The Lost Ambassador - E. Phillips Oppenheim (best books to read for beginners txt) 📗

since we last had the pleasure," the clerk continued.

She nodded.

"My uncle was over then," she remarked. "For me this is the first time. I have never been in England before."

The lift stopped.

"What floor are we on?" the girl asked.

"The fifth," the clerk answered. "We have quite comfortable rooms for you, and the aspect that your uncle desired."

We passed along the corridor and he opened the door, which led into a small hall and on into a sitting-room. The clerk opened up all the rooms.

"You will see, as I told you before, Miss Delora," he said, "that there is no one here. Your uncle's rooms open out from the right. The bathroom is to the left there, and beyond are your apartments."

She peered into each of the rooms. They were indeed empty.

"The apartments are very nice," she said, "but I do not understand what has become of my uncle."

"He will be up in a few minutes, without a doubt," the clerk remarked. "Is there anything more that I can do for you, madam? Shall I send the chambermaid or the waiter to you?"

"Not yet," she answered. "I must wait for my uncle. Will you leave word below that he is to please come up directly he arrives?"

"Certainly, madam!" the clerk answered, turning towards the door.

I should have followed him from the room, but she stopped me.

"Please don't go," she said. "I am very foolish, I know, but I am afraid!"

"I will stay, of course," I answered, sitting down by her side upon the couch, "but let me assure you that there is nothing whatever to fear. Your uncle may have had a slight cab accident, or he may have met with a friend and stopped to talk for a few minutes. In either case he will be here directly. London, you know, is not the city of mysteries that Paris is. There is very little, indeed, that can happen to a man between Charing Cross Station and the Milan Hotel."

She leaned forward a little and buried her face in her hands.

"Please don't!" I begged. "Indeed, I mean what I say! There is no cause to be anxious. Your uncle spoke of stopping at a chemist's. They may be making up his prescription. A hundred trivial things may have happened to keep him."

"You do not know!" she murmured.

CHAPTER XI THROUGH THE TELEPHONE

There was no doubt about it that Delora had disappeared. I followed the reception clerk downstairs myself within the space of a few minutes, and made the most careful inquiries in every part of the hotel. It did not take me very long to ascertain, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he was not upon the premises, nor had he yet been seen by any one connected with the place. I even walked to the corner of the courtyard and looked aimlessly up and down the Strand. Within those few hundred yards which lay between where I was standing and Charing Cross something had happened which had prevented his reaching the hotel. It may have been the slightest of accidents. It might be something more serious. Or it might even be, I was forced to reflect, that he had never intended coming! Presently I returned to the suite of rooms upon the fifth floor to make my report to Miss Delora. I found her calmer than I had expected, but her face fell when I was forced to confess that I had heard no news.

"I am sorry," I said, "but there is no doubt that up to the present, at any rate, your uncle has not been here. I am quite sure, though," I added, "that there is no cause for alarm. A hundred slight accidents might have happened to detain him for half an hour or so."

She glanced at the clock.

"It is more than that," she said softly.

"Tell me," I asked, "would you like me to communicate with the police? They are in touch with the hospitals, and if any misfortune has happened to your uncle—which, after all, is scarcely likely—we should hear of it directly."

She shook her head vigorously. The idea, for some reason, seemed to displease her.

"No!" she said. "Why should we appeal to the police? What have they to do with my uncle? I am quite sure that he would not wish that."

"I presume," I said, "that nothing of this sort has ever happened before?—I mean that he has not left you without warning?"

"Not under the same circumstances," she admitted. "And yet, he has a very queer way of absenting himself every now and then."

"For long?" I asked.

"It depends," she answered. "Never for any length of time, though."

"After all," I remarked, "you cannot have seen such a great deal of him. He lives in South America, does he not, and you have never been out of France?"

"It is true," she murmured.

"I noticed," I continued thoughtfully, "that he seemed disturbed as we neared London."

She drew out the pins from her hat, and with a little gesture of relief threw it upon the table.

"Please sit down for a minute," she said. "I want to think."

She leaned forward upon the couch, her head buried in her hands. I felt that she desired silence, so I said nothing. Several moments passed, then there came a sudden and unexpected interruption. The bell of the telephone instrument, which stood between us upon the table, commenced to ring. Her hands fell from before her face. She looked across at me with parted lips and wide-open eyes. I made a movement towards the instrument, but she checked me.

"Stop!" she said. "Wait a moment! Let me think!"

She had risen to her feet. We stood looking at one another across the table. Between us was the telephone instrument and the bell which had just rung out its summons.

"Are you not going to answer it?" I asked.

"I am afraid!" she answered. "I do not know what has come over me. I am afraid! Take up the receiver. Tell me who it is who speaks."

"You are sure that you wish it?" I asked.

