Chapter 3

At precisely ten o’clock on the following morning Duson brought
chocolate, which he had prepared himself, and some dry toast to his
master’s bedside. Upon the tray was a single letter. Mr. Sabin sat up in
bed and tore open the envelope. The following words were written upon
a sheet of the Holland House notepaper in the same peculiar coloured
crayon.

“The first warning addressed to you yesterday was a friendly one. Profit
by it. Go back to Lenox. You are only exposing yourself to danger and
the person you seek to discomfort. Wait there, and some one shall come
to you shortly who will explain what has happened, and the necessity for
it.”

Mr. Sabin smiled, a slow contemplative smile. He sipped his chocolate
and lit a cigarette.

“Our friends, then,” he said softly, “do not care about pursuit and
inquiries. It is ridiculous to suppose that their warning is given out
of any consideration to me. Duson!”

“Yes, sir!”

“My bath. I shall rise now.”

Mr. Sabin made his toilet with something of the same deliberation which
characterised all his movements. Then he descended into the hall, bought
a newspaper, and from a convenient easy-chair kept a close observation
upon every one who passed to and fro for about an hour. Later on he
ordered a carriage, and made several calls down town.

At a few minutes past twelve he entered the bar of the Fifth Avenue
Hotel, and ordering a drink sat down at one of the small tables. The
room was full, but Mr. Sabin’s attention was directed solely to one
group of men who stood a short distance away before the counter drinking
champagne. The central person of the group was a big man, with an
unusually large neck, a fat pale face, a brown moustache tinged with
grey, and a voice and laugh like a fog-horn. It was he apparently who
was paying for the champagne, and he was clearly on intimate terms with
all the party. Mr. Sabin watched for his opportunity, and then rising
from his seat touched him on the shoulder.

“Mr. Skinner, I believe?” he said quietly.

The big man looked down upon Mr. Sabin with the sullen offensiveness of
the professional bully.

“You’ve hit it first time,” he admitted. “Who are you, anyway?”

Mr. Sabin produced a card.

“I called this morning,” he said, “upon the gentleman whose name you
will see there. He directed me to you, and told me to come here.”

The man tore the card into small pieces.

“So long, boys,” he said, addressing his late companions. “See you
to-night.”

They accepted his departure in silence, and one and all favoured Mr.
Sabin with a stare of blatant curiosity.

“I should be glad to speak with you,” Mr. Sabin said, “in a place where
we are likely to be neither disturbed nor overheard.”

“You come right across to my office,” was the prompt reply. “I guess we
can fix it up there.”

Mr. Sabin motioned to his coachman, and they crossed Broadway. His
companion led him into a tall building, talking noisily all the time
about the pals whom he had just left. An elevator transported them to
the twelfth floor in little more than as many seconds, and Mr. Skinner
ushered his visitor into a somewhat bare-looking office, smelling
strongly of stale tobacco smoke. Mr. Skinner at once lit a cigar, and
seating himself before his desk, folded his arms and leaned over towards
Mr. Sabin.

“Smoke one?” he asked, pointing to the open box.

Mr. Sabin declined.

“Get right ahead then.”

“I am an Englishman,” Mr. Sabin said slowly, “and consequently am not
altogether at home with your ways over here. I have always understood,
however, that if you are in need of any special information such as we
should in England apply to the police for, over here there is a quicker
and more satisfactory method of procedure.”

“You’ve come a long way round,” Mr. Skinner remarked, spitting upon the
floor, “but you’re dead right.”

“I am in need of some information,” Mr. Sabin continued, “and
accordingly I called this morning on Mr.--”

Mr. Skinner held up his hand.

“All right,” he said. “We don’t mention names more than we can help.
Call him the boss.”

“He assured me that the information I was in need of was easily to be
obtained, and gave me a card to you.”

“Go right on,” Mr. Skinner said. “What is it?”

“On Friday last,” Mr. Sabin said, “at four o’clock, the Duchess of
Souspennier, whose picture I will presently show you, left the Holland
House Hotel for the New York, New Haven & Hartford Depot, presumably for
her home at Lenox, to which place her baggage had already been checked.
On the way she ordered the cabman to set her down at the Waldorf-Astoria
Hotel, which he did at a few minutes past four. The Duchess has not
returned home or been directly heard from since. I wish to ascertain her
movements since she arrived at the Waldorf.”

“Sounds dead easy,” Mr. Skinner remarked reassuringly. “Got the
picture?”

