The last occasion upon which Mr. Rathbone had been seen by any one able to report the occurrence was in the early morning at breakfast. Mrs.
Baker, the bed-maker, had cooked the breakfast as usual, and had asked her master if he would excuse her attendance in the evening, as she had a couple of orders for the Adelphi, in return for displaying the bills of the theatre in a little shop she kept with her daughter in a street off Holborn.
"My master seemed in his usual spirits," the good woman had said in an interview with a member of the staff of the _Westminster Gazette_. "He gave me permission at once to go to the theatre, and said that he himself would be out that evening. There was no trace of anything unusual in his manner. When I arrived in the morning and opened the outer doors of the chambers with my pass key, I went into the study and the sitting-room as usual, lit two fires, turned on the bath, made a cup of tea and took it to Mr. Rathbone's bedroom. There was no answer to my knock, and when I opened the door and went in, thinking he was over-sleeping himself, I found the bed had not been slept in. This was very unusual in a gentleman of Mr. Rathbone's regular habits. It would not have attracted my notice in the case of some gentlemen I have been in the habit of doing for, who were accustomed to stay out without any intimation of the fact. But I did think it strange in the case of Mr.
Guy, always a very steady gentleman. I waited about till nearly one o'clock, and he did not return. I then went home, and did not go to the chambers again till six o'clock, when I found things in the same state as before, the fires burnt out, and no trace of anybody having entered.
As I left the Inn I asked the porter if he had seen Mr. Rathbone, and he replied that he had not returned. The same thing happened for the next two days, when the porter communicated with the authorities of the Inn, and an inspector of police was called in."
The interview disclosed few more facts of importance, save only one.
This was that Mr. Rathbone had dressed for dinner on the night of his disappearance. His evening clothes were not in the wardrobe, and the morning suit he had been wearing at breakfast was neatly folded and placed upon a chest of drawers ready for Mrs. Baker to brush it.
This seemed to show indubitably that the barrister had no thought of being absent from home that night.
There the matter had rested at first. Meanwhile, as no new discovery was made, and not the slightest ray of light seemed to be forthcoming, the public interest was worked up to fever heat. Rathbone had few relations, though many friends. His only surviving relative appeared to be his uncle, a brother of his mother, who was the Dean of Bexeter. The clergyman was interviewed, and stated that he generally received a letter from his nephew every three weeks or so, but nothing in the most recent letter had been unusual, and that he was as much in the dark as any ordinary member of the public.
This much was known to the man in the street. But in society, while the comment and amazement was no less in intensity, much more was known than the outside world suspected.
For some time past every one had remarked the apparent and growing intimacy between the lost man and Miss Marjorie Poole, who was engaged to the famous scientist, Sir William Gouldesbrough, F.R.S. How far matters had gone between the young couple was only conjectured, but at the moment of Rathbone's disappearance it was generally believed that Miss Poole was about to throw over Sir William for his young rival--this was the elegant way in which men talked in the clubs and women in their drawing-rooms.
Nothing is hidden now-a-days, and the fierce light of publicity beats upon the doings of the countess and the coster-monger alike. The countess may, perhaps, preserve a secret a little longer than the coster-monger, and that is the only difference between them in this regard.
Accordingly, on the fifteenth or sixteenth day of the mystery, a sensational morning paper published a special article detailing what professed to be an entirely new light upon the situation. If statements affecting the private and intimate life of anybody can be called in good taste, the article was certainly written with a due regard to proprieties, and with an obvious attempt to avoid hurting the feelings of any one. But, as it was pointed out in a prefatory note, the whole affair had passed from the regions of private life into the sphere of national interest, and therefore it was the duty of a journal to give to the world all and every fact which had any bearing upon the affair, without fear or favour.
This last article, which created a tremendous sensation, was in substance as follows:--
It hinted that a young lady of great charm, and moving in the highest circles, a young lady who had been engaged for some little time to one of the most distinguished Englishmen of the day, had lately been much seen with the vanished man. The gossip of society had hinted that this could mean nothing more or less than the young lady had been mistaken in the first disposal of her affections, and was about to make a change.
