Simon the Jester Part 48

The porter smiled. "I can only tell you what has happened, sir."

"Where has she gone to?"

"I couldn't say, sir."

"Her letters? Has she left no address to which they are to be forwarded?"

"Not with me, sir."

"Did she say when she was coming back?"

"No, sir. But she dismissed her cook with a month's wages, so it seems as though she was gone for a good spell."

"What time yesterday did she leave?"

"After lunch. The cabman was to drive her to Victoria--London, Chatham and Dover Railway."

"That looks like the 2.20 to Paris," said I.

But the lift-porter knew nothing of this. He had given me all the information in his power. I thanked him and went out into the suns.h.i.+ne a blinking, dazed, bewildered and piteously crushed man.

She had gone, without drum or trumpet, maid and baggage and all, having dismissed her cook and shut up the flat. It was incredible. I wandered aimlessly about Chelsea trying to make up my mind what to do. Should I go to Paris and bring her back by main force? But how did I know that she had gone to Paris? And if she was there how could I discover her address? Suddenly an idea struck me. She would not have left Quast and the cattery in the same unceremonious fas.h.i.+on to get on as best they might. She would have given Quast money and directions. At any rate, he would know more than the lift-porter of the mansions. I decided to go to him forthwith.

By means of trains and omnibuses I arrived at the house in the little street off Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell, where the maker of gymnastic appliances had his being. I knocked at the door. A grubby man appeared.

I inquired for Quast.

Quast had left that morning in a van, taking his cages of cats with him.

He had gone abroad and was never coming back again, not if he knew it, said the grubby man. The cats were poison and Quast was a low-down foreigner, and it would cost him a year's rent to put the place in order again. Whereupon he slammed the door in my face and left me disconsolate on the doorstep.

The only other person with whom I knew Lola to be on friendly terms was Sir Joshua Oldfield. I entered the first public telephone office I came to and rang him up. He had not seen Lola for a week, and had heard nothing from her relating to her sudden departure. I went sadly home to my bird-cage in Victoria Street, feeling that now at last the abomination of desolation had overspread my life.

Why had she gone? What was the meaning of it? Why not a line of explanation? And the simultaneous disappearance of Quast and the cats--what did that betoken? Had she been summoned, for any reason, to the Maison de Sante, where Anastasius Papadopoulos was incarcerated? If so, why this secrecy? Why should Lola of all people side with Destiny and make a greater Tom Fool of me than ever? This could be no other than the final jest.

I do not care to remember what I did and said in the privacy of my little room. There are things a man locks away even from himself.

I was in the midst of my misery when the bell of my tiny flat rang. I opened the door and found my sister Agatha smiling on the threshold.

"Hallo!" said I, gazing at her stupidly.

"You're not effusive in your welcome, my dear Simon," she remarked.

"Won't you ask me to come in?"

"By all means," said I. "Come in!"

She entered and looked round my little sitting-room. "What a pill-box in the sky! I had no idea it was as tiny as this. I think I shall call you Saint Simon Stylites."

I was in no mood for Agatha. I bowed ironically and inquired to what I owed the honour of the visit.

"I want you to do me a favour--a great favour. I'm dying to see the new dances at the Palace Theatre. They say they dance on everything except their feet. I've got a box. Tom promised to take me. Now he finds he can't. I've telephoned all over the place for something uncompromising in or out of trousers to accompany me and I can't get hold of anybody.

So I've come to you."

"I'm vastly flattered!" said I.

She dismissed my sarcasm with bird-like impatience.

"Don't be silly. If I had thought you would like it, I should have come to you first. I didn't want to bore you. But I did think you would pull me out of a hole."

"What's a hole?" I asked.

"I've paid for a box and I can't go by myself. How can I? Do take me, there's a dear."

"I'm afraid I'm too dull for haunts of merriment," said I.

She regarded me reproachfully.

"It isn't often I ask you to put yourself out for me. The last time was when I asked you to be the baby's G.o.dfather. And a pretty G.o.dfather you've been. I bet you anything you don't remember the name."

"I do," said I.

"What's it then?"

"It's--it's----" I snapped my fingers. The brat's name had for the moment gone out of my distracted head. She broke into a laugh and ran her arm through mine.

"Dorcas."

"Yes, of course--Dorcas. I was going to say so."

"Then you were going to say wrong, for it's Dorothy. Now you _must_ come--for the sake of penance."

"I'll do anything you please!" I cried in desperation, "so long as you'll not talk to me of my own affairs and will let me sit as glum as ever I choose."

Then for the first time she manifested some interest in my mood. She put her head to one side and scanned my face narrowly.

"What's the matter, Simon?"

"I've absorbed too much life the last few days," said I, "and now I've got indigestion."

"I'm sorry, dear old boy, whatever it is," she said affectionately.

"Come round and dine at 7.30, and I promise not to worry you."

What could I do? I accepted. The alternative to procuring Agatha an evening's amus.e.m.e.nt was pacing up and down my bird-cage and beating my wings (figuratively) and perhaps my head (literally) against the bars.

"It's awfully sweet of you," said Agatha. "Now I'll rush home and dress."

I accompanied her down the lift to the front door, and attended her to her carriage.

"I'll do you a good turn some day, dear," she said as she drove off.