Chapter XI

It was the thirteenth day after the disappearance of Luke Maddison, and a day of fate for his wife, since it put a period to the long and agonizing hours of doubt and uncertainty, of self-reproach that at times approached self-loathing. Twice she had been on the point of acquainting the police, and twice had Danty stopped her.

It was a time of worry for Danty also, but from quite another cause.

What had puzzled, and to some degree comforted her, was the fact that Mr. Stiles, the manager of Maddison’s Bank, had shown no particular anxiety. She guessed, or knew, that Luke had told him of her act, for when she had offered her check it had been almost peremptorily refused. What she did not realize was that in the days before she became a factor in Luke Maddison’s life, and largely determined his actions, Luke was in the habit of disappearing into the blue. Invariably it was from Spain that Stiles had received a postcard notifying him of the imminent return of his employer. The country had a fascination for Luke Maddison. He spoke the language like a native. He was one of the few Englishmen who understood and enjoyed the punctilio of bull fighting, and he loved nothing better than to retire to some lodging in Cordoba or Ronda and, making that his headquarters, rove the countryside for weeks on end.

Stiles was uneasy, but he had that hope left, that in this great crisis of his affairs Luke Maddison had gone back to the scenes of his happy holidays.

During all this period of waiting Margaret Maddison had kept to her house. She was not seen in the fashionable restaurants she usually patronized, and her few friends never doubted that she was on her honeymoon. Danty had advised that she should take the car and go by night to a remote Cornish village and stay there till what he described as the “scandal” had blown over; but she was too worried about Luke to follow this counsel.

A telegram had come to her on this twelfth morning, and she had just ’phoned to Danton Morell asking him to call, when her butler came in with a card upon a salver. Margaret read the name and frowned.

“Miss Mary Bolford?” Who was she? “Tell her I’m not at home.”

“I told her that, madam,” said the man, “but she was rather cool about it. She said she knew you were in, and that she insisted upon seeing you.”

Margaret looked at the card again. In the left-hand corner where the address is usually inscribed were the words: _Daily Post-Herald_. She realized the futility of denying the interview; was in some terror, being wholly unacquainted with the ethics of journalism, that if she refused to see Miss Mary Bolford that interesting reporter (as she guessed her to be) might invent an interview, with painful consequences.

“Show her up, please,” she said.

She expected something rather mannish, or at best a girl who had developed her intellectual side at the expense of her appearance, and she was not prepared for the pretty girl in the neatly tailored costume who walked into the drawing room, displaying none of the nervousness nor showing the apologetic manner which Margaret expected.

“Are you Miss Bolford?” asked Margaret, in surprise.

The girl nodded her head and smiled.

“I’m a reporter: I suppose you gathered that from my card, Mrs. Maddison?”

Mrs. Maddison! It was the first time she had been called by that name, and somehow it seemed to bring home to her the tragedy of those past twelve days.

“I told the butler to say I was out to everybody. I am not feeling very well, and I’m staying in town----”

“That’s what I’ve come about--may I sit down?”

Margaret pointed to a chair, and the girl reporter settled herself comfortably.

“I realize that you think we’re being terrible, prying into your private affairs, but that is our business,” she said, with almost offensive brusqueness. “Newspaper readers love a romance, whether it is happy or unhappy, and we have news that your honeymoon was interrupted and that your husband had to go abroad--or has he gone abroad? Mr. Stiles--that’s the manager of the bank--suggested that he had, without saying as much.”

Margaret did not speak for a second, and then:

“My husband is abroad, yes.”

“Do you know where he is?”

Margaret was not prepared for so open an attack and for a second was nonplussed.

“Yes, I think I do,” she said at last; “but I am not aware that that is a matter of public interest.”

Mary Bolford looked at Margaret straightly and searchingly. She had rather nice gray eyes, and they were not at all hostile. The girl shook her head.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Maddison, but I think I can best help you, as well as help myself, if I am perfectly frank with you. We have a story that you quarrelled with your husband on your wedding day and that he----”

“Ran away?” suggested Margaret coldly.

“Well, not exactly that. The truth is, I’ve a very good friend at Scotland Yard, and he came to me to-day to ask if we on the newspaper had any information as to Mr. Maddison’s whereabouts. And of course we haven’t. Mr. Bird was not terribly communicative--Mr. Bird is Inspector Bird of the C.I.D.----”

“What is the C.I.D.?” asked Margaret mechanically. She was fighting for time. The mere mention of the detective frightened her--if she stood in terror of anything it was that kind of loose talk which is as loosely described as scandal.