How did this bear upon the situation?
During the next day or two, though no names were actually printed, it became generally known who the principal characters in the supposed little drama of love really were. Everybody spoke freely of old Sir Frederick Poole's distinguished daughter, of Lady Poole of Curzon Street, and of Sir William Gouldesbrough.
When the article first appeared everybody began to say, "Ah, now we shall have the whole thing cleared up." But as the days went on people began to realize that the new facts threw little new light upon the mystery, and only provided a possible motive for Mr. Guy Rathbone's suicide. And then once more people were compelled to ask themselves if Mr. Rathbone really was in love with Miss Poole, and had found that either she would have nothing to say to him, or that she was inevitably bound to Sir William Gouldesbrough in honour. Then when, how and where did he make away with himself?
And to that question there was absolutely no answer.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CHIVALROUS BARONET
Lady Poole and her daughter had been living in rooms in the great Palace Hotel at Brighton for a fortnight.
Marjorie, utterly broken down by the terrible mystery that enveloped her, and shrinking from the fierce light that began to beat upon the details of her private life, had implored her mother to take her from London.
There had been a terrible scene between the old lady and her daughter when, the day after Marjorie had written to Sir William Gouldesbrough telling him that she could not marry him, she had confessed the truth to Lady Poole.
In her anger and excitement the elder woman had said some bitter and terrible things. She was transformed for a space from the pleasant and easy-going society dame into something hard, furious, and even coarse.
Marjorie had shrunk in amazement and fear from the torrent of her mother's wrath. And finally she had been able to bear it no longer, and had lost consciousness.
Allowances should be made for the dowager. She was a worldly woman, good and kind as far as she went, but purely worldly and material. The hope of her life had seemed gained when her daughter became engaged to Sir William. The revelation that, after all, the engagement was now broken, was nothing more than a delusion, and that a younger and ineligible man, from the worldly point of view, had won Marjorie's affection, was a terrible blow to the woman of the world. All her efforts seemed useless.
The object of her life, so recently gained, so thoroughly enjoyed, was snatched away from her in a sudden moment.
But when Marjorie had come to herself again, and the doctor had been summoned to treat her for a nervous shock, she found her mother once more the kindly and loved parent of old. Lady Poole had been frightened at her own violence, and repented bitterly for what she had said. She tended and soothed the girl in the sweetest and most motherly way. And without disguising from Marjorie the bitter blow the girl's decision was to her, she told her that she was prepared to accept the inevitable, and to re-organize all her ideas for the future.
And then had come the black mystery of Guy's utter vanishing from the world of men and women.
Lady Poole had always been fond of Guy Rathbone, and now, by a curious contradiction of nature, when she had schooled herself to realize that it was on this man her daughter's life was centred, the old lady was terribly and genuinely affected at Guy's disappearance. No one could have been more helpful or more sympathetic during these black hours, and she gladly left Curzon Street for Brighton, in order that she might be alone with her daughter and endeavour to bring her back in some measure to happiness, or, if not happiness, to interest in life.
Soon after Marjorie had written her letter to Sir William, Lady Poole had received a reply from the scientist, enclosing a short note for her daughter.
It had been a wonderful letter. The writer said that he could not disguise from himself that he had seen, or at least suspected, the way things were going.
"Terrible," he said, "as this letter of your daughter's has been to me, it would yet ill-become me not to receive it as a man. I had hoped and believed that a very happy life was in store for me with Marjorie and for her with me. Then I saw that it was not to be, and Marjorie's letter comes as no surprise, but as only the definite and final end of my dream. Dear Lady Poole, do realize that, despite all this, it will always be my duty and my privilege to be the friend of you and of your daughter if you and she will permit me to be so. I have told her so often how I love her, and I tell her so even now. But love, as I understand it, should have the element of self-sacrifice in it, if it is true love. I will therefore say no more about my personal feelings, except in one way. Just as my whole life would have been devoted to making your daughter happy, so I now feel it is my duty to devote myself as well as I can to making her happy in another way. She has chosen a man no doubt more worthy to be her husband than I should ever be.
