  It was about five o’clock on as dreary an afternoon as I ever remember, when the slow train, which crawls always at a most miserable pace from Peterborough across the eastern counties, deposited me at Little Drayton. Besides the station-master there were but two people on the wet platform—one a porter, who made for my bags with almost wolflike alacrity after a moment’s amazed stare, at me, presumably at the rare advent of a passenger with luggage; the other was a thin, dark young man, clad in a light mackintosh with very large checks, and smoking a long cigar. Whilst I was collecting my things he came leisurely up and accosted me. “Your name Morton?” he inquired, without removing his cigar from his teeth. I assented. “Have you come down to meet me?” I asked. “Yes; old Randall’s gone out to dinner, so he asked Cis and me to come and fetch you. Cart’s outside; but we can’t take all the luggage. Just look out what you want, will you, and we’ll send for the rest to-morrow.” I selected a portmanteau and followed him out of the station. A light, four-wheeled brown cart was waiting, drawn by a pair of small, clever-looking cobs, altogether a very smart turnout. “Pitch that bag in behind, porter,” ordered my new acquaintance. “Now, then, Mr. Morton, if you’re ready we’ll be off. Your train’s half an hour late, and Cis will be wondering what’s become of us.” “Is Cis Mr. Ravenor’s nephew, Silchester?” I asked, as I clambered up beside him. “Oh, yes! By the bye, I ought to have introduced myself, oughtn’t I? My name is de Cartienne—Leonard de Cartienne.” “And are you Dr. Randall’s other pupil?” I inquired. “Yes; I’m doing a grind there. Beastly slow it is, too. You’ll be sorry you’ve come, I can tell you, before very long.” Looking around me, I was inclined to think that that was not improbable. It was too dark to see far, but what I could see was anything but promising. The country was perfectly flat, dreary, and barren, and the view was unbroken by tree, or hedge, or hill. By the side of the road was a small canal, over the sullen waters of which, and across the road, brooded spectral-like clouds of mist. The rain still fell rapidly, and the wheels of our cart ran noiselessly in the sandy, paste-like mud. “Ghastly night, isn’t it?” remarked my companion, breaking the silence again. “Rather!” I assented vigorously. “What a flat, ugly country, too! I never saw anything like it.” “Beastly country! beastly place altogether!” de Cartienne agreed. “I’m jolly sick of it, I can tell you! Steady, Brandy! steady, sir!” giving the near animal a cut with the whip. “What do you call your horses?” I asked curiously. “Brandy and Soda. Jolly neat name for a pair. Don’t you think so?” “Uncommon, at any rate,” I answered ambiguously. “Didn’t you say that we were to call for Silchester somewhere?” “Mean Cis? Oh, yes; we’ve got to pick him up at the Rose and Crown.” “A hotel?” “Well, hardly. Fact is,” de Cartienne continued, dropping his voice a little, and glancing behind to see whether the groom was listening—“fact is, Cis is a bit inclined to make a fool of himself. There’s a pretty girl at this place and he puts in an uncommon lot of time there. Awfully pretty girl she is, really,” he added confidentially. “Won’t stand any nonsense, either. The place is only a pub., after all, but everyone who goes there has to behave himself. She won’t have a lot of fellows dangling about after her, though she might have the whole town if she liked. Makes her all the more dangerous, I think.” “And Lord Silchester——” “Hang the ‘lord’!” interrupted my companion, whipping his horses. “Well, Silchester, then! I suppose he admires her very much?” “Admires her! I should think he does! He’s awful spoons on her! It’s quite sickening the way they go on sometimes. There’s a regular stew on there to-night, though, tremendous scene.” “What about?” “Well, it seems that Milly’s father—he’s the landlord of the place, you know—left home about a month ago, saying he was going up to London on some business. He was expected back in a fortnight or three weeks; but he’s never turned up and he hasn’t written. So at last Milly sent up to the place where he always stops in town and also to some friends whom he was going to see. This morning a reply comes from both of them. Nothing has been seen or heard of him at all. Of