Do any of us ever think, reader, of the way in which our most secret business is known, nay, must be known, to a certain number of people of whose existence we ourselves are scarcely aware?
Laura, when she came and talked, as she sometimes did talk, kindly, if a little indifferently, to her husband's confidential clerk, would have been disagreeably surprised had she been able to see into Mr. Privet's heart and mind. As for Godfrey Pavely, nothing would have made him credit, high as was his opinion of Mr. Privet's business acumen, the fact that his clerk had a very shrewd suspicion where those three hundred pounds in notes, lately drawn out by his employer for his own personal use, had made their way....
Chapter XVI
It was the morning of the 15th of January, and already Godfrey Pavely's disappearance had excited more than the proverbial nine days' wonder.
Laura had gone to her boudoir after breakfast, and she was waiting there, sitting at her writing-table, feeling wretchedly anxious and excited, for all last night she had had a curious, insistent presentiment that at last something was going to happen. She had sent Alice off to her lessons, for there was no object in allowing the child to idle as she had idled during that first bewildering week.
At last she got up, pushed her chair aside, and went and lay down on a sofa. She felt very, very tired; worn out partly by suspense and anxiety, partly by the many interviews with strangers she had been compelled to have during the last ten days.
Oliver Tropenell was again in London, and since he had left Freshley, for the second time, it was as though a strong, protecting arm on which she leant had suddenly been withdrawn from her. And yet she knew that he was engaged upon her business, upon this extraordinary, unutterably strange business of her husband's disappearance.
Oliver wrote to her daily—brief, coldly-worded notes describing what had been, and was being, done both by the police and by the big firm of private detectives who were now also engaged in a search for the missing man. But there was very little to report—so far every one was completely baffled.
Against the wish and advice of both Oliver Tropenell and the Scotland Yard authorities, Laura had offered a reward of a thousand pounds for any information which would lead to the discovery of Godfrey Pavely, alive or dead. It had been Katty's suggestion, and Laura, somehow, had not liked to disregard it.
But now, to-day, Laura, as she moved restlessly this way and that, told herself that she was sorry she had assented to a suggestion that Katty Winslow should come and stay with her during those long days of waiting which were at once so dreary and so full of excitement and suspense. Katty had got hopelessly on Laura's nerves. Katty could not keep silent, Katty could not keep still.
Mrs. Winslow, in a sense, had taken possession of The Chase. It was she who saw to everything, who examined every letter, who went and answered the telephone when the police either at Pewsbury or from London rang up. She was apparently in a state of great excitement and of great anxiety, and some of the critics in the servants' wing said to each other with a knowing smile that Mrs. Winslow might have been Mrs. Pavely, so much did that lady take Mr. Pavely's disappearance to heart!
Katty had not seemed as worried as Laura had seemed the first two or three days, but now she appeared even more upset. Yesterday she had admitted to sleepless nights, and the hostess had felt greatly relieved when her guest had at last confessed that if dear Laura would not mind she would like to stay in bed every morning up to eleven o'clock; nothing ever happened before then.
The only person with whom Laura, during those long, dreary days, felt comparatively at ease was Mrs. Tropenell, for Mrs. Tropenell seemed to understand exactly what she, poor Laura, was feeling during those miserable days of waiting for news that did not come. But Laura did not see very much of the older woman—not nearly as much as she would have liked to do just now, for Mrs. Tropenell disliked Katty, and avoided meeting her.
The stable clock struck ten. And Laura suddenly heard the sound of firm steps hurrying down the passage. She got off the sofa, expecting to see the now disagreeably familiar blue uniform and flat blue cap of the Pewsbury Police Inspector. He came up to see her almost every day, but he had never come quite so early as this morning.
She gathered herself together to answer with calm civility his tiresome, futile questions. There was nothing—nothing—she could say that she had not said already as to Godfrey's usual habits, and as to his probable business interests outside Pewsbury. The Inspector had been surprised, though he had tried to hide the fact, to find that Mrs. Pavely knew so very little of her husband's business interests and concerns. The last two times he had been there Katty had been present, and she had been very useful—useful and tactful. Laura, feeling rather ashamed of her late uncharitable thoughts concerning Katty, wished that Katty could be present at the coming interview, but unfortunately Katty was still in bed.
The door opened, and she stood up expectantly.
It was only Preston, the butler. There was a large envelope on the salver he held in his hand.
"It's from the Bank, ma'am. Marked 'Urgent,'" he said.
"Is there an answer?" she asked.
And he hesitated. "We have kept the messenger, ma'am."
Laura knew Mr. Privet's small, neat handwriting—if he marked an envelope "Urgent," then it was urgent.
There were two enclosures—a note and a letter.
She first read the note:—
"Dear Mrs. Pavely,
"I found the enclosed on my arrival at the Bank this morning. It may be important, so I send it on at once.
"And let me take this opportunity, dear Madam, of assuring you of my very sincere sympathy. I, too, have known during the last few days what it was to feel that hope deferred maketh the heart sick.
"Yours respectfully,
"David Privet."
She turned, with only languid interest, to the envelope. The address was typewritten:—
Mrs. G. Pavely,
c/o Messrs. Pavely & Co.,
Bankers,
Pewsbury.
It was marked "Private," "Immediate," but that, as Laura well knew, meant very little. A certain number of times, perhaps half a dozen times in all, during her married life, some unfortunate, humble client of her husband's had written to her a personal appeal. Each of these letters had been of a painful and disagreeable nature, often couched in pitiful, eloquent terms, and Godfrey had not allowed her to answer any one of them save in the most formal, cold way.
This typewritten envelope looked as if it might have come from some distressed tradesman. So she opened the envelope reluctantly, not taking heed, as a different type of woman would have done, to the postmark on it. Indeed, without thinking of what she was doing, she threw the envelope mechanically into the burning fire, and then opened out the large sheet of thin paper.
But, as she looked down at the lines of typewriting, she stiffened into instant, palpitating, horrified attention, for this is what she saw there:
"Madame,—It is with the deepest regret that I acquaint you with the fact that your esteemed husband, Mr. Godfrey Pavely, of Messrs. Pavely & Co., Bankers, of Pewsbury, Wiltshire, is dead.
"If you will instruct the police to go to Duke House, Piccadilly, and proceed to Room 18 on the top floor—the only office which is at present let—they will find there Mr. Pavely's body.
"I am connected with important business interests