Part 20 (1/2)
Wilfred waved his hands impatiently, as if brus.h.i.+ng away her objections.
”My answer, Ydo. Here and now.”
[Ill.u.s.tration]
She seemed completely nonplussed, and Hayden divined that this proud and resourceful Ydo felt herself overmatched and outwitted for the first time. She stood perfectly still, but gazing through her mask at Ames.
”I--I think that you will get your heart's desire, senor,” she murmured at last, her voice broken, inaudible.
Ames stepped forward, still oblivious to the fact that there were other people present. His face had grown still whiter but upon it there was already an irradiation of joy. ”Do you mean it?” he said in a low voice vibrating with some strong feeling. ”Do you mean it?”
The little group looked at him in amazement. Was this eager man with the burning, intense eyes, the unruffled and imperturbable Wilfred, to whose placid silence they were so accustomed?
”Why, Wilfred!” exclaimed Edith Symmes. ”What on earth has come over you?”
But Ames paid not the least attention to her. It was as if he had not heard her voice. ”Is it true?” he said again, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on the black mask of the Mariposa.
”Yes, senor,” she almost whispered. ”Yes, it is true. But in the future, mind you. I see only the future.”
”Then tell your maid to throw all this stuff out of the window,” Wilfred again rapped the crystal. ”You've done with it for ever.”
The spell was broken. Hayden and his temporarily stupefied guests roused themselves, and crowded about Ydo and Wilfred in a chorus of questions and congratulations; but every one felt that the moment for departure had come, and in the babble of adieus Hayden made an effort to get a moment's speech with Marcia alone, but in some feminine and elusive way she divined his intention and frustrated it, and in spite of the congratulations of his guests he was left standing upon his lonely hearth with a desolate feeling of failure.
He could hardly say what was the matter. Everything had gone without a hitch; that is, until staid old Ames had so hopelessly forgotten himself.
The dinner was perfect, the decorations were beautiful, the small group of congenial people had seemed to enjoy themselves immensely, and best of all, Ydo had brought him the wonderful news that his period of suspense and waiting was practically over. By this time to-morrow night he would know where he stood; and yet, reason about it as he would, the sense of elation and buoyant hope was gone, and in its stead was some dull, unhappy sense of foreboding, a premonition of impending disaster.
For him, at least, there had been some ghastly blight over the whole affair. Why, why had Marcia appeared pale and distressed? And what was far more puzzling, why had she begged him not to show the photographs of the mine upon Penfield's request? Was it that she did not wish one of his guests to know too much about the matter? If so, which one? And how did she know anything about his connection with the mine, anyway?
He tossed and turned for hours trying to arrive at some half-way plausible or satisfactory solution; but none occurred to him, and he finally fell into troubled sleep.
CHAPTER XVI
As was natural after so restless a night, Hayden slept late the next morning, but when he awoke it was with his usual sense of buoyant optimism. The forebodings of the night had vanished, and the good, glad, fat years stretched before him in an unclouded vista. To-day in all probability marked the conclusion of his comparatively lean years. A half an hour of conversation with those mysterious ”owners,” the disclosure of his maps, photographs, ore samples, the report of the a.s.sayers, etc., and then, the final arrangements. It might result in a trip to the property; but a journey made, his high heart promised, with Marcia.
At the thought of her a slight cloud obscured the s.h.i.+ning towers of his Spanish castles. He recalled with a pang her pallor, her agitation of the night before. Something had evidently lain heavily upon her mind; she had been greatly distressed, even alarmed; but with the confidence of a lover he saw himself a G.o.d of the machine, consoling, rea.s.suring, dissipating grief, and causing smiles to take the place of tears.
Upheld by these pleasant reflections, he breakfasted and then strolled through the rooms. They had been put in perfect order. And with the exception of the orchids, now sedately arranged in bowls and vases, instead of fluttering from palm-trees and lattices, there was no trace of the last night's festivities. Suddenly he bethought himself of getting together his photographs, etc., in readiness for the interview of the afternoon; but they were no longer on the small table between the drawing-room windows, where he had placed them the night before.
After seeking for them in every likely place for a few moments, Hayden rather impatiently summoned Tatsu and demanded to know what he had done with them. Tatsu, however, was a picture of the grieved ignorance he professed. He said that after every one had left the apartment, the night before, he had locked up very carefully and gone to bed; that he had arisen early in the morning, shortly after five, and had put the rooms in their present and complete order; and he was positive that there were no photographs upon the table then.
Hayden questioned him closely about the extra servants taken on for the occasion; but he insisted that none of them had penetrated farther than the dining-room, and that he, himself had seen them all leave before the departure of the guests.
”There is a possibility that I may have tucked them away somewhere and have forgotten about them,” said Hayden half-heartedly. ”Come, Tatsu, let us get to work and make a systematic search for them. Don't overlook any possible nook or cranny into which they may inadvertently have been thrown.”
The two of them, master and man, made a diligent and careful search, taking perhaps an hour, but not a trace of the lost package could they find; then, dazed, puzzled beyond words, unbelieving still, but with a heavy sinking of the heart, Hayden sat down to face the situation, to make some attempt to review it calmly and to get matters clear in his own mind.
Their recent search eliminated himself from the situation; reluctantly he relinquished the hope that in an absent-minded moment he had disposed of his precious bundle in some out-of-the-way place. No, he and Tatsu had sought too thoroughly for that to remain a possibility. Eliminating then himself, there remained Tatsu. Although perfectly convinced in his own mind of his valet's innocence, still, for the purposes of inquiry, he would presume him to be the thief. Of course nothing could have been easier than for him to purloin the photographs; but what reason would he have for doing so? The motive, where would be the motive? Would not the reasonable hypothesis be that the j.a.panese had been approached by some of the owners of the property, who either fearing or suspecting that he, Hayden, held visible proofs of the lost mine, had bribed his servant to gain the desired information? But admitting this to be the case, and Hayden did not believe it for a moment, why had Tatsu remained instead of departing as prudence would seem to dictate?
That of course could be explained by a.s.suming that prudence dictated another line of policy, that he deemed it the best way of averting suspicion. Perhaps! But the conclusion was not particularly satisfactory.