Mr. Sabin touched the spring of a small gold locket which he drew
from an inside waistcoat pocket, and disclosed a beautifully painted
miniature. Mr. Skinner’s thick lips were pursed into a whistle. He
was on the point of making a remark when he chanced to glance into Mr.
Sabin’s face. The remark remained unspoken.

He drew a sheet of note-paper towards him and made a few notes upon it.

“The Duchess many friends in New York?”

“At present none. The few people whom she knows here are at Newport or
in Europe just now.”

“Any idea whom she went to the Waldorf to see? More we know the better.”

Mr. Sabin handed him the letter which had been picked up in the cab. Mr.
Skinner read it through, and spat once more upon the floor.

“What the h---‘s this funny coloured pencil mean?”

“I do not know,” Mr. Sabin answered. “You will see that the two
anonymous communications which I have received since arriving in New
York yesterday are written in the same manner.”

Mr. Sabin handed him the other two letters, which Mr. Skinner carefully
perused.

“I guess you’d better tell me who you are,” he suggested.

“I am the husband of the Duchess of Souspennier,” Mr. Sabin answered.

“The Duchess send any word home at all?” Mr. Skinner asked.

Mr. Sabin produced a worn telegraph form. It was handed in at Fifth
Avenue, New York, at six o’clock on Friday. It contained the single word
‘Good-bye.’

“H’m,” Mr. Skinner remarked. “We’ll find all you want to know by
to-morrow sure.”

“What do you make of the two letters which I received?” Mr. Sabin asked.

“Bunkum!” Mr. Skinner replied confidently.

Mr. Sabin nodded his head.

“You have no secret societies over here, I suppose?” he said.

Mr. Skinner laughed loudly and derisively.

“I guess not,” he answered. “They keep that sort of rubbish on the other
side of the pond.”

“Ah!”

Mr. Sabin was thoughtful for a moment. “You expect to find, then,” he
remarked, “some other cause for my wife’s disappearance?”

“There don’t seem much room for doubt concerning that, sir,” Mr. Skinner
said; “but I never speculate. I will bring you the facts to-night
between eight and eleven. Now as to the business side of it.”

Mr. Sabin was for a moment puzzled.

“What’s the job worth to you?” Mr. Skinner asked. “I am willing to pay,”
Mr. Sabin answered, “according to your demands.”

“It’s a simple case,” Mr. Skinner admitted, “but our man at the Waldorf
is expensive. If you get all your facts, I guess five hundred dollars
will about see you through.”

“I will pay that,” Mr. Sabin answered.

“I will bring you the letters back to-night,” Mr. Skinner said. “I guess
I’ll borrow that locket of yours, too.”

Mr. Sabin shook his head.

“That,” he said firmly, “I do not part with.” Mr. Skinner scratched his
ear with his penholder. “It’s the only scrap of identifying matter
we’ve got,” he remarked. “Of course it’s a dead simple case, and we can
probably manage without it. But I guess it’s as well to fix the thing
right down.”

“If you will give me a piece of paper,” Mr. Sabin said, “I will make you
a sketch of the Duchess. The larger the better. I can give you an idea
of the sort of clothes she would probably be wearing.”

Mr. Skinner furnished him with a double sheet of paper, and Mr. Sabin,
with set face and unflinching figures, reproduced in a few simple
strokes a wonderful likeness of the woman he loved. He pushed it away
from him when he had finished without remark. Mr. Skinner was loud in
its praises.

“I guess you’re an artist, sir, for sure,” he remarked. “This’ll fix the
thing. Shall I come to your hotel?”

“If you please,” Mr. Sabin answered. “I shall be there for the rest of
the day.”

Mr. Skinner took up his hat.

“Guess I’ll take my dinner and get right to work,” he remarked. “Say,
you come along, Mr. Sabin. I’ll take you where they’ll fix you such a
beefsteak as you never tasted in your life.”

“I thank you very much,” Mr. Sabin said, “but I must beg to be excused.
I am expecting some despatches at my hotel. If you are successful this
afternoon you will perhaps do me the honour of dining with me to-night.
I will wait until eight-thirty.”

The two men parted upon the pavement. Mr. Skinner, with his small bowler
hat on the back of his head, a fresh cigar in the corner of his mouth,
and his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, strolled along Broadway
with something akin to a smile parting his lips, and showing his yellow
teeth.

“Darned old fool,” he muttered. “To marry a slap-up handsome woman like
that, and then pretend not to know what it means when she bolts. Guess
I’ll spoil his supper to-night.”

Mr. Sabin, however, was recovering his spirits. He, too, was leaning
back in the corner of his carriage with a faint smile brightening his
hard, stern face. But, unlike Mr. Skinner, he did not talk to himself.