Chapter 11

"Don't begin by accusing the landlord of anything," Nevill advised, at the hotel door. "He's got too much Arab blood in him to stand that. You'd only make him tell you lies. We must seem to know things, and ask questions as if we expected him to confirm our knowledge. That may confuse him if he wants to lie. He won't be sure what ground to take."

The Arab porter was not in his place, but the proprietor sat in his den behind the window. He was drinking a cup of thick, syrupy coffee, and soaking a rusk in it. Stephen thought this a disgusting sight, and could hardly bear to let his eyes rest on the thick rolls of fat that bulged over the man's low collar, all the way round his neck like a yellow ruff. Not trusting himself to speak just then, Stephen let Caird begin the conversation.

The landlord bowed over his coffee and some letters he was reading, but did not trouble to do more than half rise from his chair and sink back again, solidly. These fine gentlemen would never be clients of his, would never be instrumental in sending any one to him. Why should he put himself out?

"We've had a letter from Miss Ray this morning," Nevill announced, after a perfunctory exchange of "good days" in French.

The two young men both looked steadily at the proprietor of the hotel, as Nevill said these words. The fat man did not show any sign of embarrassment, however, unless his expectant gaze became somewhat fixed, in an effort to prevent a blink. If this were so, the change was practically imperceptible. "She had left here before six o'clock last evening, hadn't she?"

"I cannot tell you, Monsieur. It is as I answered yesterday. I do not know the time when she went out."

"You must know what she said when she went."

"On the contrary, Monsieur. The young lady did not speak with me herself. She sent a message."

"And the message was that she was leaving your hotel?"

"First of all, that she had the intention of dining out. With a lady."

Stephen and Nevill looked at each other. With a lady? Could it be possible that Mademoiselle Soubise, interested in the story, had called and taken the girl away?

"What then?" went on Caird. "She let you know eventually that she'd made up her mind to go altogether?"

"The message was that she might come back in some days. But yes, Monsieur, she let me know that for the present she was leaving."

"Yet you didn't tell us this when we called!" exclaimed Stephen. "You let us think she would be back later in the evening."

"Pardon me, Monsieur, if you remember, you asked _when_ Mademoiselle would be back. I replied that I did not know. It was perfectly true. And desolated as I was to inconvenience you, I could not be as frank as my heart prompted. My regrettable reserve was the result of Mademoiselle's expressed wish. She did not desire to have it known that she was leaving the hotel, until she herself chose to inform her friends. As it seems you have had a letter, Monsieur, I can now speak freely. Yesterday evening I could not."

He looked like the last man whose heart would naturally prompt him to frankness, but it seemed impossible to prove, at the moment, that he was lying. It was on the cards that Miss Ray might have requested silence as to her movements.

Stephen bit his lip to keep back an angry reproach, nevertheless, and Caird reflected a moment before answering. Then he said slowly; "Look here: we are both friends of Miss Ray, the only ones she has in Algiers, except of course my aunt, Lady MacGregor, with whom she lunched yesterday. We are afraid she has been imprudently advised by some one, as she is young and inexperienced in travelling. Now, if you will find out from your servants, and also let us know from your own observation, exactly what she did yesterday, after returning from her visit to my aunt--what callers she had, if any; to whose house she went, and so on--we will make it worth your while. Lady MacGregor" (he made great play with his relative's name, as if he wished the landlord to understand that two young men were not the girl's only friends in Algiers) "is very anxious to see Miss Ray. To spare her anxiety, we offer a reward of a thousand francs for reliable information. But we must hear to-day, or to-morrow at latest."

As he evolved this proposal, Nevill and Stephen kept their eyes upon the man's fat face. He looked politely interested, but not excited, though the offer of a thousand francs was large enough to rouse his cupidity, it would seem, if he saw his way to earning it.

He shrugged his shoulders with a discouraged air when Nevill finished.

