rcadian."

"Ah, so you have been to the police?" said the suave villain. "You
have gone to Scotland--Scotland Place Scotland--n'importe. They are
investigating the affair? I thank you for the friendly warning."

"Warning!" I cried, choked with indignation. He held up a soft, fat
palm.

"Ah--it is not a warning? Then, Monsieur, I am afraid you have committed
an indiscretion which your friends in Scotland Place will not pardon
you. You would not make a good police agent. I am of the profession, so
I know."

I advanced a step. He recoiled, casting a quick look backward at the
lift just then standing idle with open doors.

"Hamdi Effendi," I cried, "by the living God, if you do not restore me
my wife--"

But then I stopped short. Hamdi had stepped quickly backward into the
lift, and given a sign to the attendant. The door slammed and all I
could do was to shake my fist at Hamdi's boots as they disappeared
upwards.

I remember once in Italy seeing a cat playing with a partially stunned
bat which, flying low, she had brought to the ground. She crouched,
patted it, made it move a little, patted it again and retired on her
haunches preparing for a spring. Suddenly the bat shot vertically into
the air.

I stared at the ascending lift with the cat's expression of impotent
dismay and stupefaction. It was inconceivably grotesque. It brought into
my tragedy an element of infernal farce. I became conscious of peals
of laughter, and looking round beheld the American doubled up in a
saddlebag chair. I fled from the vestibule of the hotel clothed from
head to foot in derision.

I am at home, sitting at my work-table, walking restlessly about the
room, stepping out into the raw air on the balcony and looking for
a sign down the dark and silent road. I curse myself for my folly in
entering the Hotel Metropole. The damned Turk held me in the palm of his
hand. He made mock of me to his heart's content.... And Carlotta is in
his power. I grow white with terror when I think of _her_ terror. She
is somewhere, locked up in a room, in this great city. My God! Where can
she be?

The police must find her. London is not mediaeval Italy for women to be
gagged and carried off to inaccessible strongholds in defiance of laws
and government. I repeat to myself that she must come back, that the
sober working of English institutions will restore her to my arms, that
my agony is a matter of a day or two at most, that the special license
ob