CHAPTER XXXVI.
ALAN BEGINS HIS GAME.
Baffled in this first attempt to obtain the desired information, Alansets his lips firmly, and plans a new mode of attack. And in the morninghe made a second effort.
Going down to his lately-deserted study, shuddering with a littlefastidious chill as he made his way across the darkened room and notedthe stale atmosphere; frowning, too, when he drew back a heavy curtainand observed that there was dust upon his cabinets, and that motes wereswimming in the streak of light that came through the parted curtains herang his bell and sent for Millie.
She came promptly, courtesying demurely, and seemingly keeping in hermind Leslie's instructions, "to listen, to obey, and to keep silence."
"Millie," said Alan, with just a shade of patronage in his tone, "go toMrs. Warburton, and ask her if she will receive me for a few momentsthis morning. Tell her that it is a matter of business."
Millie dropped another courtesy, and silently departed with her message,proudly conscious that she had, on this occasion at least, deportedherself like a proper servant. And Alan returned to the window, wherethe light streamed in, and the motes drifted lazily up and down in itsrays.
This study was situated at the end of a wing, the front windows openingupon a well-kept lawn, but the side window, at which Alan stood,directly overlooking a by-street, quite narrow and lined with rows ofshade trees.
For a few moments Alan stood looking down into this quiet street. Thenwith an impatient movement, he turned his gaze inward. It fell firstupon a tall cabinet which stood near the window, and was partiallylighted up by it.
Again he noted the dust upon its panels with a frown of discontent, andthen he moved toward it, opening one of the doors with a sort of aimlessrestlessness peculiar to people who wait impatiently, yet deludethemselves with the belief that they are models of calm deliberation.
It was a deep cabinet, richly lined with embossed velvet of a glowingcrimson hue, and studded with hooks and brazen brackets, which supporteda splendid collection of arms that gleamed at you in cold, cruel,brilliant relief from their gorgeous background.
There were highly polished, elegantly finished modern rifles, rarepieces of home and foreign workmanship; there were blood-thirstyduelling pistols; Damascus blades; light, jaunty French foils; Italianstillettoes; German student-swords; and a heavy, piratical-lookingcutlass. In the midst of them all, a group of splendid Toledo swords,beautiful in design and workmanship, were suspended.
As his eye rested upon this group, Alan's face lost its frown ofannoyance and took on a look of profound sorrow, while a heavy sighescaped his lips. They had been gifts from Archibald, years before, whenthe two had made a foreign tour--Alan's first and Archibald'slast--together.
Gazing upon these _souvenirs_, his mind went back to the old days of hisstudent-life, and his brother's companionship. At the sound ofapproaching footsteps, he recalled himself with a start, pushed the doorof the cabinet from him with a hasty movement which left it halfunclosed, and turned toward Millie, who entered as demurely as before,closely followed by a footman, who presented to Alan an official-lookingletter.
Taking the missive from the salver, Alan dismissed the man and thenturned to the girl.
"Well, Millie?"
"Mrs. Warburton says, sir, that she can not leave her room this morning,but hopes to be able to do so this afternoon."
"Very well, Millie;"--the frown returning to his face--"you may go." Andhe muttered: "I suppose that means that she will condescend to receiveme this afternoon. Well, I must bide my time."
He returned to the window, and standing near it, looked curiously at theenvelope in his hand. It was addressed in bold, scrawling charactersthat were, spite of their boldness, almost illegible. Slowly he openedit, and slowly removed the sheet it enclosed.
"What a wretched scrawl!" he muttered. And then, with a glance at theprinted letter-head, "Office of the Chief of Police:" "That's legible,at all events. It's from--from--hum, strange that a man can't write hisown name--B--B--C--of course, it's from the Chief of Police."
Slowly and laboriously, he deciphered the letter.
A. WARBURTON. etc.
Dear Sir:--We have just secured, for your case, a very valuable man, Mr. Augustus Grip, late of Scotland Yards. He is an able and most successful detective; we hope much from him. Have already instructed him to extent of our ability, and he will wait upon you personally this P. M., between, say, three and four o'clock. You will do well to give Mr. G--full latitude in the case.
Very respectfully, etc.
This much Alan slowly deciphered, and this gave the key to theunreadable signature. It was from the Chief of Police, evidently.
Alan reperused the letter, and slowly returned it to its envelope.
"This comes at the right moment," he soliloquized. "If this Grip is whathe is said to be, he may save me in more ways than one."
And once more he summoned a servant, and gave these instructions:
"See that this room is thoroughly aired and set in order before threeo'clock;" adding, as the servant was turning away: "Show a person whowill call here after that hour, into this room, and then bring me hisname."
In the arrival of such a message, at that precise moment, there was, toAlan Warburton, no occasion for surprise. From the first he hadcommunicated with the officers of the law by letter, or by quietinterviews held in his own apartments.
He was fully alive to the fact that, in dealing with the police, he washimself in momentary danger. But having resolved, from the beginning, tomake his own safety and welfare secondary to that of little Daisy, hehad been strengthened and confirmed in this resolve by his recentinterview with Leslie. And now, in his dogged determination to find theFrancoises, he vowed to sacrifice, if need be, his entire fortune, andaccept any attendant danger, in prosecuting a vigorous search for theseold wretches, and the missing child.
His brother's illness and death had furnished him with a sufficientreason for living secluded, and for receiving such business callers ashe chose to admit, in his own apartments. Only this morning he haddispatched a missive to police headquarters, desiring the Chief tosecure the services of the best detectives at any cost, and to send tohim for instructions or consultation, representing himself as confinedto the house by slight indisposition.
He hated a falsehood, but, as he penned this fabrication, he had thrownthe moral responsibility of the act upon the already heavily burdenedshoulders of his sister-in-law.
And now, as he went slowly from the study, he looked forward anxiously,but not apprehensively, to the two coming interviews: the first, withLeslie; the second, with Mr. Grip, of Scotland Yards.