"I can tell you now, Monsieur, all that I know of Mademoiselle's movements--all that anybody in the hotel knows, I think. No one came to see her, except yourselves. She was out all the morning of yesterday, and did not return here till sometime after the _déjeuner_. After that, she remained in her room until towards evening. It was the head-waiter who brought me the message of which I have told you, and requested the bill. At what hour the young lady actually went out, I do not know. The porter can probably tell you."

"But her luggage," Stephen cut in quickly. "Where did it go? You can at least tell that?"

"Mademoiselle's luggage is still in the hotel. She asked permission to store it, all but a dressing-bag of some sort, which, I believe she carried with her."

"In a cab?"

"That I do not know. It will be another question for the porter. But were I in the place of Monsieur and his friend, I should have no uneasiness about the young lady. She is certain to have found trustworthy acquaintances, for she appeared to be very sensible."

"We shall be glad if you will let us have a short talk with several of your servants," said Nevill--"the _femme de chambre_ who took care of Miss Ray's room, and the waiter who served her, as well as the porter."

"Certainly, Monsieur. They shall be brought here," the landlord assented. "I will help you by questioning them myself."

"I think we'll do that without your help, thank you," replied Stephen drily.

The fat man looked slightly less agreeable, but touched a bell in the wall by his desk. A boy answered and was sent to command Angéle and Ahmed to report at once. Also he was to summon the porter, whether that man had finished his breakfast or not. These orders given, Monsieur Constant looked at the two Englishmen as if to say, "You see! I put my whole staff at your disposition. Does not this prove my good faith? What would you have more?"

Angéle was Algerian French, evidently of mixed parentage, like all those in the Hotel de la Kasbah who were not Arabs. She was middle-aged, with a weary, hatchet face, and eyes from which looked a crushed spirit. If Stephen and Nevill could have seen Madame Constant, they would hardly have wondered at that expression.

Ahmed had negro blood in his veins, and tried to smooth out the frizziness of the thick black hair under his fez, with much pomatum, which smelled of cheap bergamot.

These two, with the porter who soon appeared, brushing breadcrumbs from his jacket, stood in front of the bureau window, waiting to learn the purpose for which they had been torn from their various occupations. "It is these gentlemen who have something to ask you. They do not wish me to interfere," announced the master to his servants, with a gesture. He then turned ostentatiously to the sipping of his neglected coffee.

Nevill undertook the cross-questionings, with occasional help from Stephen, but they learned no detail of importance. Angéle said that she had been out when the demoiselle Americaine had left the hotel; but that the luggage of Mademoiselle was still in her room. Ahmed had taken a message to Monsieur le Patron, about the bill, and had brought back Mademoiselle's change, when the note was paid. The porter had carried down a large dressing-bag, at what time he could not be sure, but it was long before dark. He had asked if Mademoiselle wished him to call a _voiture_, but she had said no. She was going out on foot, and would presently return in a carriage. This she did. The porter believed it was an ordinary cab in which Mademoiselle had driven back, but he had not thought much about it, being in a hurry as he took the bag. He was at least certain that Mademoiselle had been alone. She had received no callers while she was in the hotel, and had not been seen speaking to any one: but she had gone out a great deal. Why had he not mentioned in the evening that the young lady had driven away with luggage? For the sufficient reason that Mademoiselle had particularly requested him to say nothing of her movements, should any one come to inquire. It was for the same reason that he had been obliged to deceive Monsieur in the matter of knocking at her door. And as the porter made this answer, he looked far more impudent than he had looked last night, though he was smiling blandly.

How much of this was lies and how much truth? Stephen wondered, when, having given up hope of learning more from landlord or servants, they left the hotel.

Nevill had to confess that he was puzzled. "Their stories hold together well enough," he said, "but if they have anything to hide (mind, I don't say they have) they're the sort to get up their tale beforehand, so as to make it water-tight. We called last night, and that man Constant must have known we'd come again, whether we heard from Miss Ray or whether we didn't--still more, if we _didn't_. Easy as falling off a log to put the servants up to what he wanted them to say, and prepare them for questions, without giving them tips under our noses."

