"What?" cried Gilbert; he felt as if some one had struck him a sudden
blow.
"He has never returned to the hotel," said the manager, very seriously.
"Ah! to the hotel, but where----" Gilbert stopped without completing the
question, while excitement struggled with anxiety within his breast. He
gazed imploringly at the other.
"He did not return to the Law Courts Hotel that evening," the manager
went on, "and nothing has been seen or heard of him since."
Gilbert smothered an ejaculation. What a thing, he thought, to have to
tell Kitty!
"That was the state of the case up to yesterday," continued the manager.
"I have had no communication on the subject this morning, but if you
like, I will ring up the hotel on the 'phone--there may be fresh news."
"Thanks; but one moment, please. You had what you have just told me from
the hotel people?"
"Yes, and also from the police who are now moving in the matter, though
I am not aware of their having found out anything."
"The police!" exclaimed Gilbert, almost protestingly, but even as he
spoke he knew it was a fit and proper case for the police to take up.
"Please go on," he said.
"Of course," resumed the manager, "the police had to be called in.
Between ourselves I think they should have been called in sooner than
they were, but at the same time it must be acknowledged that the hotel
authorities were in a difficult position; people in their business are
always anxious not to interfere with the freedom of their guests, so
they make allowance for eccentricities and what might be considered
rather erratic movements."
"I understand," said Gilbert. "Perhaps you will now tell me just what
action the hotel people took--you can ring them up later."
"Very well. Mr. Thornton went out from the hotel late that Friday
night--the 30th of July was a Friday--and on his way out he spoke to the
porter, saying he would go along Holborn and take a turn, it might be,
up and down Chancery Lane, if it was pretty quiet."
"The porter remembered that distinctly, I presume?"
"Yes, perfectly. He did not see Mr. Thornton return, but he thought
nothing of this, imagining that Mr. Thornton had gone back into the
hotel when he, the porter, happened to be away for a minute from the
door."
"I must see that porter," Gilbert broke in. Was he, he wondered, the
last man to see Thornton alive? For, already, a conviction was springing
up within him that Thornton was no more, and that this was the mournful
intelligence he would have to carry to Kitty.
"Certainly you must," assented the manager.
"Well, next day a chambermaid, on going into Mr. Thornton's room, found
that his bed had not been slept in; she reported it, but nothing beyond
taking a note of the circumstance was done at the moment by the hotel
people. They supposed, naturally enough, that Mr. Thornton would turn up
in the course of the day."
"But surely," said Gilbert, "they should have felt some alarm seeing
that they knew how frightfully ill he had been two days before, don't
you think?"
"You must bear in mind, in fairness to them, that they do not care to
appear to limit in any way the liberty of their guests--and also, Mr.
Eversleigh, that they never suspected anything was wrong; it is easy to
be wise after the event."
"Yes, yes," Gilbert agreed, but he spoke with some impatience.
"At first," the manager went on, "they were under no apprehension as to
his safety, but when he did not return that day at all, nor the next,
they began to think it a little strange; they thought it very singular,
too, that they did not hear from him. They waited, however, till the
Tuesday, and then they communicated with the police, and the affair is
now in the latter's hands. A detective-inspector came to see if I could
throw any light on the mystery. Of course, I was greatly interested, as
you may imagine, but I could tell him nothing. I went round to the hotel
in Holborn, and there learned what I have told you. I am afraid there is
nothing more known at present."
"But have the police discovered no trace of him?"
"I don't think they have. I believe they are completely baffled--at
their wits' end. They have no clue, none at all, so far as I can hear.
No; the fact is that Mr. Thornton has vanished, you might say, from off
the face of the earth. It is as if he had never been!"
"What a terrible thing!" said Gilbert, in a voice of gloom. "Is there
really nothing more?"
"I fear there is absolutely nothing more."
"Have you made any guess as to what has happened?" asked Gilbert.
"No. You will see the police, Mr. Eversleigh?"
"At once. But perhaps you will ring up the Law Courts Hotel; there's
just a chance they may have something fresh."
The manager immediately telephoned, and was told there were no further
developments to be reported; Mr. Thornton was still missing, and nothing
had been heard of him.
Gilbert thanked the manager for the information he had given, and with a
heavy heart went off to Scotland Yard. He thought of the loving girl who
had looked forward with such keen pleasure to the coming of her father,
and who was now so anxious about him. How was he to tell her what he had
heard? And he feared that the worst had happened to Morris Thornton; he
felt his conviction growing that the man was dead. Still, he must not
say so to Kitty, so long as there was any uncertainty.
Gilbert was seen at the "Yard" by Detective-inspector Gale, an officer
of great experience, and a man of considerable ability. In introducing
himself Gilbert mentioned that he was the son of Francis Eversleigh, of
the firm of Eversleigh, Silwood, and Eversleigh, thinking that they must
be known to Gale, who bowed respectfully as he listened. Coming to the
matter of the disappearance of Morris Thornton, he also said that the
firm were the solicitors of the missing man. Then he explained how it
was he himself came into the case.
"Mr. Thornton has a daughter here?" said Gale, making notes. "I did not
know that. Indeed, I know very little about Mr. Thornton. I shall be
glad if you will tell me all you know of him."
And Gilbert did so.
The detective-inspector asked several questions about the letter
Thornton had addressed to his daughter, and dwelt upon the sentence in
it which spoke of Thornton's intention to "surprise" Kitty.
"I should like to see that letter," he said.
"Certainly. You think it important?"