The girl reporter explained. Again Margaret thought quickly.

“Suppose I were to tell you that we quarrelled? Is that a matter of public interest, too?”

To her surprise, she discovered that accidentally she had produced an explanation for Luke’s disappearance which might be accepted without question.

“Of course not! You must think I’ve an awful cheek to come at all. The last thing we want to do is to pry into a purely personal matter. If that is the explanation I can only apologize and make a graceful exit!”

She rose briskly; but in those laughing eyes Margaret read sympathy.

“You see,” she went on, “if Mr. Maddison had been called away on his wedding day to conduct some big financial deal, or from almost any cause other than--well, the cause you’ve given, it would have been a really interesting story. I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Maddison.” She held out her hand impulsively and Margaret took it.

“I think I’m rather sorry, too,” she said, and sighed.

And then Mary Bolford saw her face grow hard.

“I was sorry yesterday--perhaps I’m not as sorry to-day. That’s rather cryptic, and I hope you won’t attempt to interpret it.”

She walked with the girl to the landing, and waited till she heard the door close upon her.

Danty had arrived during the interview; she had heard the butler show him into the small anteroom that adjoined the drawing room. She opened the door.

“Come in,” she said.

“Who was that?” asked Danton Morell, a little anxiously. “Fenning said that it was a reporter. What has she come about?”

Margaret smiled wryly.

“She was trying to find something romantic in my marriage,” she said. “I’m afraid even she’ll never find it--read this.”

She opened a drawer of the desk, took out a folded sheet of paper and handed it to him. It was a telegram addressed to Margaret Maddison:

You can hardly expect me to come back to you. In a few months I will furnish you with sufficient evidence to enable you to secure a divorce. I am not entirely without money, therefore I am not entirely without pleasant consolations.

It was signed “Luke,” and had been handed in at Paris at eight-thirty that morning.

“That’s that,” she said. Her tone was light, but there was an agitation in her heart which she had not imagined possible.

Consolations! And this was Luke Maddison, the idealist--a vulgar philanderer, who had fled to--consolations!

“I’m rather surprised that you got this,” said Danton gravely. “I shouldn’t have thought he would have troubled to wire.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Stiles probably knows his address, and may have telegraphed to him that the police were making inquiries----”

“The police?” Danty’s voice was sharp. “Who told you the police were inquiring?”

She related all that Mary Bolford had told her, and saw his face grow troubled.

“The Sparrow--that’s the name they’ve given Bird. He hasn’t been here?”

She shook her head. He was very thoughtful; stood for the space of a moment rather tense, his eyes narrowed, his mind very far away.

“What are you going to do?” he asked at last.

“Immediately? I’m leaving for Madeira on Saturday. The sea voyage will be good for me, and I shall be spared the experience of passing through--Paris.” Her lips curled at the word.

She saw he was perturbed, and instantly he blurted the reason.

“I don’t think I could get away on Saturday,” he began, and she smiled.

“There’s no need for you to get away, Danton. I am going alone. I want to think things out.”

He was dismayed, though he did not show his feelings.

“How long will you be away?”

“A month perhaps,” she said. “I’m going to ask you to be an angel and to look after things for me--I will probably give you a power of attorney; you’ll make much better use of it than I made of Luke’s!”

Had she been looking for it, she would have seen relief in his face. Danton was rather obvious beyond a certain point.

“I’ll do anything, of course,” he said.

The rest of their conversation was general, and he left very soon after. When he had gone, she opened the morning newspaper, more interested in the weather prospects than anything else. On the centre page of the _Post-Herald_ she saw the photograph of a haggard and unshaven man. It had evidently been taken in a hospital bed. His eyes were closed; the photograph just showed the edge of the sheet a few inches under his chin.

“Do You Know This Man?” demanded the headline.

She glanced at the letter-press, and saw that it had reference to a murder that had been committed in South London, and that he whose picture was shown had been present and had only escaped death by the narrowest of margins. Not even his dearest friend would have recognized Luke Maddison, for the photograph had not been taken until the eleventh day of his detention in hospital, and it had been taken in a very poor light.