"If they know anything that fat old swine doesn't want them to give away, we can bribe it out of them," said Stephen, savagely. "Surely these Arabs and half-breeds love money."

"Yes, but there's something else they hold higher, most of them, I will say in their favour--loyalty to their own people. If this affair has to do with Arabs, like as not we might offer all we've got without inducing them to speak--except to tell plausible lies and send us farther along the wrong track. It's a point of pride with these brown faces. Their own above the Roumis, and I'm hanged if I can help respecting them for that, lies and all."

"But why should they lie?" broke out Stephen. "What can it be to them?"

"Nothing, in all probability," Nevill tried to soothe him. "The chances are, they've told us everything they know, in good faith, and that they're just as much in the dark about Miss Ray's movements as we are--without the clue we have, knowing as we do why she came to Algiers. It's mysterious enough anyhow, what's become of her; but it's more likely than not that she kept her own secret. You say she admitted in her letter having heard something which she didn't mention to us when she was at my house; so she must have got a clue, or what she thought was a clue, between the time when we took her from the boat to the Hotel de la Kasbah, and the time when she came to us for lunch."

"It's simply hideous!" Stephen exclaimed. "The only way I can see now is to call in the police. They must find out where that cab came from and where it took Miss Ray. That's the important thing."

"Yes, to get hold of the cabman is the principal thing," said Nevill, without any ring of confidence in his voice. "But till we learn the contrary, we may as well presume she's safe. As for the police, for her sake they must be a last resort."

"Let's go at once and interview somebody. But there's one hope. She may have gone to Tlemcen to see that Kabyle maid of Mademoiselle Soubise, for herself. Perhaps that's why she didn't encourage us to motor there. She's jolly independent."

Nevill's face brightened. "When we've done what we can in Algiers, we might run there ourselves in the car, just as I proposed before," he said eagerly. "If nothing came of it, we wouldn't be wasting time, you know. She warned you not to expect news for a fortnight, so there's no use hanging about here in hopes of a letter or telegram. We can go to Tlemcen and get back inside five days. What do you say?"

What Stephen might have said was, that they could save the journey by telegraphing to Mademoiselle Soubise to ask whether Miss Ray had arrived in Tlemcen. But the brightness in Nevill's eyes and the hopefulness in his voice kept back the prosaic suggestion.

"I say, by all means let's go to Tlemcen," he answered. "To-morrow, after we've found out what we can here about the cab, inquired at the railway stations and so on. Besides, we can at least apply to the police for information about Ben Halim. If we learn he's alive, and where he is living, it may be almost the same as knowing where Miss Ray has gone."

XV

Nothing could be heard of Victoria at any place of departure for ships, nor at the railway stations. Stephen agreed with Nevill that it would not be fair to lay the matter in the hands of the police, lest in some way the girl's mysterious "plan" should be defeated. But he could not put out of his head an insistent idea that the Arab on board the _Charles Quex_ might stand for something in this underhand business. Stephen could not rest until he had found out the name of this man, and what had become of him after arriving at Algiers. As for the name, having appeared on the passenger list, it was easily obtained without expert help. The Arab was a certain Sidi Maïeddine ben el Hadj Messaoud; and when Jeanne Soubise was applied to for information concerning him, she was able to learn from her Arab friends that he was a young man of good family, the son of an Agha or desert chief, whose douar lay far south, in the neighbourhood of El-Aghouat. He was respected by the French authorities and esteemed by the Governor of Algiers. Known to be ambitious, he was anxious to stand well with the ruling power, and among the dissipated, sensuous young Arabs of his class and generation, he was looked upon as an example and a shining light. The only fault found in him by his own people was that he inclined to be too modern, too French in his political opinions; and his French friends found no fault with him at all.

