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eyes off the gate; that I am prepared to swear."
He turned to me with an explanation of his discomposure which filled me with surprise.
"We were standing, my wife and I, outside the compartment in which I had reserved our seats, when, about ten minutes before the train was due to start, she said to me: 'Everard, I've forgotten something. I must go and see about it at once. I'll be back in a moment.' She got into the compartment, took her travelling-bag off the seat, and was about to hurry down the platform. I asked her what she had thought of so suddenly; if it was something she wanted I offered to go and get it for her. She laughed at me. 'You stay where you are and let no one get into our carriage. I'll be back in less than a minute.' She was off before I could stop her. I thought it rather odd that she had thought of something so very pressing at the last minute, and had actually taken her bag with her, which contained all her belongings. I saw her go down the platform and through the gate; then, when I had waited two minutes, I strolled down the platform to see if I could discover her. I could see nothing. I was afraid to go through the gate lest we should miss each other, so I stood close to the gate, and I'll swear that no one the least like her came through it."
Mr. Brookes took off his bowler hat and passed his handkerchief across his brow. I had never seen him so disturbed.
"It occurred to me, after I had been waiting some little time, and the train was due to start, that, at her suggestion, I had put the tickets in her bag and practically all my money. I did not know what to do. I had never been in such a position in my life; I had not dreamt that I could be in such a position. They were calling out, 'Take your seats,' and were shutting the doors. What had become of Clare? I could not imagine. I could not go without her. Our luggage was in the train, I could not ask the officials to delay the train on our account, and while I was in a state bordering on distraction the issue was taken out of my hands—the train started; and now," turning to one of the officials, "this man wants me to believe that she was in the train after all. I am perfectly certain that she was nothing of the kind. What has become of her I don't know, but I'll swear she wasn't in that train."
The amazing part of it was that he never did know what had become of her—the bride had left the bridegroom on the eve of their wedding journey and vanished into space. Unfortunately, there were one or two suspicious circumstances about that vanishing. She had taken her brand-new dressing-case with her, a present from him, which contained all their portable property which was worth having—besides two hundred pounds in English money which was to have been spent upon the honeymoon. Mr. Brookes never saw any of that again. The heavy luggage, which had gone on by the train, was claimed at the Gare du Nord by an individual who produced the checks for it, as well as the keys, which permitted of the Customs examination—and that vanished. The wedding reception had been held at a South Kensington hotel, at which the presents had been exhibited. Before Mr. Brookes got back to it someone called for the presents, armed with a letter from Mrs. Brookes—it seemed that she had made arrangements with the hotel people before she left to hand over the presents to someone who was to call for them—and they were never seen again.
The thing was very well done; Mr. Brookes found that he had been robbed in almost every direction in which he could have been robbed. To an onlooker it had its comical side, but it was a tragedy to him. He told me afterwards that, in one way or another, he reckoned he had been done out of more than a thousand pounds—to say nothing of the wife.
He had gone on one of those cruises which are so in vogue nowadays, to the Norwegian fiords. On the boat was a most charming lady, a Miss Clare Percival. He was a well-to-do bachelor, about forty years of age—the lady struck him as being the wife he had been looking for for years. Affairs of that sort on yachts I believe grow rapidly. Ere long she owned that she liked him, when he asked her; before they reached England—I think it was a twenty-eight-day cruise—the liking had turned to love, or so she said. Three weeks after they were back in London they were married—that episode at Charing Cross Station was the result. The whole affair was decidedly funny—except for the mourning bridegroom.
About eighteen months afterwards I went for a yachting cruise—mine was to the Morocco coast and all sorts of pleasant-sounding places. Our party—we were called a "party"—consisted of about fifty persons. We had not been two days at sea when I had become impressed by two facts. One was that we had on board the proprietor of "Ebenezer's Grey-Blue Pills" and samples of his large and ebullient family, and the other