course, Milly imagines the worst at once, goes off into hysterics, and, when we called this evening on our way down, was half out of her mind.” “And so Silchester stopped with her to console her?” “Exactly,” assented de Cartienne, with a queer smile. “Shouldn’t wonder if he succeeded, either!” We entered the street of an old-fashioned, straggling town, the glimmering lights of which had been in sight for some time. de Cartienne, sitting forward a little, devoted his whole attention to the horses, for the stones were wet and slippery, and Brandy seemed to shy at everything and anything which presented itself, from the little pools of water glistening in the lamplight, which lay in the hollows of the road, down to his own shadow. I looked round curiously. The old-fashioned market-place, the quaintly built houses, the dimly lit shops, and little knots of gaping rustics, whom our rapid approach scattered right and left, were, at any rate, more interesting and pleasanter to look upon than the damp, miserable country outside. Suddenly we pulled up with a jerk outside a small, but clean-looking inn, and the groom leaped down from behind and made his way to the horses’ heads. “Take them up the street a little, John,” said de Cartienne, as he descended. “No need to advertise Cis’s folly to the whole town,” he added, in a lower tone. “Come on, Morton, we’ll go and rout him out.” I stepped across the wet pavement after him and, stooping low down, crossed the threshold of the “Rose and Crown.” We passed by a room in which several labouring men were drinking mugs of beer, and entered the bar, in which a rosy-cheeked country damsel was exchanging noisy and not too choice badinage with one or two young men who hung about her. From here another door led into an inner room and at this de Cartienne somewhat ostentatiously knocked. There was a second’s pause; then a clear, pleasant voice sang out “Come in!” and we entered. It was a small, cosy room, not ill-furnished, and with a cheerful fire burning in the grate. Leaning against the mantelpiece, with his face towards us, was Cis, whose likeness to Lady Beatrice was so remarkable that I liked him heartily before we had exchanged a word. Standing by his side, with her head suspiciously near his shoulder, was a very fair girl, with nice figure and complexion and large blue eyes. Her face was certainly pretty, but it was not of a very high type of prettiness. The features, although regular of their sort, were not in any way refined or spirituelle, nor was there anything in her expression to redeem her from the mediocrity of good looks. Still, she was undoubtedly a nice-looking girl, quite pretty enough to be the belle of a country place, and, on the whole, I was rather relieved to find her attractions of so ordinary a kind. There could scarcely be anything dangerous, I thought, in this good-humoured doll’s face; she did not appear to have the daring or character to lead her boyish admirer over the borders of a spooning sentimentality. At any rate, that was not written in her face. A blunt physiognomist would probably have declared that there was not enough of the devil in her to fire the blood even of an impetuous, generous boy and urge him on to recklessness. It seemed so to me and I was glad of it. Just at present there were traces of tears in her face and a generally woe-begone expression. Her companion, too, looked upset and sympathetic; but he glanced up with a bright smile when we entered. “You’re Philip Morton, I suppose?” he exclaimed, holding out his hand. “Glad to see you! Heard of you from my uncle, you know!” I shook hands with him and he introduced me formally to the young woman at his side, calling her Miss Hart. Then he turned to me again. “I quite meant to have been at the station to meet you,” he said; “but we called here first and I—I was detained.” “It’s of no consequence at all,” I assured him. “Mr. de Cartienne was there.” “And Mr. de Cartienne having had to wait half an hour in the rain at that infernal old shed they call a station, requires a little refreshment,” chimed in the person named. “Will the fair Millicent condescend, or shall I ring?” She rose and, crossing the room, opened the door into the bar. “Brandy-and-soda for me,” ordered de Cartienne. “Cis is drinking whisky, I see, so he’ll have another