The Shadow of the East

The anger had died out of Peters’ face and the old tenderness crept back into his eyes as they rested on the tall bowed figure by the fireplace. He rose and went to the window, shutting it and drawing the curtain back neatly into position. Then he crossed the room slowly and laid his hand for an instant on Craven’s shoulder with a quick firm pressure that conveyed more than words. “Sit down,” he said gruffly, and going back to the little table splashed some whisky into a glass and held it under the syphon. Craven took the drink from him mechanically but set it down barely tasted as he dropped again into the chair he had left a few minutes before. He lit a cigarette, and Peters, as he filled his own pipe, noticed that his hands were shaking. He was silent for a long time, the cigarette, neglected, smouldering between his fingers, his face hidden by his other hand. At last he looked up, his grey eyes filled with an almost desperate appeal.

“You’ll stay, Peter—for the sake of the place?” he said unsteadily. “You made it what it is, it would go to pieces if you went. And I can’t go without you—if you chuck me it will about finish me.”

Peters drew vigorously at his pipe and a momentary moisture dimmed his vision. He was remembering another appeal made to him in this very room thirty years before when, after a stormy interview with his employer, the woman he had loved had begged him to remain and save the property for the little son who was her only hold on life. It was the mother’s face not the son’s he saw before him, the mother’s voice that was ringing in his ears.

“I’ll stay, Barry—as long as you want me,” he said at length huskily from behind a dense cloud of smoke. A look of intense relief passed over Craven’s worn face. He tried to speak and, failing, gripped Peters’ hand with a force that left the agent’s fingers numb.

There was another long pause. The blaze of the cheerful fire within and the fury of the storm beating against the house without were the only sounds that broke the silence. Peters was the first to speak.

“You say you are going to her tomorrow—do you know where to find her?”

Craven looked up with a start.

“Has she moved?” he asked uneasily. Peters stirred uncomfortably and made a little deprecating gesture with his hand.

“It was a tallish rent, you know. The flat you took was in the most expensive quarter of Paris,” he said with reluctance. Craven winced and his hands gripped the arms of his chair.

“But you—you write to her, you have been over several times to see her,” he said, with a new trouble coming into his eyes, and Peters turned from his steady stare.

“Her letters, by her own request, are sent to the bank. I was only once in the flat, shortly after you left. I think she must have given it up almost immediately. Since then when I have run over for a day—she never seemed to want me to stay longer—we have met in the Louvre or in the gardens of the Tuileries, according to weather,” he said hesitatingly.

Craven stiffened in his chair.

“The Louvre—the gardens of the Tuileries,” he gasped, “but what on earth—” he broke off with a smothered word Peters did not catch, and springing up began to pace the room with his hands plunged deep in his pockets. His face was set and his lips compressed under the neat moustache. His mind was in a ferment, he could hardly trust himself to speak. He halted at last in front of Peters, his eyes narrowing as he gazed down at him. “Do you mean to tell me that you yourself do not know where she is?” he said fiercely. Peters shook his head. “I do not. I wish to heaven I did. But what could I do? I couldn’t question her. She made it plain she had no wish to discuss the subject. The little I did say she put aside. It was not for me to spy on your wife, or employ a detective to shadow her movements, no matter how anxious I felt.”

“No, you couldn’t have done that,” said Craven drearily, and turned away. To pursue the matter further, even with Peters, seemed suddenly to him impossible. He wanted to be alone to think out this new problem, though at the same time he knew that no amount of thought would solve it. He would have to wait with what patience he could until the morning when he would be able to act instead of think.

His face was expressionless when he turned to Peters again and sat down quietly to discuss business. Half an hour later the agent rose to go. “I’ll bring up a checque book and some money in the morning before you start. You won’t have time to go to the bank in London. Wire me your address in Paris—and bring her back with you, Barry. The whole place misses her,” he said with a catch in his voice, stuffing the bundle of papers into his pocket. Craven’s reply was inaudible but Peters’ heart was lighter than it had been for years as he went out into the hall to get his coat. “Yes, I’m walking,” he replied in response to an inquiry, “bit of rain won’t hurt me, I’m too seasoned,” and he laughed for the first time that evening.