I can see her now, with her pretty hair streaming down her back, and her face so flushed that she might have been rubbing her cheeks with a glove. Many women would have thought nothing of a man going off like that; but the quarrel stuck in her head, I suppose, and she was as scared as a rabbit. When
Sir Nicolas came out to her, she was no longer gentle with him as she had been before this, but stamped her foot and spoke angrily, with quick, biting words.
"Well," she cried, "where is he? You know, of course?"
"As God is my witness, I know nothing," said he.
"But you were with him last—you were the last to speak to him."
"Indeed, and I was; and when he'd done with me, he went straight to his bedroom. Dora, it's not lies that I'd tell you at such a time."
"Then where is he? what has happened to him? what shall I tell my father? Oh, they love him at home; indeed they do!"
She began to cry at this, and my master took her hand.
"You poor little thing!" said he, drawing her head down upon his shoulder. "Would I harm him, whatever he was—and your brother, too? Don't ye see, child, that he's just gone off in a bit of a huff, and will be back before your tears are dry. Ye'll be the first to laugh when he walks in here."
"He is not the man to do that," said she, though she was no longer angry. "I am sure of it. I dreamed of him all night. He is dead, Nicolas."
Now what should Sir Nicolas do when she said this but give her a great kiss, and burst out laughing.
"Dead!" said he, "then I'm thinking we should get ready for the waking, and ask him to crack the first bottle. Bedad! he's as dead as I am, little woman, and don't you think any such thing. Whatever put that into your head?"
"I could not tell you," said she. "We do not think these things—we know them."
At this he set off laughing again, and did his best to cheer her up—though it was poor work he made of it at the best. By and by, when he had seen a nice little breakfast sent up to her rooms, he came to me, and I knew then that he took it worse than I thought he would.
"Well," says he, "the fool's gone, right enough. There's no word or sign yet. I'll begin to think by and by that harm has come to him."
"In that case, sir," said I, "it's pity that what was said two nights ago couldn't wait."
"How do you mean?" he asked.
"Why—it's no good disguising it—you threatened to murder him."
"Good God! Would they think that?"
"There's some that might."
He stood stock still when I had said this, and his face was very white.
"It's luck to make one gnash the teeth," said he presently. "I'd have married her within the week!"
"There's no reason why you shouldn't now, sir," said I, "always supposing that it's well with him. But there are things to do."
"You think so?"
"Certainly; and if it was me that was concerned,
I'd be up at the police-station before the clock struck again."
"Do you believe they would find him?"
"They might, or they might not; but it would be cover for you."
"I'll do that," said he shortly. "Is there any thing else?"
"One thing," said I. "This young fellow has a father in America. If three days pass and we hear nothing of him, send a cable out to Boston, and advise that a reward be offered—a big one, say ten thousand dollars. Meanwhile, offer a reward of two thousand francs yourself."
"But I'd have to pay. What's the sense in that?"
"Sir," I said, "if Mr. Grey of Boston will offer a reward of ten thousand dollars for the recovery of his son, there is one man who will find him."
"And who is that, pray?"
"Myself."
He looked at me with blank amazement. Then he said quite simply;
"Ye're a clever man. I'd be sorry for the day when we parted."
"But we must part, sir," said I.
"’Tis no time for nonsense, sure," said he.
"And it's no nonsense I mean, sir. If I'm to find this man and to claim this reward, the work must be done away from here."
"Where would it be done, then?"
"From the house in the Rue Dupin, where we lived two years ago."
He thought over it a little while, and then he said;
"It's the devil of a head ye've got. How did you come to think of it?"
"Common-sense taught me," said I. "There's many a worse friend, sir."
CHAPTER XII
AT THE MAISON D'OR
A week after this talk I left the Hôtel de Lille and took a lodging in a little house in the Rue Dupin. It was the first time in my life that ever I'd set to work to hunt a man, and I knew at the beginning of it that I had a stiff job before me. Notwithstanding the light way we had taken Michel Grey's disappearance, seven days had passed and no living soul had heard a word of him. He had gone like a light in a wind, and had left neither letter nor message. While some were bold enough to say that Nicolas Steele could have told the tale, most people were deceived by the pains my master took to trace the missing man. None the less, it was not hidden from me that the police were watching him, and that any minute he might be face to face with the greatest peril of his life.
My object in moving from the hotel to the Rue Dupin was a simple one. Jonathan Grey, the father of the missing man, had walked into the trap we had set for him like a child into a sweetstuff-shop. His answer to his daughter's cable was immediate. "Offer the reward," he said, and we had offered it. That is to say, we had printed a thousand bills and had burned them.
"Once get those bills about Paris," said I to Sir Nicolas, "and your man's here in a couple of hours. That don't suit us when ten thousand dollars are at stake—not by a long way. If Michel Grey is to be found at all, I'm going to find him, and to bank half the reward in my name. The other half is yours by every right."
"I've nothing to say against that," exclaimed he; "it's what I was thinking of myself. But ye don't tell me who's to claim the money, and all the world knowing that you're my servant. You don't forget that we're dealing with Yankees?"
"I forget nothing, sir," said I, "and that's what takes me to the Rue Dupin. The man who will claim the reward is my friend, Jim Pascoe——"
"What! Jim Pascoe, the tout?"
"No other. If there's any thing in Paris that's new to him, I should be glad to hear of it. He'll do the job for a hundred pounds, and gladly."
"Ye don't fear to trust him?"
"Fear!" replied I, "why, I know enough about Jim Pascoe to buy a dozen men."
This was a true word, and half an hour after it was spoken I was seated with Jim in the little bit of a cabin in the Rue Dupin, where I told him the tale. Jim was a man who got his living the best way he could, but chiefly