o-operation.

As they walked down Whitehall, the father remembered that this was a
lover at his side.

"I don't see how you manage to bear it with all that _sang froid_,
Bellamy," he said. "Another day of it'll drive me mad."

"I'm banking on Dick," said Randal.

"He's all you say, no doubt. But if you feel all you've told me for my
girl, it's almost as terrible for you as for me. And your brother can't
do the impossible, tracking without trace. _Vestigia nulla!_" And the
father groaned, looking twenty years older than he had seemed
twenty-four hours ago. "I watch every young woman in the street, half
hoping she'll turn her face and show me Amaryllis. And all the time I
know it's impossible."

Then, again, "God, man!" he broke out, "these things don't happen in
civilised communities. I suffer like the damned, without the
satisfaction of believing in my hell."

A few minutes later, as they turned out of Parliament Street, "You do
take it easy for a lover, Randal," he repeated. "I don't understand
you."

At the moment Randal made no reply, but, as they waited for the lift,
"Perhaps I ought to tell you," he said, "that I'm no longer in the
running. I'm afraid it pained her kind heart, saying no to me."

"When was that?" asked the father, speaking more like his ordinary
self.

"The last time we spoke of it was about an hour before we missed her.
After that I think she went into my study to be alone, and possibly, as
a woman will, shed a few tears over the matter; and then, perhaps, fell
asleep, and was caught unawares--but it's no use guessing."

The lift came down, and the escorting constable sidled up and entered it
after them.

As they left it, the discreet guide keeping well ahead in the gloomy
corridor, Caldegard whispered:

"Then it's even worse for you than I thought, Randal. You're a good man,
and I'm an ill-tempered old one."

"We shall have news, and her, soon--and something else," said Randal.

"What?" asked Caldegard.

"I thought you'd forgotten it! Ambrotox, of course. I'll tell her,
Caldegard. I once heard a man tell his wife, after she'd been chattering
to him for twenty minutes, that he'd forgotten to light his pipe all the
time she'd been talking. She said it was the best compliment she'd ever
had. I shall tell Amaryllis how you forgot Ambrotox."

Superintendent Finucane felt his spirits rise at the sight of the urbane
barrister, and received even the dishevelled person of the lost lady