'Mr. Hugo.'

'Well, Banbury?'

'I telephoned to New Scotland Yard, but they refused any information.

However, I've got a pair from the nearest police-station. I shall order our blacksmiths to make a dozen pairs to pattern. They will be in next month's catalogue.'

'I congratulate you, Banbury.'

And he pa.s.sed on. The early-rising customers were beginning to invade the galleries, the cashiers in their confessional-boxes were settling themselves in their seats, faultless shopwalkers were giving a final hitch to their lovely collars, and the rank-and-file were preparing to receive cavalry. The vast machine had started, slowly and deliberately, as an express engine starts. And already the heat, as yesterday, was formidable. But _she_ would not suffer to-day; she was not in Department 42.

He went further and further, aimlessly penetrating to the very heart of the jungle of departments. He had glimpses of departments that he had not seen for weeks. At length he came to the verdant and delicious Flower Department (hot-house branch), and by chance he caught a word which brought him to a standstill.

'What's that?' he asked sharply, of a salesman in white.

'Order for orange-blossom, sir. A single sprig only. Rather a curious order, sir.'

'You can supply it?'

'Without doubt, sir.'

'Who is the customer?'

'Mr. Francis Tudor,' replied the salesman, looking at a paper. 'No. 7, the Flats.'

'Ah yes,' he said; and thought: 'My life is over.'

He gazed with unseeing eyes into the green and shady recesses of the palmarium, where water trickled and tinkled.

What was the power, the influence, the lever, which Francis Tudor was using to induce Camilla to marry him--him whom, on her own statement, she did not love? And could Louis Ravengar be in earnest, after all, with his savage threats?

CHAPTER IX

'WHICH?'

'And when I decide, the thing is as good as done.' Those proud, vain words of his, spoken to Louis Ravengar with all the arrogance of a man who had never met Fate like a lion in the path, often recurred to Hugo's mind during the next few weeks. And their futility exasperated him. He had decided to win Camilla, and therefore Camilla was as good as won!

Only, she had been married on the very morning of those boastful words by license at a registry-office to Francis Tudor. The strange admixture of orange-blossom and registry-office was not the only strange thing about the wedding. It was clear, for example, that Tudor must have arranged the preliminaries of the ceremony before the bride's consent had been obtained--unless, indeed, Camilla had garbled the truth to Hugo on the previous night; and Hugo did not believe this to be possible.

Albert Shawn had brought the news hour by hour to Hugo.

After the wedding, the pair drove to Mr. Tudor's flat, where Senior Polycarp paid them a brief visit.

Then Hugo received by messenger a note from Tudor formally regretting that his wife had left her employment without due notice, and enclosing a cheque for the amount of a month's wages in lieu thereof.

And then Mr. and Mrs. Tudor had departed for Paris by the two-twenty Folkstone-Boulogne service from Charing Cross. And the gorgeous flat was shut up.

Albert Shawn had respectfully inquired whether there remained anything else to be done in the affair, far more mysterious to Albert than it was even to Hugo.

'No,' Hugo had said shortly.

He was Hugo, with extraordinary resources at hand, but a quite ordinary circ.u.mstance, such as ten minutes spent in a registry-office, will sometimes outweigh all the resources in the world when the success of a scheme hangs in the balance.

What could he do, in London or in Paris, civilized and police-ridden cities?

Civilization left him but one thing to do--to acknowledge his defeat, and to mourn the incomparable beauty and the distinguished spirit which had escaped his pa.s.sionate grasp. And to this acknowledgment and this mourning he was reduced, feeling that he was no longer Hugo.

It was perhaps natural, however, that his employes should have been made to feel that he was more Hugo than ever. For a month he worked as he had never worked before, and three thousand five hundred people, perspiring under his glance and under the sun of a London August, knew exactly the reason why. The intense dramatic and sentimental interest surrounding Camilla Payne's disappearance from Department 42 was the sole thing which atoned to the legionaries for the inconvenience of Hugo's mistimed activity.

Then suddenly he fell limp; he perceived the uselessness of this attempt to forget in Sloane Street, and he decided to try the banks of a certain trout-stream on Dartmoor. He knew that with all the sun-glare of that season, and the water doubtless running a great deal too fine, he would be as likely to catch trout on Dartmoor as on the Thames Embankment; but he determined to go, and he announced his determination, and the entire personnel, from the managers to the sweepers, murmured privily, 'Thank Heaven!'

The moment came for the ill.u.s.trious departure. His electric coupe stood at his private door, and his own luggage and Simon Shawn's luggage--for Simon never entrusted his master to other hands--lay on the roof of the coupe. Simon, anxiously looking at his watch, chatted with the driver.

Hugo had been stopped on emerging from the lift by the chief accountant concerning some technical question. At length he came out into the street.

'Shaving it close, aren't we, Simon?' he remarked, and sprang into the vehicle, and Simon banged the door and sprang on to the box, and they seemed to be actually off, much to the relief of Simon, who wanted a holiday badly.

But they were not actually off. At that very instant, as the driver pulled his lever, Albert Shawn came frantically into the scene from somewhere, and signalled the driver to wait. Simon cursed his brother.

'Mr. Hugo,' Albert whispered, as he put his head into the coupe.

'Well, my lad?'

'I suppose you've heard? They've turned up again at the flat. Yes, this morning.'

'Who have turned up again?'

'That's the point, sir. Some of 'em. And there's been a funeral ordered.'

'A funeral? Whose funeral? From _us_?

'Yes, sir; but whose--that's another point. You see, I've just run along to let you know how far I've got. Not that you gave me any instructions.

But when I heard of a funeral--'

'Is it a man's or a woman's?' Hugo demanded, thinking to himself: 'I must keep calm. I must keep calm.'

'Don't know, sir.'

'But surely the order-book--'

'No order for coffin, sir. Merely the cortege; day after to-morrow; parties making their own arrangements at cemetery. Brompton.'

'And did none of the porters see who arrived at the flat this morning?'

'None of 'em knows enough to be sure, sir.'

'Well,' said Hugo, 'there isn't likely to be a funeral without a coffin, and no porter could be blind to a coffin going upstairs.'