"But suppose he had an attack and had been taken in as you suggest,"

interrupted Gale; "surely it is impossible to suppose that such a circ.u.mstance would not be reported somewhere? Mr. Thornton would have sent word to the hotel sooner or later, don't you think?"

"Yes; that is reasonable."

"I had thought of that idea myself, but, on consideration I dismissed it as quite untenable. Mr. Thornton, I have come to the conclusion, has either disappeared intentionally, or he is dead. Now I can see nothing to indicate an intentional disappearance: the state of his health would seem absolutely to forbid it."

"Then you think he is dead?" asked Gilbert, as Gale paused.

"I can't say, please remember, but it looks rather like it."

"But what about the body?"

"Oh, bodies can be made to disappear."

"Do you mean that you think he has been murdered?"

"I won't go so far," said Gale, cautiously, "but Mr. Thornton was a rich man, and probably had valuables about him; he was in a weak, feeble state, and so would fall an easy victim. And it was late in the evening when he went out. I am afraid it is possible--I will not say probable, for there is no evidence--that he was murdered the night he left the hotel."

"Is it not dreadful? I've been thinking much the same. But how did you know he was rich?"

"We took possession of what property he had at the hotel. It was not much, but what there was hinted pretty plainly at wealth. There was one extraordinary thing--we could not find his address, I mean the address of the place he lived in."

"That was odd, and I cannot explain it," said Gilbert. "You know now he lived in Vancouver?"

"Yes, you have told me so, but I did not know it before. We made inquiries by cable in New York--the label on his luggage showed he had come from that city--but he was unknown to the police there, nor could they find out anything about him. Now we shall make inquiries in Vancouver."

"I hope you will let me know if you hear of anything," said Gilbert, rising to leave, after thanking the inspector for his courtesy. "Miss Thornton is very anxious about her father, and she will be more anxious than ever after she has heard what I have to tell her."

"Certainly."

Gilbert was just about leaving, when it struck him as very desirable that the officer should communicate with his father, Francis Eversleigh.

He had already told Mr. Gale that his father's firm were Morris Thornton's solicitors, and now he suggested to the inspector-detective to accompany him, if he had the time, to see his father, and tell him exactly how the case stood.

Gale thought for a moment, and then said that if he would wait for a short while until he had finished a memorandum he had been engaged on when Gilbert had been shown in, he would go with him to his father.

"I really ought to see him in the circ.u.mstances," said Gale. "He may be able to give us some clue."

But when Gale and Gilbert put the facts before Francis Eversleigh, he had no suggestion to make. Indeed, the solicitor was perfectly thunderstruck by the intelligence they brought him, and acted in such an extraordinary way as to cause Gilbert to fear that the news had affected his brain. Eversleigh, in fact, could hardly believe it; but when he did, it, too, seemed part and parcel of that hideous waking nightmare in which he now lived. Yet, somewhere in the darkening depths of his mind, there shot up a tiny ray of hope. For if Morris Thornton were dead, or if it were only that he had disappeared, was not that to postpone the day of reckoning?

Gilbert's most difficult and painful task was to disclose to the girl he loved all he had come to know that day. With infinite gentleness and delicacy he told her the truth, and wound up by declaring she must not lose hope of seeing her father again; it was far too soon, he urged, and the circ.u.mstances were far too obscure to admit of any definite conclusion being arrived at.

But Kitty, crying and sobbing bitterly in her lover's arms, would say nothing. Gilbert knew, however, from her pa.s.sion of weeping, that she already mourned her father as dead. Very tenderly he sought to console her, but at first her grief would have its way, albeit she clung to him as if she would never let him go.

CHAPTER XI

Whether to keep a matter to themselves, or to take the public into their confidence, is a question to which the police never seem able to give a decided answer. There are occasions, of course, in which secrecy is plainly indicated, but with respect to the majority of cases they are too much inclined to the same course of procedure.

Touching the disappearance of Morris Thornton they had hitherto deliberately kept any statement about it from the newspapers, and the facts were known only to a few. And Detective-inspector Gale was of opinion that it was better to go on with his inquiries as quietly as possible. But Gilbert Eversleigh could not agree with him.

"I am for giving his disappearance the widest publicity," said Gilbert, in conversation with the officer, on the day subsequent to that on which he first saw him. "It is probable that we will hear something in this way. You must confess that up to the present you have accomplished nothing, Mr. Gale. Is it not so?"

"Yes, that is quite true; but I have not given up the hope of doing something soon."

"That's all very well, but you must pardon me if I tell you I am not satisfied. I have consulted Miss Thornton, and she is with me in thinking that the occurrence should be made public."

"That is Miss Thornton's wish?"

"Yes; and she also desires my father's firm to offer a large reward to any one who can furnish the information we want. Still, they will hardly like to act in that way if you have any substantial objection to offer."

Gale reflected for a few moments.

"You are sure that Miss Thornton will not mind?" he asked, the question showing the direction of his thoughts. "It will not be exactly pleasant for her to see her father's name in the papers."

"She is suffering intensely as it is," replied Gilbert, "but the affair is too serious for her to give way to personal feelings of that sort; indeed, if the papers give great prominence to it, she will be pleased rather than the reverse, for she thinks, and so do I, that something may come of it."

"What reward does she think of offering?"

"A thousand pounds."

"A large sum! It might tempt some one."

"Tempt some one?" repeated Gilbert. "What do you mean?"

"Well," returned the officer, speaking slowly and thoughtfully, "let us consider the case. You know that I think Mr. Thornton either disappeared intentionally----"

"I thought you had rather given that idea up," interposed Gilbert.

"Still, it's a possibility, though there is a good argument on the surface--on the surface, mind, I say--against it in the state of his health. A man in his precarious condition was not likely to embark on such an adventure as an intentional disappearance implies. Still, as I said, it is a possibility. Now, if his disappearance was intentional, he must be living somewhere, and must be in contact with other human beings. That is so, is it not?"

"Yes."

"While offering the large reward you mentioned, you would at the same time give a full description of him. That description might be seen by one or more of those with whom he a.s.sociates. In this manner information might be obtained. There is another point, too, and it is that if after a time no such information was forthcoming, then the other hypothesis will be vastly strengthened."

"By the other hypothesis you intend the idea that he was murdered, I suppose?" asked Gilbert.

"Yes. As I have already told you, I fear that will turn out to be the true reading of the mystery. The more I think of it, the more certain I feel about it. There is, however, a third hypothesis, but it seems so highly improbable that it is hardly worth mentioning. It is that Mr.

Thornton committed suicide."

"Suicide! Impossible!"

"It is very highly improbable," said Gale, "but, pardon me, not impossible. I wonder how many things are really impossible?" he continued, on what was a favourite theme of his. "If you knew but a t.i.the of the things ordinarily called impossible that I have found not to be impossible at all! But I digress. Well, with regard to his having committed suicide, it was no great distance from his hotel to the river."

"Oh, Mr. Gale, this is absurd. Why should he commit suicide?"

"The only reason that can give the slightest colour to such a supposition is that he suffered terribly from his heart--the pain in these attacks is usually frightful--and he might have felt that rather than stand another he would prefer to die; or again, it might be that he was slightly out of his mind because of the pain. But I don't really put this hypothesis forward as one that is probable. No. I am afraid he was murdered. Still, even in that case, the large sum you offer might tempt some one--some one who perhaps saw the deed done, or had his suspicions about something he saw--to come forward with useful information."