October 28th.
I rose late this morning. When I went down to breakfast I found that
Carlotta had already gone for her music lesson.
I drove at once to the Temple to see my lawyers and to make arrangements
for a marriage by special license.
I returned at one o’clock. Stenson met me in the hall.
“I beg your pardon, Sir Marcus, but Mademoiselle hasn’t come back yet.”
I waited an uneasy hour. Such a lengthy absence from home was
unprecedented. At two o’clock I went round to Herr Stuer in the Avenue
Road--a five minutes’ walk.
He entered the sitting-room into which I had been ushered, wiping his
lips.
“I am sorry to disturb you, Herr Stuer,” said I, “but will you kindly
tell me when Miss Carlotta left you, this morning?”
“Miss Carlotta came not at all this morning,” he replied.
“But it was her regular day?”
“At ten o’clock. She did not come. At eleven I have another pupil. She
has not before missed one lesson.”
I flew back home, in an agony of hope that her laughing face would meet
me there and dispel a dread that chilled me like an icy wind.
There was no Carlotta.
There has been no Carlotta all this awful day.
There will never be a Carlotta again.
I drove to the police station.
“What do you think has happened?” asked the Inspector.
It was only too horribly obvious. Any man but myself would have kept her
under lock and key and established a guard round the house. Any man but
myself would have never let her out of his sight until he had married
her, until he had tracked Hamdi and his myrmidons back to Alexandretta.
“Abduction has happened,” I cried wildly. “Between Lingfield Terrace and
Avenue Road she has been caught, thrust into a closed carriage, gagged
and carried God knows where by the wiliest old thief in Asia. He is the
Prefect of Police in Aleppo. His name is Hamdi Effendi and he is staying
at the Hotel Metropole.”
The Inspector questioned me. Heaven knows how I answered. I saw the
scene. The waiting carriage. The unfrequented bit of road. My heart’s
darling, her face a radiant flower in the grey morning, tripping
lightheartedly along. The sudden dash, the struggle, the swiftly closed
door. It was a matter of a few seconds. My brain grew dizzy with the
vision.
“You say that he threatened to abduct her?” asked the Inspector.
“Yes,” said I, “and a friend of mine promised to kill him. Heaven grant
he keep his promise!”
“Be careful, Sir Marcus,” smiled the Inspector. “Or if there is a murder
committed you will be an accessory before the fact.”
I intimated my disregard of the contingency. What did it matter? Nothing
in the world mattered save the recovery of the light and meaning of my
existence. My friend’s name? Sebastian Pasquale, He lived near by in the
St. John’s Wood Road.
“The best thing you can do, Sir Marcus,” said the Inspector, “is to get
hold of Mr. Pasquale and take him with you to Scotland Yard. Perhaps
two heads will be better than one. In the meanwhile we shall
communicate with headquarters and make the necessary inquiries in the
neighbourhood.”
I drove to St. John’s Wood Road, and learned to my dismay that Pasquale
had given up his rooms there a week ago. All his letters were addressed
to his club in Piccadilly. I drove thither. How has mankind contented
itself for these thousands of years with a horse as its chief means of
locomotion? Oh, the exasperation I suffered behind that magnified snail!
I dashed into the club. Mr. Pasquale had not been there all day. No, he
was not staying there. It was against the rules to give members’ private
addresses.
“But it’s a matter of life and death!” I cried.
“To tell you the truth, sir,” said the hall porter, “Mr. Pasquale’s only
permanent address is his banker’s, and we really don’t know where he is
staying at present.”
I wrote a hurried line:
“Hamdi has abducted Carlotta. I am half crazed. As you love me give me
your help. Oh, God! man, why aren’t you here?”
I left it with the porter, and crawled to Scotland Yard. The cabman at
my invectives against his sauntering beast waxed indignant; it was a
three-quarter blood mare and one of the fastest trotters in London.
“She passes everything,” said he.
“It is because everything is standing still or going backward or turned
upside down,” said I.
No doubt he thought me mad. Mad as a dingo dog. The thought of the
words, the summer and the sun sent a spasm of hunger through my heart.
Then I murmured to myself: “‘Save my soul from hell and my darling from
the power of the dog.’ Which dog? Not the dingo dog.” I verily believe
my brain worked wrong to-day.
