I drove at once to the Temple to see my lawyers and to make arrangements for a marriage by special license.

I returned at one o’clock.  Stenson met me in the hall.

“I beg your pardon, Sir Marcus, but Mademoiselle hasn’t come back yet.”

I waited an uneasy hour.  Such a lengthy absence from home was unprecedented.  At two o’clock I went round to Herr Stuer in the Avenue Road—­a five minutes’ walk.

He entered the sitting-room into which I had been ushered, wiping his lips.

“I am sorry to disturb you, Herr Stuer,” said I, “but will you kindly tell me when Miss Carlotta left you, this morning?”

“Miss Carlotta came not at all this morning,” he replied.

“But it was her regular day?”

“At ten o’clock.  She did not come.  At eleven I have another pupil.  She has not before missed one lesson.”

I flew back home, in an agony of hope that her laughing face would meet me there and dispel a dread that chilled me like an icy wind.

There was no Carlotta.

There has been no Carlotta all this awful day.

There will never be a Carlotta again.

I drove to the police station.

“What do you think has happened?” asked the Inspector.

It was only too horribly obvious.  Any man but myself would have kept her under lock and key and established a guard round the house.  Any man but myself would have never let her out of his sight until he had married her, until he had tracked Hamdi and his myrmidons back to Alexandretta.

“Abduction has happened,” I cried wildly.  “Between Lingfield Terrace and Avenue Road she has been caught, thrust into a closed carriage, gagged and carried God knows where by the wiliest old thief in Asia.  He is the Prefect of Police in Aleppo.  His name is Hamdi Effendi and he is staying at the Hotel Metropole.”

The Inspector questioned me.  Heaven knows how I answered.  I saw the scene.  The waiting carriage.  The unfrequented bit of road.  My heart’s darling, her face a radiant flower in the grey morning, tripping lightheartedly along.  The sudden dash, the struggle, the swiftly closed door.  It was a matter of a few seconds.  My brain grew dizzy with the vision.

“You say that he threatened to abduct her?” asked the Inspector.

“Yes,” said I, “and a friend of mine promised to kill him.  Heaven grant he keep his promise!”

“Be careful, Sir Marcus,” smiled the Inspector.  “Or if there is a murder committed you will be an accessory before the fact.”

I intimated my disregard of the contingency.  What did it matter?  Nothing in the world mattered save the recovery of the light and meaning of my existence.  My friend’s name?  Sebastian Pasquale, He lived near by in the St. John’s Wood Road.

“The best thing you can do, Sir Marcus,” said the Inspector, “is to get hold of Mr. Pasquale and take him with you to Scotland Yard.  Perhaps two heads will be better than one.  In the meanwhile we shall communicate with headquarters and make the necessary inquiries in the neighbourhood.”