left him? But if you can find him I’ll take him back thankful, and no
questions asked.”
It was clear that Linton still believed herself and Harold to be the
victims of a practical joke, as she toiled up after the rest to the
nursery, where Zoe had Danaë in a corner, and was questioning her
fiercely.
“You think some one must have come up while you were away? Graham!
Maurice! she says she went down into the courtyard to speak to her
uncle, and when she came back Harold was gone.”
“How long ago was this?” asked Maurice.
“Excuse me one moment,” said Wylie. “Armitage, will you go to the
sergeant in the gatehouse--he speaks Greek--and tell him to go the
round of the Konak and see that no one, man, woman, or child, is
allowed to leave? After that he is to parade his men ready for duty.
Linton, go into all the rooms on this floor, and see whether the child
is hidden anywhere, and call out to Parisi and Markos to do the same
downstairs. Now, Kalliopé!”
“Lord, I know nothing,” moaned the girl.
“That we shall see. You were left in charge of the nursery. What made
you leave it?”
“Some one called to me from the courtyard that my uncle was there,
lord.”
“Who was it? Who called?”
“Lord, I cannot tell. One of the men, I think.” She durst not mention
Logofet, lest he should be questioned, for he knew too much.
“Who did he say was there--your uncle Petros?”
“I--I suppose so, lord.”
“Why? Had you any reason to think he was in the neighbourhood?”
“I thought I saw him one day, lord--in the street.”
“Did you speak to him then?”
“No, lord. I was frightened.” Falsehood came as easily as ever to
Danaë now that she had deliberately returned to it.
“Why were you frightened?”
“Lest he should have come to fetch us away, lord.”
“Did you think he had come to steal the Lord Harold?”
“No, lord, there was no reason why he should. That is what I cannot
understand. If it had been my own little lord----”
“Then you do think Petros has taken him? Why?”
“Lord, I do not know, except that he is an evil man.”
“Well, you went down to look for your uncle. Did you find him?”
“No, lord; there was no one there.”
“Where did you look for him?”
“In the great courtyard, lord.” Princess Theophanis was looking at
her, and Danaë knew at once that she had been seen as she crouched in
the darkness on the stairs. She held her breath and waited for the
words of denunciation, but they did not come. Wylie was speaking
again.
“Did you come up again at once when you did not find him?”
“I stayed and sought him a little while, lord; then I came up. The
nursery looked just as it had done when I left it, and the children
seemed to be sleeping. But when I straightened the clothes, the Lord
Harold was not there.”
“And did you give the alarm at once?”
“Alas, lord! I fell to the floor in my terror, and lay there.”
“That is so, sir,” put in Linton, who had returned unsuccessful from
her search. “I found her laying on the ground like a dead thing,
crying out that Master Harold was gone.”
“Think,” said Wylie sharply. “Can you imagine no reason why Petros
should have carried off the child?”
“None, lord. Except,” as a bright idea occurred to her, “that there
was a reward offered for a little boy who was lost at Therma, and he
may be hoping to gain it.”
“Ah, and how did you hear that, if you have not seen him?”
Danaë realised her danger. “I--I heard it, lord,” she murmured.
“And you have no idea why he should come so far to fetch a child who
had nothing to do with it?”
“None, lord.” She looked up with such evident innocence that Wylie was
puzzled. Maurice’s old theory that she had come among them as a spy,
with possible designs upon Harold in the interests of some unknown
enemy, had naturally been revived by the event, and the girl had
undoubtedly blundered badly in her last answer. But it seemed hopeless
to go on cross-questioning her in the hope of eliciting further
admissions which led to nothing, and it was something to have gained
the suggestion that Petros was presumably on his way to Therma. No
more time must be lost, and he turned quickly to his wife.
“Well, Zoe, this gives us some sort of clue. Maurice and Armitage and
I will search the town at once, and send parties out on all the roads.