You will forgive a natural weakness if I say no more on this point, but the great fact is that she has chosen. Therefore, I say that my only wish is for her life-long happiness, and that all my endeavours, such as they are, will be still devoted to that end.
Let them be happy, let them be together. And if I can promote their happiness, even though my own heart may be broken, believe me, dear Lady Poole, it is my most fervent wish.
"Will you give Marjorie the enclosed little note of farewell? I shall not trouble her more, until perhaps some day in the future we may still be friends, though fate and her decision have forbidden me to be anything more to her than just that.
"Believe me, my dear Lady Poole, "In great sorrow and in sincere friendship, "WILLIAM GOULDESBROUGH."
So the two ladies had gone to Brighton, and while the press of the United Kingdom was throbbing with excitement, while hundreds of people were endeavouring to solve the terrible mystery of Guy Rathbone's disappearance, the girl more nearly interested in it than any one else in the world stayed quietly with her mother at the pleasant sea-side town, and was not molested by press or public.
Marjorie had become, even in these few days, a ghost of her former self.
The light had faded out of her eyes, they had ceased to appear transparent and had become opaque. Her beautifully chiselled lips now drooped in pathetic and habitual pain, her pallor was constant and unvarying. She drank in the keen sea breezes, and they brought no colour to her cheeks. She walked upon the white chalk cliffs and saw nothing of the shifting gold and shadow as the sun fell upon the sea, heard nothing of the harmonies of the Channel winds. Her whole heart was full of a passionate yearning and a terrible despair; she was like a stately flower that had been put out of its warm and sheltered home into an icy blast, and was withered and blackened in an hour.
Kind as her mother was, Marjorie felt that there was nobody now left to lean upon, to confide in. A girl of her temperament needs some stronger arm than any woman can provide, to help and comfort, to keep awake the fires of hope within her, and nothing of the sort was hers. In all the world she seemed to have no one to confide in, no one to lean upon, no one who would give her courage and hope for the black and impenetrable future.
At the end of the first fortnight, Marjorie knew, though her mother only just referred to the matter, that letters were daily arriving from Sir William Gouldesbrough.
One evening Lady Poole, unable to keep the news from her daughter any longer, told her of these communications.
"I dare say, darling," the old lady said, "I may give you pain, but I think you really ought to know how wonderfully poor dear William is behaving in this sad affair. Though it must be terribly hard for him, though it must fill him with a pain that I can only guess at, he is moving heaven and earth to discover what has become of your poor boy. He is daily writing to me to tell me what he is doing, to inform me of his hopes, and I tell you, Marjorie, that if human power can discover what has happened to Guy, William Gouldesbrough will discover it. Do realize, dear, what a noble thing this is in the man you have rejected. Whenever I receive his letters I can't help crying a little, it seems so noble, so touching, and so beautiful of him."
Marjorie was sitting at the table. The ladies dined in their private rooms, and it was after the meal. Her head was in her hands and her eyes were full of tears. She looked up as her mother said this, with a white, wan face.
"Ah, yes, dear," she replied, "there is no doubt of that, William was always noble. He is as great in heart as he is in intellect. He is indeed one of the chosen and best. Don't think I don't realize it, mother, now you've told me, indeed I _do_ realize it. My whole heart is filled with gratitude towards him. No one else would have done as much in his position."
"You do feel that, do you, dear?" Lady Poole said.
"Oh, indeed I do," she answered, "though I fear that even he, great as his intellect is, will never disperse this frightful, terrible darkness."
Lady Poole got up and came round to where her daughter was sitting. She put her hand upon the shining coil of hair and said--
"Dear, do you think that you could bear to see him?"
"To see William?" Marjorie answered quickly with a curious catch in her voice.
"Yes, darling, to see William. Would it give you too much pain?"