Part 12 (1/2)

He was very much interested, and most anxious to aid his unfortunate friend. His presence, somehow, was full of help and comfort. Maitland no longer felt alone and friendless, as he had done after his consultation of Bielby. Thus encouraged, he told, as clearly and fully as possible, the tale of the disappearance of Margaret, and of his entire failure even to come upon her traces or those of her companion.

”And you have heard nothing since your illness?”

”Nothing to any purpose. What do you advise me to do?”

”There is only one thing certain, to my mind,” said Barton. ”The seafaring man with whom s.h.i.+elds was drinking on the last night of his life, and the gentleman in the fur travelling-coat who sent the telegram in your name and took away Margaret from Miss Marlett's, are in the same employment, or, by George, are probably the same person. Now, have you any kind of suspicion who they or he may be? or can you suggest any way of tracking him or them?”

”No,” said Maitland; ”my mind is a perfect blank on the subject. I never heard of the sailor till the woman at the _Hit or Miss_ mentioned him, the night the body was found. And I never heard of a friend of s.h.i.+elds', a friend who was a gentleman, till I went down to the school.”

”Then all we can do at present is, _not_ to set the police at work--they would only prevent the man from showing--but to find out whether anyone answering to the description is 'wanted' or is on their books, at Scotland Yard. Why are we not in Paris, where a man, whatever his social position might be, who was capable of that unusual form of crime, would certainly have his _dossier_? They order these things better in France.”

”There is just one thing about him, at least about the man who was drinking with poor s.h.i.+elds on the night of his death. He was almost certainly tattooed with some marks or other. Indeed, I remember Mrs.

Gullick--that's the landlady of the _Hit or Miss_--saying that s.h.i.+elds had been occupied in tattooing him. He did a good deal in that way for sailors.”

”By Jove,” said Barton, ”if any fellow understands tattooing, and the cla.s.s of jail-birds who practise it, I do. It is a clew after a fas.h.i.+on; but, after all, many of them that go down to the sea in s.h.i.+ps are tattooed, even when they are decent fellows; and besides, we seldom, in our stage of society, get a view of a fellow-creature with nothing on but these early decorative designs.”

This was only too obvious, and rather damping to Maitland, who for a moment had been inclined to congratulate himself on his _flair_ as a detective.

CHAPTER VIII.--The Jaffa Oranges.

”Letting _I dare not_ wait upon _I would_.”

Of all fairy gifts, surely the most desirable in prospect, and the most embarra.s.sing in practice, would be the magical telescope of Prince Ali, in the ”Arabian Nights.” With his gla.s.s, it will be remembered, he could see whatever was happening on whatever part of the earth he chose, and, though absent, was always able to behold the face of his beloved. How often would one give Aladdin's Lamp, and Fortunatus' Purse, and the invisible Cap which was made of ”a darkness that might be _felt_” to possess for one hour the Telescope of Fairyland!

Could Maitland and Barton have taken a peep through the tube, while they were pondering over the means of finding Margaret, their quest would have been aided, indeed, but they would scarcely have been rea.s.sured.

Yet there was nothing very awful, nor squalid, nor alarming, as they might have expected, antic.i.p.ated, and dreaded, in what the vision would have shown. Margaret was not in some foreign den of iniquity, nor, indeed, in a den at all.

The tube enchanted would have revealed to them Margaret, not very far off, not in Siberia nor Teheran, but simply in Victoria Square, Pimlico, S.W. There, in a bedroom, not more than commonly dingy, on the drawing-room floor, with the rattling old green Venetian blinds drawn down, Margaret would have been displayed. The testimony of a cloud of witnesses, in the form of phials and medical vessels, proved that she had for some time been an invalid. The pretty dusky red of health would have been seen to have faded from her cheeks, and the fun and daring had died out of her eyes. The cheeks were white and thin, the eyes were half-closed from sickness and fatigue, and Margaret, a while ago so ready of speech, did not even bestir herself to answer the question which a gentleman, who stood almost like a doctor, in an att.i.tude of respectful inquiry, was putting as to her health.

He was a tall gentleman, dark, with a ripe kind of face, and full, red, sensitive, sensual lips, not without a trace of humor. Near the door, in a protesting kind of att.i.tude, as if there against her will, was a remarkably handsome young person, attired plainly as a housekeeper, or upper-servant, The faces of some women appear to have been furnished by Nature, or informed by habit, with an aspect that seems to say (in fair members of the less educated cla.s.ses), ”I won't put up with none of them goings on.” Such an expression this woman wears.

”I hope you feel better, my dear?” the dark gentleman asks again.

”She's going on well enough,” interrupted the woman with the beautiful dissatisfied face. ”What with peaches and grapes from Covent Garden, and tonics as you might bathe in--”

”Heaven forbid!”

”She _ought_ to get well,” the dissatisfied woman continued, as if the invalid were obstinately bent on remaining ill.

”I was not speaking, at the moment, to you, Mrs. Darling,” said the dark gentleman, with mockery in his politeness, ”but to the young lady whom I have entrusted to your charge.”

”A pretty trust!” the woman replied, with a sniff

”Yes, as you kindly say, an extremely pretty trust. And now, Margaret, my dear--'--”

The fair woman walked to the window, and stared out of it with a trembling lip, and eyes that saw nothing.

”Now, Margaret, my dear, tell me for yourself, how do you feel?”

”You are very kind,” answered the girl at last. ”I am sure I am better.

I am not very strong yet. I hope I shall get up soon.”