The only other person with whom I knew Lola to be on friendly terms was
Sir Joshua Oldfield. I entered the first public telephone office I
came to and rang him up. He had not seen Lola for a week, and had heard
nothing from her relating to her sudden departure. I went sadly home
to my bird-cage in Victoria Street, feeling that now at last the
abomination of desolation had overspread my life.
Why had she gone? What was the meaning of it? Why not a line of
explanation? And the simultaneous disappearance of Quast and the
cats--what did that betoken? Had she been summoned, for any reason, to
the Maison de Sante, where Anastasius Papadopoulos was incarcerated? If
so, why this secrecy? Why should Lola of all people side with Destiny
and make a greater Tom Fool of me than ever? This could be no other than
the final jest.
I do not care to remember what I did and said in the privacy of my
little room. There are things a man locks away even from himself.
I was in the midst of my misery when the bell of my tiny flat rang.
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