Great Scotland Yard at last. I went through passages. I found myself in
a nondescript room where a courteous official seated at a desk held me
on the rack for half an hour. I had to describe Carlotta: not in the
imagery wherein only one could create an impression of her sweetness,
but in the objective terms of the police report. What was she wearing? A
hat, and jacket, a skirt, shoes; of course she wore gloves; possibly she
carried a muff. Impatient of such commonplace details, I described her
fully. But the glory of her bronze hair, her great dark brown eyes,
the quivering sensitiveness of her lips; her intoxicating compound of
Botticelli and the Venusberg; the dove-notes of her voice; all was a
matter of boredom to Scotland Yard. They clamoured for the colour of
her feathers and the material of which her dress was made; her height in
vulgar figures and the sizes of her gloves and shoes.
“How on earth can I tell you?” I cried in desperation.
“Perhaps one of your servants can give the necessary information,”
replied the urbane official. If I had lost an umbrella he could not have
viewed my plight with more inhuman blandness!
A miracle happened. As I was writing a summons to Stenson to obtain
these details from Antoinette and attend at once, a policeman entered
and I learned that my confidential man was at the door. My heart
leapt within me. He had tracked me hither and had come to tell me that
Carlotta was safe. But the first glance at his face killed the wild
hope. He had tracked me hither, it is true; but only apologetically to
offer what information might be useful. “It is a very great liberty, Sir
Marcus, and I will retire at once if I have overstepped my duties, but
there are important details, sir, in catastrophes of this nature with
which my experience has taught me only servants can be acquainted.”
There must be a book of ten thousand pages entitled “The Perfect Valet,”
dealing with every contingency of domestic life which this admirable
fellow has by heart. He uttered his Ciceronian sentence with the gravity
of a pasteboard figure in the toy theatre of one’s childhood.
“Can you describe the young lady’s dress?” asked the official.
“I have made it my business,” said Stenson, “to obtain accurate
information as to every detail of Mademoiselle Carlotta’s attire when
she left the house this morning.”
I faded into insignificance. Stenson was a man after the Inspector’s
heart. A few eager questions brought the desired result. A dark red
toque with a grey bird’s wing; a wine-coloured zouave jacket and skirt,
black braided; a dark blue bodice; a plain gold brooch (the first
trinket I had given her--the occasion of her first clasp of arms around
my neck) fastening her collar; a silver fox necklet and muff; patent
leather shoes and brown suede gloves.
“Any special mark or characteristics?”
“A white scar above the left temple,” said Stenson.
Lord have mercy! The man has lived day by day for five months with
Carlotta’s magical beauty, and all he has noticed as characteristic is
the little white scar--she fell on marble steps as a child--the only
flaw, if flaw can be in a thing so imperceptible, in her perfect
loveliness.
“Mademoiselle has also a tiny mole behind her right ear,” said Stenson.
The Inspector’s conception of Stenson expanded into an apotheosis. He
paid him deference. His pen wrote greedily every syllable the inspired
creature uttered. When the fount of inspiration ran dry, Stenson turned
to me with his imperturbable, profoundly respectful air.
“Shall I return home, Sir Marcus, or have you any further need of my
service?”
I bade him go home. He withdrew. The Inspector smiled cheerfully.
“Now we can get along,” said he. “It’s a pity Mr.--Mr. Pasquale” (he
consulted his notes) “is out of touch with us for the moment. He might
have given us great assistance.”
He rose from his chair. “I think we shall very soon trace the
young lady. An accurate personal description like this, you see, is
invaluable.”
He handed me the printed form which he had filled in. In spite of my
misery I almost laughed at the fatuity of the man in thinking that those
mere unimaginative statistics applicable to five hundred thousand young
females in London, could in any way express Carlotta.
“This is all very well,” said I; “but the first thing to do is to lay
that Turkish devil by the heels.”
“You can count on our making the most prompt and thorough
investigation,” said he.
“And in the mean time what can I do?”
“Your best course, Sir Marcus,” he answered, “is to go home and leave
things in our hands. As soon as ever we have the slightest clue, we
shall communicate with you.”
He bowed me out politely. In a few moments I found myself in the
greyness of the autumn afternoon wandering on the Thames Embankment like
a lost soul on the banks of Phlegethon. It seemed as if I had never seen
the sun, should never see the sun again. I was drifting sans purpose
into eternity.
I passed by some railings. A colossal figure looming through the misty
air struck me with a sense of familiarity. It was the statue of Sir
Bartle Frere, and these were the gardens beneath the terrace of the
National Liberal Club. It was here that I had first met her. The
dripping trees seemed to hold the echo of the words spoken when their
leaves were green: “Will you please to tell me what I shall do?” I
strained my eyes to see the bench on which I had sat, and my eyes
tricked me into translating a blurr at the end of the seat into the
ghostly form of Carlotta. My misery overwhelmed me; and through my
misery shot a swift pang of remorse at having treated her harshly on
that sweet and memorable afternoon in May.
