Then while the little fellow, with evident enjoyment, disposed of a plate of maccaroni and cheese, he desired the man to question him, find out his province, and whether he had recently come from England.
The waiter did his best as interpreter, but said that the child’s patois was all but unintelligible to him, it being one of the mountain dialects of Calabria or the Abruzzi, while he himself was a Milanese. He could, however, just make out enough to know that the boy denied ever having been in England, and stated that this was his first visit to Paris.
A question as to where the child lodged in the big city elicited the answer that might have been expected: He had no settled place of abode, even at night; cellar, an arch, or the porch of a church, was all that he asked for by way of shelter.
With so much of information Clive had to be content.
“After all,” he said to himself, “it most probably was nothing more than a coincidence that an Italian organ-boy should bring Ida’s note, and an Italian organ-boy be found playing outside the house where Captain Culvers lodged—a coincidence so trivial that no one but himself would have dreamed of laying stress upon it.”
Nevertheless, as a matter of precaution, in case it might be of importance to keep the boy in view, he desired the waiter to give him the change from the half-sovereign, and to make him understand that if he came to the restaurant at the same hour the next day there would be another supper for him.
The child, with a profusion of bows and smiles, shouldered his organ and monkey once more and departed, this time turning his steps in an opposite direction to the Rue Vervien.
Clive watched the little fellow out of sight, doubtful still as to whether he had let slip an opportunity, or had magnified a “trifle light as air” into a matter of moment.
XIII
“Yes, yes, my boy, I’m quite well. Don’t trouble about me,” said Lord Culvers, as he shook hands with Clive. “I’m a trifle worried, that’s all, and a little tired. Juliet sent you to meet me! Ah! very thoughtful of her, I’m sure—But—but where is Sefton? Have you seen anything of him?”
They were standing within the station, just outside the barrier, through which a motley crowd of passengers of many nationalities was passing.
“I have not seen Captain Culvers, and know nothing of his movements,” answered Clive, curtly. “I have a carriage waiting for you; where will you like to drive? I suppose your man will look after your baggage?
“Ah yes, he’ll look after my portmanteau, and send it on to your hotel. But—but where can Sefton be? He must have had my telegram. He must be ill, surely.”
“That’s very likely,” said Clive, coldly, and thinking of the two B’s.
“Then I think I’ll drive first to the Rue Vervien and look him up. Poor fellow, he may be frantic to learn the news I have to tell him.” Then he paused, with his foot on the step of the voiture, looking dubiously at Clive. “I—I—don’t think it will be necessary for you to go with me, Clive—Don’t mistake, I’m only too glad of your company at such a time; but—but you know you two don’t quite hit it off together.”
Clive could have laughed at any other time at the old gentleman’s nervous anxiety to keep him and Sefton apart. But the present was no time for smiling, even, so he answered, gloomily:
“I’ll walk up and down the street, or wait for you anywhere you like, while you call on Captain Culvers. But if you don’t mind, we’ll drive together to his house. There’s a great deal I want to know that you can tell me.”
So it was on their way to the Rue Vervien that Clive had the letter of the English priest read to him, with its story of the strange finding of Ida’s brooch.
Read one way, it seemed to confirm Mr. Redway’s supposition that Ida was in Paris at the present moment. Looked at in another light, it seemed to give a basis to their gloomiest fears.
“I suppose,” Clive said, savagely, “you feel bound to look up Culvers, otherwise I should say don’t lose a minute in going to the house of this priest, see the brooch, and drive straight away to the Palais de Justice.”
“Ah yes, my boy, I feel bound, as you say, to look up Sefton. You’re very good to—to give me the pleasure of your company. But Sefton, as you know, is the right person to act with me in this matter. And—and if you get tired of waiting, and go back to your hotel, I—I shan’t feel affronted.”
Clive bit his lip to keep back an angry word. Lord Culvers had as good as dismissed him; he paused, even, on the doorstep of No. 15, as if expecting him to shake hands, and say that, as he was no longer of any use, he’d go back at once. But Clive did not choose to be dismissed. Instinctively he felt that they might be on the very verge of a crisis, that a single false step might ruin all, and that Lord Culvers, advised only by his nephew, might very easily take that false step.
So at the risk of being thought de trop, and of having to hear Sefton use that odious expression, “my wife,” again and again in his most offensively possessive tone, he told Lord Culvers that he would wait for him as long as he pleased, but at the same time he thought that three minutes was enough and to spare for Captain Culvers to get his hat and walk down the stairs into the street; nothing more than that was required of him.
It was, however, more than three minutes—nearer quarter of an hour—before Lord Culvers came out of the house and reentered the carriage. And when he did so it