If the fellow has passed, we can catch him by the telegraph at a dozen
points on the way to Therma. You and Linton had better make a thorough
search of the Konak, upstairs and down. Here are the keys of all the
storehouses. Perhaps the Princess will kindly let you look in all her
rooms, for no one can tell where the child may have been hidden. Take
Parisi and Gavril with you when you go across to the stores. And don’t
be frightened. Between us we ought to be able to get the little chap
back all right.”
Wylie spoke more hopefully than he felt, for the apparent
purposelessness of the abduction made it difficult to deduce any
conclusions from it. He had left Zoe plenty to do, and she and Eirene,
tucking up their evening gowns under thick cloaks, began a systematic
search of the whole rambling assemblage of buildings which constituted
the Konak. Attended by the guard Gavril, armed to the teeth, and the
stout Greek butler, carrying a lantern, they hunted again through all
the Wylies’ rooms, then through those of the Prince’s house and the
range of storehouses on the left of the courtyard, and even the
barracks of the guard on either side of the gateway. The small
courtyard at the back, and the garden, damp and dismal in the cold
autumn night, were not forgotten, but when they came back with haggard
faces, utterly exhausted, they were still unsuccessful. Most of the
servants were weeping helplessly in the passages, but Linton had
stirred up her friend Artemisia the cook to subdue her grief
sufficiently to prepare some soup, which she coaxed her mistress to
take. Zoe refused to go to bed, and Linton remained with her, leaving
Danaë on guard in the nursery; and so that dreadful night passed,
first one and then the other dozing off for a minute or two, then
springing up in terror, and running to search in some place which
might have been forgotten. It was not until morning that Wylie came
stumbling uncertainly up the stairs. One glance at his worn face told
his wife that his quest had been as vain as her own, but she forbore
to put the fact into words.
“Dearest, you are tired out,” she said, with a tenderness that rarely
found verbal expression from her lips. “Come and sit down here, and
have something to eat. Linton, you kept some soup hot on the nursery
stove as I told you? No, Graham, don’t talk till you have had
something. You had no dinner last night, you know.” Her mouth quivered
involuntarily as she remembered how Linton had broken in upon the
party in the drawing-room with her terrible news. “Now here is the
soup. Take it to please me.”
Utterly spent, Wylie obeyed, and not until he had finished would she
let him tell his tale.
“We have sent the police through the whole town, Zoe, and searched all
the inns. No one at all resembling the description of Petros has
passed on any of the roads. We have telegraphed to all the places on
the line, and sent out messengers where there is no wire. The people
are awfully sympathetic, and they are all enlisted in the search.”
“And anyone who found him would know who he was, because of his blue
eyes,” said Zoe, trying to speak cheerfully. “And no one could have
the heart to hurt him, could they, Graham? when they saw his dear
little face.”
“No, of course not,” said Wylie hoarsely. “Maurice and I have made
plenty of enemies, no doubt, but I don’t think any of them are such
curs as that.”
“Oh no, they couldn’t,” agreed Zoe. “Some one is sure to bring him
back to us soon, looking so naughty and happy and smiling--Oh,
Graham!” she broke down and hid her face, sobbing, on his
shoulder--“Graham, if they don’t!”
“My dear, my dear!” said Wylie brokenly, and as he put his arms round
her Danaë, who had been watching through the half-open door, fled
away in tears. The words she could not understand, but she knew the
meaning of the tones, and no amount of arguing with her conscience
could assure her that she had nothing to do with the scene. She had at
first entertained wild hopes that Petros might be intercepted and
killed, without being able to compromise her by anything he said, but
then she remembered that unless he was able to return to Therma and
produce Janni, or a child representing him, her brother had declared
that he would be irretrievably ruined. He must be allowed to reach the
city, then, but as soon as sufficient time had elapsed for Prince
Romanos to be secured from whatever danger was threatening him, Danaë
would declare her charge’s true parentage to her mistress. Then
everything would be set right, but in the meantime the sorrow around
cut her to the heart, and she and Linton mingled their tears over
Janni’s solitary breakfast and his irrepressible inquiries for
“Aa-aa.”