"Oh!" said Doria. "Then--"

"The time for your _edition de luxe_ is not yet."

"Yet? But--you don't think Adrian's work is going to die?"

She looked at him tragically. He rea.s.sured her.

"Certainly not. Our future sumptuous edition will be a sign that he is among the immortals. But an _edition de luxe_ now would be a wanton _Hic jacet_."

All of this may have been a bit sophistical, but it was sound business from the publisher's point of view, and conveyed through the medium of Wittekind's unaffected urbanity it convinced Doria. I listened to her account of it with a new moon of a smile across my soul--or across whatever part of oneself one smiles with when one's face is constrained to immobility.

"I'm so glad I plucked up courage to come and see you, Mr. Wittekind,"

she said. "I feel much happier. I'm quite content to leave Adrian's reputation in your hands. I wish, indeed, I had come to see you before."

"I wish you had," said he.

"Mr. Chayne has been most kind; but--"

"Jaffery Chayne isn't you," he laughed. "But all the same, he's a splendid fellow and an admirable man of business."

"In what way?" she asked, rather coldly.

"Well--so prompt."

"That's the very last word I should apply to him. He took an unconscionable time," said Doria.

"He had a very difficult and delicate work of revision to do. Your husband's work was a first draft. The novel had to be pulled together.

He did it admirably. That sort of thing takes time, although it was a labour of love."

"It merely meant writing in bits of scenes. Oh, Mr. Wittekind," she cried, reverting to an old grievance, "I do wish I could see exactly what he wrote and what Adrian wrote. I've been so worried! Why do your printers destroy authors' ma.n.u.scripts?"

"They don't," said Wittekind. "They don't get them nowadays. They print from a typed copy."

"'The Greater Glory' was printed from my husband's original ma.n.u.script."

Wittekind smiled and shook his head. "No, my dear Mrs. Boldero. From two typed copies--one in England and one in America."

"Mr. Chayne told me that in order to save time he sent you Adrian's original ma.n.u.script with his revisions."

"I'm sure you must have misunderstood him," said Wittekind. "I read the typescript myself. I've never seen a line of your husband's ma.n.u.script."

"But 'The Diamond Gate' was printed from Adrian's ma.n.u.script."

"No, no, no. That, too, I read in type."

Doria rose and the colour fled from her cheeks and her great dark eyes grew bigger, and she brought down her little gloved hand on the writing desk by which the publisher, cross-kneed, was sitting. He rose, too.

"Mr. Chayne has definitely told me that both Adrian's original ma.n.u.scripts went to the printers and were destroyed by the printers."

"It's impossible," said Wittekind, in much perplexity. "You're making some extraordinary mistake."

"I'm not. Mr. Chayne would not tell me a lie."

Wittekind drew himself up. "Neither would I, Mrs. Boldero. Allow me."

He took up his "house" telephone. "Ask Mr. Forest to come to me at once." He turned to Doria. "Let us get to the bottom of this. Mr. Forest is my literary adviser--everything goes through his hands."

They waited in silence until Mr. Forest appeared. "You remember the Boldero ma.n.u.scripts?"

"Of course."

"What were they, ma.n.u.script or typescript?"

"Typescript."

"Have you even seen any of Mr. Boldero's original ma.n.u.script?"

"No."

"Do you think any of it has ever come into the office?"

"I'm sure it hasn't."

"Thank you, Mr. Forest."

The reader retired.

"You see," said Wittekind.

"Then where are the original ma.n.u.scripts of 'The Diamond Gate' and 'The Greater Glory'?"

"I'm very sorry, dear Mrs. Boldero, but I have no means of knowing."

"Mr. Chayne said they were sent here, and used by the printers and destroyed by the printers."

"I'm sure," said Wittekind, "there's some muddling misunderstanding.

Jaffery Chayne, in his own line, is a distinguished man--and a man of unblemished honour. A word or two will clear up everything."

"He's in Madagascar."

"Then wait till he comes back."

Doria insisted--and who in the world can blame her for insisting?

"You may think me a silly woman, Mr. Wittekind; but I'm not--not to the extent of an hysterical invention. Mr. Chayne has told me definitely that those two ma.n.u.scripts came to your office, that the books were printed from them and that they were destroyed by the printers."

"And I," said Wittekind, "give you my word of honour--and I have also given you independent testimony--that no ma.n.u.script of your husband's has ever entered this office."

"Suppose they had come in his handwriting, would they have been destroyed?"