Mr. Marx's Secret Part 21

he continued, dropping his voice. "Her father has disappeared suddenly.

Awfully mysterious affair and no mistake. We can't make head or tail of it."

"It is uncommonly queer," admitted de Cartienne, who was lounging against the wall beside us. "I should have said that he'd gone off on the spree somewhere, but he couldn't have kept it up so long as this."

"Besides, he'd only a few pounds with him," Cecil remarked.

"Seems almost as though he'd come to grief in some way," I said.

"I daren't tell Milly, but I don't know what else to think," Cecil acknowledged.

A wild idea flashed for a moment into my mind, only to die away again almost as rapidly. It was too utterly improbable. Nevertheless, I asked Cecil a question with some curiosity:

"What sort of looking man was he?"

Cecil and de Cartienne both began to describe him at once, and, as de Cartienne modified or contradicted everything Cecil said, I was soon in a state of complete bewilderment as to the personality of the missing man.

It seemed that he was short, and of medium height; that he was fair, and inclined to be dark, stout and thin, pale and ruddy. Milly put in a word or two now and then; and, what with de Cartienne dissenting from everything she said, and Cecil, a little perplexed, siding first with one and then with the other, the description naturally failed to carry to my mind the slightest impression of Mr. Hart's appearance. At last, rather impatiently, I stopped them.

"I'm afraid I am guilty of a somewhat unreasonable curiosity," I said, "for I haven't any real reason for asking; but haven't you a photograph of your father, Miss Hart? I can't follow the description at all."

I happened to be looking towards de Cartienne while I made my request, and suddenly, from no apparent cause, I saw him start, and a strange look came into his face. At first I thought he must be ill; but, seeing my eyes fixed upon him, he seemed to recover himself instantly, though he was still deadly pale.

"Why, what the mischief are you staring at, Morton?" asked Cecil.

"Oh, nothing!" I answered. "I thought that de Cartienne was ill, that's all."

Cecil glanced at him curiously.

"By George! he does look rather white about the gills, doesn't he? Say, old chap, are you ill?"

De Cartienne shook his head.

"Oh, it's nothing!" he said carelessly. "Don't all stare at me as though I were some sort of natural curiosity, please. I feel a bit queer, but it's pa.s.sing off. I think, if Miss Milly will allow me, I'll go and sit down in the other room by myself for a few minutes."

"I'll come with you!" exclaimed Cecil, springing up. "Poor old chap!"

"No, don't, please!" protested de Cartienne. "I would rather be alone; I would indeed. I shall be all right directly."

He quitted the room by another door, and we three were left alone. Cecil and Miss Milly began a conversation in a low tone, and I, feeling somewhat _de trop_, took up a local newspaper and affected to be engaged in its contents. After a few minutes, however, Cecil remembered my existence.

"By the bye, Milly," he said, "Morton was asking you whether you had not a photograph of your father. There's one in the sitting-room, isn't there?"

She nodded.

"Well, we'll go and look at it and see how Leonard is. He looked uncommonly seedy, didn't he? Come along, Morton."

We crossed a narrow pa.s.sage and entered a small parlour. Miss Hart walked up to the mantelpiece and Cecil and I remained looking round.

"Hallo!" he exclaimed. "Leonard isn't here; I wonder where----"

He was interrupted by a cry of blank surprise from Miss Hart.

"What's the matter now? How you startled me, Milly!" he exclaimed, hurrying to her side. "What is it?"

"Why, the photograph!"

"What about it?"

"It's gone!"

CHAPTER XXVII.

LEONARD DE CARTIENNE.

We all three stood and looked at one another for a moment, Milly Hart with her finger still pointing to the vacant place where the photograph had been. Then Cecil broke into a short laugh.

"We're looking very tragical about it," he said lightly. "Mysterious joint disappearance of Leonard de Cartienne and a photograph of Mr. Hart.

Now, if it had been a photograph of a pretty girl instead of a middle-aged man, we might have connected the two. Hallo!"

He broke off in his speech and turned round. Standing in the doorway, looking at us, was Leonard de Cartienne, with a slight smile on his thin lips.

"Behold the missing link--I mean man!" exclaimed Cecil. "Good old Leonard! Do you know, you gave us quite a fright. We expected to find you here and the room was empty. Are you better?"

"Yes, thanks! I'm all right now," he answered. "I've been out in the yard and had a blow. What's Milly looking so scared about? And what was it I heard you say about a photograph?"

"Father's likeness has gone," she explained, turning round with tears in her eyes. "It was there on the mantelpiece this afternoon and now, when we came in to look at it, it has gone!"

"I should think that, if it really has disappeared," de Cartienne remarked incredulously, "the servant must have moved it. Ask her."

Miss Hart rang the bell and in the meantime we looked about the room. It was all in vain. We could find no trace of it, nor could the servant who answered the summons give us any information. She had seen it in its usual place early in the morning when she had been dusting. Since then she had not entered the room.

"Deuced queer thing!" declared Cecil, when at last we had relinquished the search. "Deuced queer!" he repeated meditatively, with his hands thrust deep down in his trousers' pockets and his eyes resting idly upon de Cartienne's face. "But we can't do anything more, that's certain. We really must be off, Milly. We've been here almost an hour already, and Brandy and Soda must be getting restless, and you must be famished, I'm sure, Morton. Come along! Good-bye, Milly! Keep your spirits up, old girl! The governor'll be bound to turn up again in a day or two. And don't you worry about the photograph. It must be somewhere."

"But it isn't!" she declared tearfully. "We've looked everywhere! Oh, what shall I do?"

Cecil a.s.sumed a most lugubrious expression and looked down sympathetically into her tear-stained face. She certainly was uncommonly pretty.

"You go on, you fellows," he said. "I'll be out in a minute. I'll drive, Leonard. Don't think you're quite up to it."

De Cartienne nudged my arm and we went off together and made our way up the street to the inn, under the covered archway of which the trap was drawn up. In a few minutes Cecil joined us.

"Hope I haven't kept you waiting," he said, as he lighted a cigarette and clambered up to the box-seat. "No, you come in front, Morton. That's right. Very odd about that photograph, isn't it? It's gone and no mistake. We've been having another look round."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed de Cartienne impatiently. "What a fuss about a trifle! A girl has no memory at all! I expect she moved it herself. Bet you it turns up by the morning."

"I think not," Cecil replied quietly, as he gathered up the reins. "Now then, hold on behind!"