CHAPTER II

Miles Clayton had not felt the hand in his pocket. It had come and gone, and he had felt nothing at all. His own hand, following it after some lapse of time which he could not measure, found only emptiness, a most disconcerting emptiness. There should have been a bulging pocket-book, but it wasn’t there. His hand came away, and then went back again. There are things you simply can’t believe. This was one of them. The pocket-book was there, because he had put it there. It bulged with the Treasury notes into which he had, only an hour or two ago, changed his French money at Dover. It contained, besides, his passport, his letter of credit, and his luggage check. It was impossible that it should be gone.

His fingers explored the neatly fitting lining of his right-hand inside pocket. There was nothing in it except the lining. He withdrew his hand, rummaged his other pockets, and, having drawn a blank, made such remarks as seemed suitable to the occasion. There were twenty pounds in the pocket-book, but the letter of credit was the worst of it. The passport didn’t matter so much. He wouldn’t be going back yet awhile. Personally he considered the whole thing a wild goose chase, but if old Macintyre didn’t mind footing the bill, that didn’t matter to him.

He left that. The immediate question was, what next? He supposed the police, and groaned in spirit. He foresaw an endless vista of the most devastatingly bromidic interviews in which he supplied earnest and well-meaning officials with his entire history from the cradle to what interviews call present day, while in return they assured him that they would do their best to trace his money—and his letter of credit—his passport—his luggage check.

He found himself presently in the middle of such an interview.

“My name is Miles Clayton. I am a British subject. I have just landed at Dover and come up by the boat train.”

The man whom he was addressing said, “Wait a minute, sir,” and melted away. He was a fat man with rather a sympathetic face.

After about five minutes he was replaced by a little ginger-headed man with a swivel eye. Miles began all over again.

“My name is Miles Clayton. I am a British subject. I have just landed at Dover and come up by the boat train.”

The little man stabbed an official pen into an official ink-pot, cast a large blob of ink upon the table at which he had seated himself, and called back over his shoulder.

“George, did you fill up those forms?”

There was a thick fog outside, and a good deal of it hung about the corners of this office. From one of its dingier recesses the voice of George made answer. It said,

“No.”

“Then get on with it!” said the ginger-headed man. He turned back to Miles, stabbed with his pen again, and said,

“Now, sir, what about it?”

Miles said his piece all over again. He thought this was the sixth time, if you counted the two porters and the ticket-inspector.

“My name is Miles Clayton …”

This time he got it all off his chest, and was edified by the sight of the official pen taking official notes.

“You see, it’s damned awkward about my luggage,” said Miles.

The official pen travelled squeakily over the official paper.

After a short interval Miles repeated his remark.

The pen continued to squeak.

Miles went on talking.

“You see, it really is damned awkward, because I’ve got no hand-luggage. My suit-case gave up the ghost in Paris, so I chucked it away and booked everything through. Hotels don’t smile on you if you arrive without any luggage.”

The ginger-headed man dipped his pen fiercely in the ink and went on writing.

Miles continued to talk. He had a friendly disposition, and he had been looking forward with immense pleasure to being in England again. He had had three very pleasant years in New York, but London was London, and old Macintyre’s wild goose chase was a bit of all right as far as he was concerned. Just at the moment joyous reunion with his native land was not going quite as well as he had hoped. On the other hand if, as seemed probable, the ginger-headed man had a human heart somewhere under that official uniform, it might possibly be softened to the extent of permitting him to remove at least one of his trunks to an hotel.

It was a hope which perished in the cradle. The ginger-headed man broke suddenly into his conversation with a request for a signature.

“Name and address, sir, if you please.”

“But I haven’t got an address. You know, you haven’t really been listening—I thought you hadn’t. Now look here—I arrived in Paris from New York a week ago. And I arrived in Dover from Paris this evening. You don’t want my New York address. You don’t want my Paris hotel. And if you’ll tell me how I’m to scrape up an address in London when I haven’t got any money and I haven’t got any luggage, I’ll be most uncommonly obliged to you.”

It wasn’t any good, not as far as to-night was concerned anyhow. He could come back in the morning and they would see what could be done.

Miles went along to a telephone-box and rang up Archie Welling—that is to say he rang up the Wellings’ house—only to be informed after considerable delay by an agitated and breathless female voice that Mr Archie was out of town.

Miles considered. He had never met Mr and Mrs Welling, but they must know he was coming over. He asked if he could speak to Mr Welling. The female voice, very flustered, said that Mr Welling was away, and saved him the trouble of asking for Mrs Welling by adding, “They’re all away, sir.” Whereupon a second female voice said in a hissing whisper, “’Ush! You shouldn’t ha’ said that,” and the line went dead.

He stood in the box and tried to think of anyone else whom he could ring.… Mrs Brian?… Her name wasn’t in the directory.… The Maberlys were in Egypt, and Tubby was in Scotland.… Gilmore—there wasn’t an earthly chance of connecting with Gilmore till he reached office to-morrow.… He couldn’t think of anyone else.

He ran through his pockets and discovered that a single penny represented his cash in hand. You can’t get a bed for a penny. What an ass he had been to run himself out of change. If he hadn’t—well, what was the good of saying that now? He had, and there was an end of it.

He looked at his wrist-watch. Just on eleven, and a beast of a foggy night. If it hadn’t been for the fog, they’d have been in hours ago.

Eleven.… By ten o’clock next morning he could start looking up Gilmore at his office and all would be well. Meanwhile he had eleven hours to put in, and a penny in hand.

He walked out of the station into the fog.