"At once!" she insisted. "They will have gone away."

The bell rang again. I took the receiver into my hands.

"Who is there?" I asked.

"Is that the apartment of Mr. Delora?" was the reply.

"Yes!" I said.

"I wish to speak to Miss Felicia Delora," the voice said.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"It does not matter," was the answer. "Be so good as to tell her to come to the telephone—Miss Felicia Delora."

I held the receiver away from me and turned to her.

"Some one wishes to speak to you," I said.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"The person gave no name," I answered.

"Did you recognize the voice?" she asked.

I hesitated.

"I was not sure," I said. "It was like your uncle's."

She took the instrument into her hand. What passed between her and the person at the other end I had, of course, no means of telling. All I know was that she said, at short intervals,—"Yes! No! Yes! I promise!" Then she laid the instrument down and looked at me.

"The mystery is solved," she said. "My uncle has met some friends, and stayed with them for a little time to discuss a matter of business. I am sorry to have been so troublesome to you. My anxieties, of course, are at an end now."

I bowed, and moved toward the door.

"If there is anything else that I can do—" I said.

"I shall ask you," she answered, looking at me earnestly. "I shall, indeed."

"My number is 128," I said. "I am two floors above you. Please do not forget to make use of me if you need a friend."

"I shall not forget," she answered softly.

Then, as though moved by a sudden impulse, she held out her hand,—a small white hand with rather long fingers, manicured to a perfection unusual in this country. She wore only one ring, in which was set a magnificent uncut emerald. I held her fingers for a moment, and raised them to my lips.

"I shall be always at your service," I answered quietly, "however much—or however little you may care to tell me. Goodnight!"

I went to my rooms and washed. Afterwards I descended and ordered some supper in the café.

"Louis is not back yet?" I remarked to the waiter who attended to me.

"Not yet, monsieur," the man answered. "We expect him some time to-morrow. Monsieur is also from Paris?"

I nodded, and did not pursue the subject. On my way back to my rooms half an hour later I stopped to speak for a few minutes with the hall-porter.

"Mr. Delora has not arrived yet, sir," he remarked.

"No!" I answered. "I dare say there has been some slight mistake. I fancy that he has telephoned to his niece."

The hall-porter looked a little puzzled.

"It is rather a curious thing, sir," he said, "but there seem to be a good many people who are wanting to see Mr. Delora. We have had at least a dozen inquiries for him during the last few days, and all from people who refuse to leave their names."

I nodded.

"Business friends, perhaps," I remarked. "Mr. Delora comes over to keep friends with his connections here, I suppose."

The hall-porter coughed discreetly but mysteriously.

"No doubt, sir," he remarked.

I went on my way to my rooms, not caring to pursue the conversation. Yet I felt that there was something beneath it all. Ashley knew or guessed something which he would have told me with very little encouragement. Over a final cigarette I tried to think the matter out. Here were these people, remarkable for nothing except the obviously foreign appearance of the man, and the good taste and beauty of the girl. I had seen them at every fashionable haunt in Paris, and finally at a restaurant which Louis had frankly admitted to be the meeting-place of people whose careers were by no means above suspicion. I had crossed with them to England, and if their presence on the train were not the cause for Louis' insisting upon my hurried departure from Paris, it at any rate afforded him gratification to think that I might, perhaps, make their acquaintance. During the whole of the journey neither of them had made the slightest overture towards me. That we had come together at all was, without doubt, accidental. I did not for a moment doubt the girl's first attitude of irritation towards me. It was just as certain that her uncle had shown no desire whatever to make my acquaintance. I remembered his curious agitation as we had reached London, his muttered excuse of sea-sickness, and his somewhat extraordinary conduct in leaving his niece alone with me—a perfect stranger—while he hurried off to the hotel at which he had never arrived. Presumably, if that was indeed he who had spoken to the girl upon the telephone, she understood more about the matter than I did. He may have given her some explanation which accounted for his absence. If so, he had obviously desired it to remain a secret. What was the nature of this mystery? Of what was it that he was afraid? Who was this young man who, after his departure, had taken so much interest in his niece and myself at Charing Cross? Was it some one whom he had desired to evade?—a detective, perhaps, or an informer? The riddle was not easy to solve. Common-sense told me that my wisest course was to fulfil my original intention, and take the first train on the morrow to my brother's house in Norfolk. On the other hand, inclination strongly prompted me to stay where I was, to see this thing through, to see more of Felicia Delora! I was thirty years old, free and unencumbered, a moderately impressionable bachelor of moderate means. Until the time when the shadow of this tragedy had come into my life, which had found its culmination in the little restaurant of the Place d'Anjou, things had moved smoothly enough with me. I had had the average number of flirtations, many pleasant friendships. Yet I asked myself now