They had no good news to give, however, so the searchers left the platform in disgust, and repaired to the office for lost luggage, where the story of the missing box was recounted to an unsympathetic clerk. When a man spends his whole life listening to complaints of missing property, he can hardly be expected to show a vehement distress at the loss of yet another passenger, but to Claire at this moment there was something quite brutal in his callous indifference. The one suggestion which he had to make was that she could leave her name, and the manner in which it was given was a death-blow to hope.
At this very moment, however, just as Claire was bending forward to dictate the desired information she felt a touch on her arm, and looking in the direction of Mr. Fanshawe’s outstretched hand, beheld a porter approaching the office, trundling before him a truck on which reposed in solitary splendour, a long brown dress-box, and oh, joy of joys! even at the present distance the white letters C.G. could be plainly distinguished on the nearer side! Claire’s dignity went to the winds at that sight, and she dashed forward to meet her property with the joyous impetuosity of a child.
The explanation was simple to a degree, and precisely agreed with Mr. Fanshawe’s surmise as to what had really happened. During Claire’s trance of forgetfulness, the box had been wheeled away, with a large consignment of luggage, and the mistake discovered only when the various items were in process of being packed into a company’s omnibus, when, there being no one at hand to claim it, it had been conveyed—by very leisurely stages—to the lost luggage office.
All’s well that ends well! Claire gleefully collected her possessions, feeling a glow of delight in the safety which an hour before she would have taken as a matter of course, and stood at attention while each separate item was placed on the roof of the taxi. The little addresses of which she had boasted were duly inserted in leather framings on each box, the delicate writing too small to be deciphered, except near at hand. Claire saw her companion’s eyes contract in an evident effort to distinguish the words, and immediately moved her position so as to frustrate his purpose. She did not intend Mr. Fanshawe to know her address! When she was seated in the taxi, however, there came an awkward moment, for her companion waved the chauffeur to his seat, and stood by the window looking in at her, with a face which seemed unduly serious and earnest, considering the extremely slight nature of their acquaintance.
“Well! I am thankful the box turned up. I shall think of you enjoying your re-united frocks … Sure you’ve got everything all right? Where shall I tell the man to drive?”
For the fraction of a second Claire’s eyes flickered, then she spoke in decided tones.
“ ‘The Grand Hotel.’ ”
Mr. Fanshawe’s eyes flickered too, and turned involuntarily towards the boxes on the roof. What exactly were the words on the labels he could not see, but at least it was certain that they were not “The Grand Hotel!” He turned from the inspection to confront a flushed, obstinate face.
“Do you wish me to give the man that address?”
“I do.”
Very deliberately and quietly Mr. Fanshawe stepped back a pace, opened his long coat, and fumbled in an inner pocket for a leather pocket-book; very quietly and deliberately he drew from one bulging division a visiting card, and held it towards her. Claire caught the word “Captain” and saw that an address was printed in the corner, but she covered it hastily with her hand, refusing a second glance. Captain Fanshawe leant his arm on the window sash and said hesitatingly—
“Will you allow me to give you my card! As you are a stranger in town and your people away, there may possibly be—er—occasions, when it would be convenient to know some man whom you could make of use. Please remember me if they do come along! It would be a privilege to repay your kindness to my mother … Send me a wire at any time, and I am at your service. I hope you will send. Good morning!”
“Good-bye!” said Claire. Red as a rose was she at that moment, but very dignified and stately, bending towards him in a sweeping bow, as the taxi rolled away. The last glimpse of Captain Fanshawe showed him standing with uplifted hat, the keen eyes staring after her, with not a glint of humour in their grey depths. Quite evidently he meant what he said. Quite evidently he was as keen to pursue her acquaintance as his mother had been to drop it.
Claire Gifford sat bolt upright on her seat, the slip of cardboard clasped within her palms, and as she sat she thought many thoughts. A physiognomist would have been interested to trace the progress of those thoughts on the eloquent young face. There was surprise written there, and obvious gratification, and a demure, very feminine content; later on came pride, and a general stiffening of determination. The spoiled child of liberty and the High School-Mistress of the future had fought a heated battle, and the High School-Mistress had won.
Deliberately turning aside her eyes, so that no word of that printed address should obtrude itself on her notice, Claire tore the card sharply across and across, and threw the fragments out of the window.
A moment later she whistled through the tube, and instructed the chauffeur as to her change of address.
Adieu to the Fanshawes, and all such luxuries of the past. Heigh-ho for hard work, and lodgings at fifteen shillings a week!
Chapter Five.
Miss Rhodes, Poisoner.
It is a somewhat dreary feeling to arrive even at a friend’s house before seven o’clock in the morning, and be received by sleepy-looking people who have obviously been torn unwillingly from their beds in deference to the precepts of hospitality, but it is infinitely worse to arrive at a lodging-house at the same hour, ring several times at the bell before a dingy servant can be induced to appear, and to realise a moment later that in a tireless parlour you perceive your journey’s goal!
Claire Gifford felt a creep of the blood at the sight of that parlour, though if her first introduction had been at night, when the curtains were drawn and the lamps lit, she would have found it cosy enough. There was no sign of her room-mate; perhaps it was too much to expect her to get up at so early an hour to welcome a stranger, but Claire had expected it, felt perfectly sure that—had positions been reversed—she herself would have taken pains to deck both herself and her room in honour of the occasion, and so felt correspondingly downcast.
Presently she found herself following the dingy maid up three separate nights of stairs, and arriving at a tiny box of a bedroom on the top floor. There was a bed, a washstand, a chest of drawers doing service as a dressing-table, two chairs and a sloping roof. Claire would have been quite disappointed if that last item had been missing, for whoever heard of a girl who set out to make her own living who had not slept in a room with a sloping roof? On the whole, despite its tiny proportions, the little room made a pleasant impression. It was clean, it was bright, walls and furniture were alike of a plain unrelieved white, and through the open casement window could be seen a distant slope of green overtopping the intervening chimney tops. Claire’s eyes roved here and there with the instinct of a born home-maker, saw what was lacking here, what was superfluous there, grasped neglected possibilities, and mentally re-arranged and decorated the premises before a slower person would have crossed the floor.
Then she took up her stand before the small mirror, and devoted a whole minute to studying her own reflection from the point of view of Captain Erskine Fanshawe of unknown address. By her own deliberate choice she had cut herself off from future chance