It seemed impossible that a person so highly placed would dare risk his future by kidnapping a European girl, and Jeanne Soubise advised Stephen to turn his suspicions in another direction. Still he would not be satisfied, until he had found and engaged a private detective, said to be clever, who had lately seceded from a Paris agency and set up for himself in Algiers. Through him, Stephen hoped to learn how Sidi Maïeddine ben el Hadj Messaoud had occupied himself after landing from the _Charles Quex_; but all he did learn was that the Arab, accompanied by his servant and no one else, had, after calling on the Governor, left Algiers immediately for El-Aghouat. At least, he had taken train for Bogharie, and was known to have affairs of importance to settle between his father the Agha, and the French authorities. Secret inquiries at the Hotel de la Kasbah elicited answers, unvaryingly the same. Sidi Maïeddine ben el Hadj Messaoud was not a patron of the house, and had never been seen there. No one answering at all to his description had stopped in, or even called at, the hotel.

Of course, the value of such assurances was negatived by the fact that Arabs hold together against foreigners, and that if Si Maïeddine wished to be incognito among his own people, his wish would probably be respected, in spite of bribery. Besides, he was rich enough to offer bribes on his own part. Circumstantial evidence, however, being against the supposition that the man had followed Victoria after landing, Stephen abandoned it for the time, and urged the detective, Adolphe Roslin, to trace the cabman who had driven Miss Ray away from her hotel. Roslin was told nothing about Victoria's private interests, but she was accurately described to him, and he was instructed to begin his search by finding the squint-eyed cab-driver who had brought the girl to lunch at Djenan el Djouad.

Only in the affair of Cassim ben Halim did Stephen and Nevill decide to act openly, Nevill using such influence as he had at the Governor's palace. They both hoped to learn something which in compassion or prudence had been kept from the girl; but they failed, as Victoria had failed. If a scandal had driven the Arab captain of Spahis from the army and from Algiers, the authorities were not ready to unearth it now in order to satisfy the curiosity, legitimate or illegitimate, of two Englishmen.

Captain Cassim ben Halim el Cheik el Arab, had resigned from the army on account of ill-health, rather more than nine years ago, and having sold his house in Algiers had soon after left Algeria to travel abroad. He had never returned, and there was evidence that he had been burned to death in a great fire at Constantinople a year or two later. The few living relatives he had in Algeria believed him to be dead; and a house which Ben Halim had owned not far from Bou Saada, had passed into the hands of his uncle, Caïd of a desert-village in the district. As to Ben Halim's marriage with an American girl, nobody knew anything. The present Governor and his staff had come to Algiers after his supposed death; and if Nevill suspected a deliberate reticence behind certain answers to his questions, perhaps he was mistaken. Cassim ben Halim and his affairs could now be of little importance to French officials.

It did not take Roslin an hour to produce the squinting cabman; but the old Arab was able to prove that he had been otherwise engaged than in driving Miss Ray on the evening when she left the Hotel de la Kasbah. His son had been ill, and the father had given up work in order to play nurse. A doctor corroborated this story, and nothing was to be gained in that direction.

Then it was that Nevill almost timidly renewed his suggestion of a visit to Tlemcen. They could find out by telegraphing Josette, he admitted, whether or no Victoria Ray had arrived, but if she were not already in Tlemcen, she might come later, to see Mouni. And even if not, they might find out how to reach Saidee, by catechizing the Kabyle girl. Once they knew the way to Victoria's sister, it was next best to knowing the way to find Victoria herself. This last argument was not to be despised. It impressed Stephen, and he consented at once to "try their luck" at Tlemcen.

Early in the morning of the second day after the coming of Victoria's letter, the two men started in Nevill's yellow car, the merry-eyed chauffeur charmed at the prospect of a journey worth doing. He was tired, he remarked to Stephen, "de tous ces petits voyages d'une demi-heure, comme les tristes promenades des enfants, sans une seule aventure."