I turned the corner at Whitehall Place and looked down the desolate
gardens. The benches were empty, the trees were bare, “and no birds
sang.” I crossed the road.
The Hotel Metropole. The great doors stood invitingly open, and from the
pavement one could see the warmth and colour of the vestibule. Here was
staying the Arch-Devil who had robbed me of my life. I stood for a moment
under the portico shaking with rage. I must have lost consciousness for
a few seconds for I do not remember entering or mounting the stairs.
I found myself at the bureau asking for Hamdi Effendi. No, he had not
left. They thought he was in the hotel. A page despatched in search
of him departed with my card, bawling a number. I hate these big
caravanserais where one is a mere number, as in a gaol. “Would to heaven
it were a gaol,” I muttered to myself, “and this were the number of
Hamdi Effendi!”
A lean man rose from a chair and, holding out his hand, effusively
saluted me by name. I stared at him. He recalled our acquaintance at
Etretat. I fished him up from the deeps of a previous incarnation and
vaguely remembered him as a young American floral decorator who used to
preach to me the eternal doctrine of hustle. I shook hands with him and
hoped that he was well.
“Going very strong. Never stronger. Never so well as when I’m full up
with work. But you don’t hurry around enough in this dear, sleepy old
country. Men lunch. In New York all the lunch one has time for is to
swallow a plasmon lozenge in a street-car.”
His high pitched voice shrieked bombastic platitude into my ears for an
illimitable time. I answered occasionally with the fringe of my mind.
Could my agonised state of being have remained unperceived by any human
creature save this young, hustling, dollar-centred New York floral
decorator?
“Since we met, guess how many times I’ve crossed the Atlantic. Four
times!”
Long-suffering Atlantic!
“And about yourself. Still going _piano, piano_ with books and things?”
“Yes, books and things,” I echud.
The page came up and announced Hamdi’s intention of immediate
appearance.
“And how is that charming young lady, your ward, Miss Carlotta?”
continued my tormentor.
“Yes,” I answered hurriedly. “A charming young lady. You used to give
her sweets. Have you noticed that a fondness for sugar plums induces an
equanimity of character? It also spoils the teeth. That is why the front
teeth of all American women are so bad.”
I must be endowed with the low cunning of the fox, who, I am told, by
a swift turn puts his pursuers off the scent. The learned term the
rhetorical device an _ignoratio elenchi_. My young friend’s patriotism
rose in furious defence of his countrywomen’s beauty. I looked round the
luxuriously furnished vestibule, wondering from which of the many
doors the object of my hatred would emerge, and my young friend’s talk
continued to ruffle the fringe of my mind.
“I’m afraid you’re expecting some one rather badly,” he remarked with
piercing perceptiveness.
“A dull acquaintance,” said I. “I shall be sorry when his arrival puts
an end to our engaging conversation.”
Then the lift door opened and Hamdi stepped out like the Devil in an
Alhambra ballet.
He looked at my card and looked at me. He bowed politely.
“I did not know whom I should have the pleasure of seeing,” said he in
his execrable French. “In what way can I be of service to Sir Marcus
Ordeyne?”
“What have you done with Carlotta?” I asked, glaring at him.
His ignoble small-pox pitted face assumed an expression of bland
inquiry.
“Carlotta?”
“Yes,” said I. “Where have you taken her to?”
“Explain yourself, Monsieur,” said Hamdi. “Do I understand that Lady
Ordeyne has disappeared?”
“Tell me what you have done with her.”
His crafty features grew satanic; his long fleshy nose squirmed like the
proboscis of one of Orcagna’s fiends.
“Really, Monsieur,” said he, with a hideous leer--oh, words are impotent
to express the ugliness of that face! “Really, Monsieur, supposing I
had stolen Miladi, you would be the last person I should inform of her
whereabouts. You are simple, Monsieur. I had always heard that England
was a country of arcadian innocence, so unlike my own black, wicked
country, and now--” he shrugged his shoulders blandly, “_j’en suis
convaincu_.”
“You may jeer, Hamdi Effendi,” said I in a white passion of anger. “But
the English police you will not find so arcadian.”
“Ah, so you have been to the police?” said the suave villain. “You
have gone to Scotland--Scotland Place Scotland--n’importe. They are
investigating the affair? I thank you for the friendly warning.”
“Warning!” I cried, choked with indignation. He held up a soft, fat
palm.