one, and we’ll have a large bottle of Apollinaris between us. Morton, what’ll you have?” I decided upon claret and hot water, never having tasted spirits. de Cartienne made a wry face, but ordered it without remark. “I say, Morton, I don’t know what you’ll think of us shacking about in a public-house like this, and bringing you here, your first night, too!” exclaimed Silchester, dragging his chair up to mine. “Bad form, isn’t it? But it is so dull in the evenings and Milly’s no end of a nice girl. No one could help liking her. Besides, she’s in dreadful trouble just now,” he continued, dropping his voice. “Her father has disappeared suddenly. Awfully mysterious affair and no mistake. We can’t make head or tail of it.” “It is uncommonly queer,” admitted de Cartienne, who was lounging against the wall beside us. “I should have said that he’d gone off on the spree somewhere, but he couldn’t have kept it up so long as this.” “Besides, he’d only a few pounds with him,” Cecil remarked. “Seems almost as though he’d come to grief in some way,” I said. “I daren’t tell Milly, but I don’t know what else to think,” Cecil acknowledged. A wild idea flashed for a moment into my mind, only to die away again almost as rapidly. It was too utterly improbable. Nevertheless, I asked Cecil a question with some curiosity: “What sort of looking man was he?” Cecil and de Cartienne both began to describe him at once, and, as de Cartienne modified or contradicted everything Cecil said, I was soon in a state of complete bewilderment as to the personality of the missing man. It seemed that he was short, and of medium height; that he was fair, and inclined to be dark, stout and thin, pale and ruddy. Milly put in a word or two now and then; and, what with de Cartienne dissenting from everything she said, and Cecil, a little perplexed, siding first with one and then with the other, the description naturally failed to carry to my mind the slightest impression of Mr. Hart’s appearance. At last, rather impatiently, I stopped them. “I’m afraid I am guilty of a somewhat unreasonable curiosity,” I said, “for I haven’t any real reason for asking; but haven’t you a photograph of your father, Miss Hart? I can’t follow the description at all.” I happened to be looking towards de Cartienne while I made my request, and suddenly, from no apparent cause, I saw him start, and a strange look came into his face. At first I thought he must be ill; but, seeing my eyes fixed upon him, he seemed to recover himself instantly, though he was still deadly pale. “Why, what the mischief are you staring at, Morton?” asked Cecil. “Oh, nothing!” I answered. “I thought that de Cartienne was ill, that’s all.” Cecil glanced at him curiously. “By George! he does look rather white about the gills, doesn’t he? Say, old chap, are you ill?” de Cartienne shook his head. “Oh, it’s nothing!” he said carelessly. “Don’t all stare at me as though I were some sort of natural curiosity, please. I feel a bit queer, but it’s passing off. I think, if Miss Milly will allow me, I’ll go and sit down in the other room by myself for a few minutes.” “I’ll come with you!” exclaimed Cecil, springing up. “Poor old chap!” “No, don’t, please!” protested de Cartienne. “I would rather be alone; I would indeed. I shall be all right directly.” He quitted the room by another door, and we three were left alone. Cecil and Miss Milly began a conversation in a low tone, and I, feeling somewhat de trop, took up a local newspaper and affected to be engaged in its contents. After a few minutes, however, Cecil remembered my existence. “By the bye, Milly,” he said, “Morton was asking you whether you had not a photograph of your father. There’s one in the sitting-room, isn’t there?” She nodded. “Well, we’ll go and look at it and see how Leonard is. He looked uncommonly seedy, didn’t he? Come along, Morton.” We crossed a narrow passage and entered a small parlour. Miss Hart walked up to the mantelpiece and Cecil and I remained looking round. “Hallo!” he exclaimed. “Leonard isn’t here; I wonder where——” He was interrupted by a cry of blank surprise from Miss Hart. “What’s the matter now? How you startled me, Milly!” he exclaimed, hurrying to her side. “What is it?” “Why, the photograph!” “What about it?” “It’s gone!” |
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