United States or United Arab Emirates ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I could instantly prove everything that is necessary to know about me if my banker, Mr. Wraxton, were here. I have sent for him, but he has not come. I have not a moment to waste discussing this matter." The captain gazed anxiously toward the door, and for a few moments the three men stood in silence. The situation was a peculiar one.
Cliff resided, which address he had got from Wraxton, in Marseilles, and he had expected to see the elderly lady first, and to get some idea of how matters stood before meeting Edna. He was in Paris alone. He had left Shirley and Burke, with the negroes, in Marseilles.
"He says," answered Barré, "that he believes you know nobody in Paris except the party at the Hotel Grenade, and that, of course, you may have deceived them in regard to your identity that they have been here a long time, and you have been absent, and you have not been referred to by them, which seems strange." "Has he not found out that Wraxton knows me?"
The only real trouble was that he was to be married at four o'clock, and it was now nearly two. At the police station, Captain Horn met with a fresh annoyance. The magistrate was occupied with important business and could not attend to him at present. This made the captain very impatient, and he sent message after message to the magistrate, but to no avail. And Wraxton did not come.
It had been brought by a messenger from Wraxton, Fuguet & Co., and had been delivered to Mrs. Cliff. That lady had told the messenger to take the letter to Edna's salon, and she was now lying in her own chamber, in a state of actual ague. Of course, she would not intrude upon Edna at such a moment as this. She would wait until she was called.
He would not understand French warrants, and the quicker he went to the magistrate and found out what this thing meant, the better. He only asked time to send a telegram to Mr. Wraxton, urging him to attend him instantly at the police station, and then he went with the officers. On the way, Captain Horn turned over matters in his mind.
But directions were left with that house that if a letter ever came to Mrs. Philip Horn, it was to be sent to her in care of Mrs. Cliff, and, to facilitate the reception of such a letter, Mrs. Cliff made Wraxton, Fuguet & Co. her bankers, and all her letters were addressed to them.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, twenty-five minutes, passed, and the magistrate did not appear. Wraxton did not come. The captain had never been so fiercely impatient. He did not know to whom to apply in this serious emergency. He did not wish Edna to know of his trouble until he found out the nature of it, and if he sent word to the legation, he was afraid that the news would speedily reach her.
He did not blame the man for his doubts. Any one might have such doubts. A stranger coming to France with a cargo of gold must expect suspicion, and here was more a definite charge. At this moment there came a message from the banking house: Mr. Wraxton had gone to Brussels that morning. Fuguet did not live in Paris, and the captain had never seen him.
It must be shipped to various financial centres, and what was to be done required so much prudence, knowledge, and discretion that without the aid of the house of Wraxton, Fuguet & Co., he believed his difficulties would have been greater than when he stood behind the wall of gold on the shore of the Patagonian island. He did not even ask her to come to him.
Word Of The Day