messenger in a dark cloak and slouched hat, and was by her forwarded, in her father’s vindication, to Mr. Boffin, my client. You will excuse the phraseology of the shop, but as I never had another client, and in all likelihood never shall have, I am rather proud of him as a natural curiosity probably unique.”
Although as easy as usual on the surface, Lightwood is not quite as easy as usual below it. With an air of not minding Eugene at all, he feels that the subject is not altogether a safe one in that connection.
“The natural curiosity which forms the sole ornament of my professional museum,” he resumes, “hereupon desires his Secretary—an individual of the hermit-crab or oyster species, and whose name, I think, is Chokesmith—but it doesn’t in the least matter—say Artichoke—to put himself in communication with Lizzie Hexam. Artichoke professes his readiness so to do, endeavours to do so, but fails.”
“Why fails?” asks Boots.
“How fails?” asks Brewer.
“Pardon me,” returns Lightwood, “I must postpone the reply for one moment, or we shall have an anticlimax. Artichoke failing signally, my client refers the task to me: his purpose being to advance the interests of the object of his search. I proceed to put myself in communication with her; I even happen to possess some special means,” with a glance at Eugene, “of putting myself in communication with her; but I fail too, because she has vanished.”
“Vanished!” is the general echo.
“Disappeared,” says Mortimer. “Nobody knows how, nobody knows when, nobody knows where. And so ends the story to which my honourable and fair enslaver opposite referred.”