Malcolm smiled. “Actually, we’d heard there was to be a meeting here this evening, of Theosophists, and wanted to learn a bit more.”
Yeats brightened. “Splendid! We’ll be meeting upstairs, sir, in a quarter of an hour.”
Malcolm glanced at Conroy Melvyn, who nodded slightly. “Excellent! I believe I’ll tell my carriage driver to return rather later than I’d anticipated. We’ll join you shortly, I hope?”
The two Irish poets took their leave, heading upstairs, and Malcolm turned towards the entrance, intent on letting the driver know they’d be longer than an hour—and paused, startled. Their party was one short. “Where the devil is Mr. Pendergast?”
Conroy Melvyn, who had been peering up the staircase after the poets, started slightly. The police inspector looked around with a sheepish expression. “Eh?”
“Pendergast,” Malcolm repeated, “where the deuce has he gone?”
Pavel Kostenka swallowed nervously and said in a whisper that wouldn’t carry very far, “I cannot imagine. He was here just a moment ago.”
“Yes,” Malcolm said irritably, “he was. And now he isn’t. Bloody reporters! We’d better search for him at once.”
Within ten minutes, it was clear that Guy Pendergast was no longer anywhere inside the Carlton Club, because he had been seen retrieving his hat, cane, and gloves. The doorman said, “Why, yes, Mr. Moore, he left in a tearing hurry, caught a hansom cab.”
“Did you hear him give the driver directions?”
“No, sir, I’m afraid I didn’t.”
Malcolm swore under his breath. “Damn that idiot journalist! Gentlemen, I’m afraid our mission on your behalf will simply have to wait for another evening. Dr. Kostenka, Mr. Melvyn, we must return to Spaldergate immediately. This is very serious. Bloody damned serious. A reporter on his own without a guide, poking about London and asking questions at a time like this . . . He’ll have to be found immediately and brought back, before he gets himself into fatal trouble.”