"It may be--one can never tell," said the officer, diplomatically, "but
the word 'surprise'--the idea--seems to suggest a certain whimsicalness
on the part of Mr. Thornton."
"It was merely his humour, I imagine," remarked Gilbert; "but I can't
for an instant suppose that Mr. Thornton carried his whimsicalness, as
you term it, or his humour to such a prodigious degree as to disappear
from his hotel in the way he did."
Gale nodded. Then he shut his note-book.
"You would think so, Mr. Eversleigh," he observed, referring to
Gilbert's last sentences; "but you would be surprised how often men
disappear intentionally."
"One hears of such things, but not frequently."
"These disappearances are much more common than the public have any
notion of, I can assure you. I am speaking now of what I have called
intentional disappearances, and I don't mean what you might term
criminal disappearances either. Men make up their minds to cut away
completely from their surroundings, to begin a new life, to turn over a
fresh leaf, and so on; do you see?"
"Yes; but there could be nothing of the kind in the case of Mr.
Thornton."
"I do not say there was," said Gale, but his voice was non-committal.
"May I ask if you have formed any theory regarding Mr. Thornton's
disappearance?"
"I have not; the facts are too few."
"Have you any hope?"
"Do you mean hope of finding where he is gone or what has become of
him?"
"Yes. And do you think he is alive? I have a haunting dread that he is
dead."
"Dead? Perhaps so; I cannot say, but I think it is too soon to come to
that conclusion. Hundreds, yes thousands of people, disappear in London
every year, and many of them are never heard of again. But you cannot
say that of the majority. I would not be surprised to discover that Mr.
Thornton is alive, and I would be as little surprised to find out that
he is dead."
"It has occurred to me," said Gilbert, who felt that the officer took up
a safe but scarcely a sympathetic position, "that it is possible Mr.
Thornton had another sudden heart-attack, and was taken into a house
near at hand by some kind person----"
"But suppose he had an attack and had been taken in as you suggest,"
interrupted Gale; "surely it is impossible to suppose that such a
circumstance would not be reported somewhere? Mr. Thornton would have
sent word to the hotel sooner or later, don't you think?"
"Yes; that is reasonable."
"I had thought of that idea myself, but, on consideration I dismissed it
as quite untenable. Mr. Thornton, I have come to the conclusion, has
either disappeared intentionally, or he is dead. Now I can see nothing
to indicate an intentional disappearance: the state of his health would
seem absolutely to forbid it."
"Then you think he is dead?" asked Gilbert, as Gale paused.
"I can't say, please remember, but it looks rather like it."
"But what about the body?"
"Oh, bodies can be made to disappear."
"Do you mean that you think he has been murdered?"
"I won't go so far," said Gale, cautiously, "but Mr. Thornton was a rich
man, and probably had valuables about him; he was in a weak, feeble
state, and so would fall an easy victim. And it was late in the evening
when he went out. I am afraid it is possible--I will not say probable,
for there is no evidence--that he was murdered the night he left the
hotel."
"Is it not dreadful? I've been thinking much the same. But how did you
know he was rich?"
"We took possession of what property he had at the hotel. It was not
much, but what there was hinted pretty plainly at wealth. There was one
extraordinary thing--we could not find his address, I mean the address
of the place he lived in."
"That was odd, and I cannot explain it," said Gilbert. "You know now he
lived in Vancouver?"
"Yes, you have told me so, but I did not know it before. We made
inquiries by cable in New York--the label on his luggage showed he had
come from that city--but he was unknown to the police there, nor could
they find out anything about him. Now we shall make inquiries in
Vancouver."
"I hope you will let me know if you hear of anything," said Gilbert,
rising to leave, after thanking the inspector for his courtesy. "Miss
Thornton is very anxious about her father, and she will be more anxious
than ever after she has heard what I have to tell her."
"Certainly."
Gilbert was just about leaving, when it struck him as very desirable
that the officer should communicate with his father, Francis Eversleigh.
He had already told Mr. Gale that his father's firm were Morris
Thornton's solicitors, and now he suggested to the inspector-detective
to accompany him, if he had the time, to see his father, and tell him
exactly how the case stood.
Gale thought for a moment, and then said that if he would wait for a
short while until he had finished a memorandum he had been engaged on
when Gilbert had been shown in, he would go with him to his father.
"I really ought to see him in the circumstances," said Gale. "He may be
able to give us some clue."
But when Gale and Gilbert put the facts before Francis Eversleigh, he
had no suggestion to make. Indeed, the solicitor was perfectly
thunderstruck by the intelligence they brought him, and acted in such an
extraordinary way as to cause Gilbert to fear that the news had affected
his brain. Eversleigh, in fact, could hardly believe it; but when he
did, it, too, seemed part and parcel of that hideous waking nightmare
in which he now lived. Yet, somewhere in the darkening depths of his
mind, there shot up a tiny ray of hope. For if Morris Thornton were
dead, or if it were only that he had disappeared, was not that to
postpone the day of reckoning?
Gilbert's most difficult and painful task was to disclose to the girl he
loved all he had come to know that day. With infinite gentleness and
delicacy he told her the truth, and wound up by declaring she must not
lose hope of seeing her father again; it was far too soon, he urged, and
the circumstances were far too obscure to admit of any definite
conclusion being arrived at.
But Kitty, crying and sobbing bitterly in her lover's arms, would say
nothing. Gilbert knew, however, from her passion of weeping, that she
already mourned her father as dead. Very tenderly he sought to console
her, but at first her grief would have its way, albeit she clung to him
as if she would never let him go.