第5章 CHAPTER III(2)

"Sounds dead easy," Mr. Skinner remarked reassuringly. "Got the picture?"

Mr. Sabin touched the spring of a small gold locket which he drew from an inside waistcoat pocket, and disclosed a beautifully painted miniature. Mr. Skinner's thick lips were pursed into a whistle.

He was on the point of making a remark when he chanced to glance into Mr. Sabin's face. The remark remained unspoken.

He drew a sheet of note-paper towards him and made a few notes upon it.

"The Duchess many friends in New York?"

"At present none. The few people whom she knows here are at Newport or in Europe just now."

"Any idea whom she went to the Waldorf to see? More we know the better."

Mr. Sabin handed him the letter which had been picked up in the cab.

Mr. Skinner read it through, and spat once more upon the floor.

"What the h---'s this funny coloured pencil mean?"

"I do not know," Mr. Sabin answered. "You will see that the two anonymous communications which I have received since arriving in New York yesterday are written in the same manner."

Mr. Sabin handed him the other two letters, which Mr. Skinner carefully perused.

"I guess you'd better tell me who you are," he suggested.

"I am the husband of the Duchess of Souspennier," Mr. Sabin answered.

"The Duchess send any word home at all?" Mr. Skinner asked.

Mr. Sabin produced a worn telegraph form. It was handed in at Fifth Avenue, New York, at six o'clock on Friday. It contained the single word 'Good-bye.'"

"H'm," Mr. Skinner remarked. "We'll find all you want to know by to-morrow sure."

"What do you make of the two letters which I received?" Mr. Sabin asked.

"Bunkum!" Mr. Skinner replied confidently.

Mr. Sabin nodded his head.

"You have no secret societies over here, I suppose?" he said.

Mr. Skinner laughed loudly and derisively.

"I guess not," he answered. "They keep that sort of rubbish on the other side of the pond."

"Ah,!"

Mr. Sabin was thoughtful for a moment. "You expect to find, then," he remarked, "some other cause for my wife's disappearance?"

"There don't seem much room for doubt concerning that, sir," Mr.

Skinner said; "but I never speculate. I will bring you the facts to-night between eight and eleven. Now as to the business side of it."

Mr. Sabin was for a moment puzzled.

"What's the job worth to you?" Mr. Skinner asked. "I am willing to pay," Mr. Sabin answered, "according to your demands."

"It's a simple case," Mr. Skinner admitted, "but our man at the Waldorf is expensive. If you get all your facts, I guess five hundred dollars will about see you through."

"I will pay that," Mr. Sabin answered.

"I will bring you the letters back to-night," Mr. Skinner said.

"I guess I'll borrow that locket of yours, too."

Mr. Sabin shook his head.

"That," he said firmly, "I do not part with." Mr. Skinner scratched his ear with his penholder. "It's the only scrap of identifying matter we've got," he remarked. "Of course it's a dead simple case, and we can probably manage without it. But I guess it's as well to fix the thing right down."

"If you will give me a piece of paper," Mr. Sabin said, "I will make you a sketch of the Duchess. The larger the better. I can give you an idea of the sort of clothes she would probably be wearing."

Mr. Skinner furnished him with a double sheet of paper, and Mr.

Sabin, with set face and unflinching figures, reproduced in a few simple strokes a wonderful likeness of the woman he loved. He pushed it away from him when he had finished without remark. Mr.

Skinner was loud in its praises.

"I guess you're an artist, sir, for sure," he remarked. "This'll fix the thing. Shall I come to your hotel?"

"If you please," Mr. Sabin answered. "I shall be there for the rest of the day."

Mr. Skinner took up his hat.

"Guess I'll take my dinner and get right to work," he remarked.

"Say, you come along, Mr. Sabin. I'll take you where they'll fix you such a beefsteak as you never tasted in your life."

"I thank you very much," Mr. Sabin said, "but I must beg to be excused. I am expecting some despatches at my hotel. If you are successful this afternoon you will perhaps do me the honour of dining with me to-night. I will wait until eight-thirty."

The two men parted upon the pavement. Mr. Skinner, with his small bowler hat on the back of his head, a fresh cigar in the corner of his mouth, and his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, strolled along Broadway with something akin to a smile parting his lips, and showing his yellow teeth.

"Darned old fool," he muttered. "To marry a slap-up handsome woman like that, and then pretend not to know what it means when she bolts.

Guess I'll spoil his supper to-night."

Mr. Sabin, however, was recovering his spirits. He, too, was leaning back in the corner of his carriage with a faint smile brightening his hard, stern face. But, unlike Mr. Skinner, he did not talk to himself.