“Ah--it is not a warning? Then, Monsieur, I am afraid you have committed
an indiscretion which your friends in Scotland Place will not pardon
you. You would not make a good police agent. I am of the profession, so
I know.”
I advanced a step. He recoiled, casting a quick look backward at the
lift just then standing idle with open doors.
“Hamdi Effendi,” I cried, “by the living God, if you do not restore me
my wife--”
But then I stopped short. Hamdi had stepped quickly backward into the
lift, and given a sign to the attendant. The door slammed and all I
could do was to shake my fist at Hamdi’s boots as they disappeared
upwards.
I remember once in Italy seeing a cat playing with a partially stunned
bat which, flying low, she had brought to the ground. She crouched,
patted it, made it move a little, patted it again and retired on her
haunches preparing for a spring. Suddenly the bat shot vertically into
the air.
I stared at the ascending lift with the cat’s expression of impotent
dismay and stupefaction. It was inconceivably grotesque. It brought into
my tragedy an element of infernal farce. I became conscious of peals
of laughter, and looking round beheld the American doubled up in a
saddlebag chair. I fled from the vestibule of the hotel clothed from
head to foot in derision.
I am at home, sitting at my work-table, walking restlessly about the
room, stepping out into the raw air on the balcony and looking for
a sign down the dark and silent road. I curse myself for my folly in
entering the Hotel Metropole. The damned Turk held me in the palm of his
hand. He made mock of me to his heart’s content.... And Carlotta is in
his power. I grow white with terror when I think of _her_ terror. She
is somewhere, locked up in a room, in this great city. My God! Where can
she be?
The police must find her. London is not mediaeval Italy for women to be
gagged and carried off to inaccessible strongholds in defiance of laws
and government. I repeat to myself that she must come back, that the
sober working of English institutions will restore her to my arms, that
my agony is a matter of a day or two at most, that the special license
obtained this morning and now lying before me is not the document of
irony it seems, and that in a week’s time we shall look back on this
nightmare of a day with a smile, and look forward to the future with
laughter in our hearts.
But to-night I am very lonely. “Loneliness,” says Epictetus, “is a
certain condition of the helpless man.” And I am helpless. All my aid
lies in the learning in those books; and all the learning in all
those books on all sides from floor to ceiling cannot render me one
infinitesimal grain of practical assistance. If only Pasquale, man of
action, swift intelligence, were here! I can only trust to the trained
methods of the unimaginative machine who has set out to trace Carlotta
by means of the scar on her forehead and the mole behind her ear. And
meanwhile I am very lonely. My sole friend, to whom I could have turned,
Mrs. McMurray, is still at Bude. She is to have a child, I understand,
in the near future, and will stay in Cornwall till the confinement is
over. Her husband, even were he not amid the midnight stress of his
newspaper office, I should shrink from seeking. He is a Niagara of a
man. Judith--I can go to her no more. And though Antoinette has wept
her heart out all day long, poor soul, and Stenson has conveyed by
his manner his respectful sympathy, I cannot take counsel of my own
servants. I have gathered into my arms the one-eyed cat, and buried my
face in his fur--where Carlotta’s face has been buried. “That’s the way
I should like to be kissed!” Oh, my dear, my dear, were you here now,
that is the way I should kiss you!
I have gone upstairs and wandered about her room. Antoinette has
prepared it for her reception to-night, as usual. The corner of the
bedclothes is turned down, and her night-dress, a gossamer thing with
cherry ribbons, laid out across the bed. At the foot lie the familiar
red slippers with the audacious heels; her dressing-gown is thrown in
readiness over the back of a chair; even the brass hot water can stands
in the basin--and it is still hot. And I know that the foolish woman is
wide-awake overhead waiting for her darling. I kissed the pillow still
fragrant of her where her head rested last night, and I went downstairs
with a lump in my throat.
Again I sit at my work-table and, to save myself from going mad with
suspense, jot down in my diary* the things that have happened. Put in
bald words they scarcely seem credible.
* It will be borne in mind that I am writing these actual
pages, afterwards, at Verona, amplifying the rough notes in
my diary. M. O.
A sudden clattering, nerve-shaking, strident peal at the front-door
bell.
I flew down the stairs. It was news of Carlotta. It was Carlotta herself
brought back to me. My heart swelled with joy as if it would burst. I
knew that as I opened the door Carlotta would fall laughing, weeping,
sobbing into my arms.
I opened the door. It was only a police officer in plain clothes.
“Sir Marcus Ordeyne?”
“Yes.”
“We have traced the young lady all right. She left London by the
two-twenty Continental express from Victoria with Mr. Sebastian
Pasquale.”