They had bidden good-bye to Lady MacGregor, and most of the family animals, overnight, and it was hardly eight o'clock when they left Djenan el Djouad, for the day's journey would be long. A magical light, like the light in a dream, gilded the hills of the Sahel; and beyond lay the vast plain of the Metidja, a golden bowl, heaped to its swelling rim of mountains with the fairest fruits of Algeria.

The car rushed through a world of blossoms, fragrant open country full of flowers, and past towns that did their small utmost to bring France into the land which France had conquered. Boufarik, with its tall monument to a brave French soldier who fought against tremendous odds: Blidah, a walled and fortified mixture of garrison and orange-grove, with a market-place like a scene in the "Arabian Nights": Orleansville, modern and ostentatiously French, built upon ruins of vast antiquity, and hotter than all other towns in the dry cup of the Chelif Valley: Relizane, Perrégaux, and finally Oran (famed still for its old Spanish forts), which they reached by moonlight.

Always there were fields embroidered round the edges with wild flowers of blue and gold, and rose. Always there were white, dusty roads, along which other motors sometimes raced, but oftener there were farm-carts, wagons pulled by strings of mules, and horses with horned harness like the harness in Provence or on the Spanish border. There were huge, two-storied diligences, too, drawn by six or eight black mules, crammed under their canvas roofs with white- or brown-robed Arabs, and going very fast.

From Oran they might have gone on the same night, reaching the end of their journey after a few hours' spin, but Nevill explained that haste would be vain. They could not see Mademoiselle Soubise until past nine, so better sleep at Oran, start at dawn, and see something of the road,--a road more picturesque than any they had travelled.

It was not for Stephen to offer objections, though he was in a mood which made him long to push on without stopping, even though there were no motive for haste. He was ashamed of the mood, however, and hardly understood what it meant, since he had come to Algeria in search of peace. When first he landed, and until the day of Victoria's letter, he had been enormously interested in the panorama of the East which passed before his eyes. He had eagerly noticed each detail of colour and strangeness, but now, though the London lethargy was gone, in its place had been born a disturbing restlessness which would not let him look impersonally at life as at a picture.

Questioning himself as he lay awake in the Oran hotel, with windows open to the moonlight, Stephen was forced to admit that the picture was blurred because Victoria had gone out of it. Her figure had been in the foreground when first he had seen the moving panorama, and all the rest had been only a magical frame for her. The charm of her radiant youth, and the romance of the errand which had brought her knocking, when he knocked, at the door of the East, had turned the glamour into glory. Now she had vanished; and as her letter said, it might be that she would never come back. The centre of interest was transferred to the unknown place where she had gone, and Stephen began to see that his impatience to be moving was born of the wish not only to know that she was safe, but to see her again.

He was angry with himself at this discovery, and almost he was angry with Victoria. If he had not her affairs to worry over, Africa would be giving him the rest cure he had expected. He would be calmly enjoying this run through beautiful country, instead of chafing to rush on to the end. Since, in all probability, he could do the girl no good, and certainly she could do him none, he half wished that one or the other had crossed from Marseilles to Algiers on a different ship. What he needed was peace, not any new and feverish personal interest in life. Yes, decidedly he wished that he had never known Victoria Ray.

But the wish did not live long. Suddenly her face, her eyes, came before him in the night. He heard her say that she would give him "half her star," and his heart grew sick with longing.

"I hope to Heaven I'm not going to love that girl," he said aloud to the darkness. If no other woman came into his life, he might be able to get through it well enough with Margot. He could hunt and shoot, and do other things that consoled men for lack of something better. But if--he knew he must not let there be an "if." He must go on thinking of Victoria Ray as a child, a charming little friend whom he wished to help. Any other thought of her would mean ruin.

Before dawn they were called, and started as the sun showed over the horizon.

So they ran into the western country, near to the Morocco border. Dull at first, save for its flooding flowers, soon the way wound among dark mountains, from whose helmeted heads trailed the long plumes of white cascades, and whose feet--like the stone feet of Egyptian kings in ruined temples--were bathed by lakes that glimmered in the depths of gorges.