The Red Room

“Ethelwynn did not seem to remember ever having met you when I told her of our encounter at the door, and the subsequent events.”

“I am a friend of the Professor’s, not of his daughter,” I hastened to explain. “But are you absolutely certain that a journey to Strassburg to-morrow would be useless?”

“Absolutely. If Greer consented to see his friends I would be the first to see him.”

“And he has refused even you, eh?” I asked, smiling within myself at the superior knowledge I possessed.

“He has. He refuses, too, to allow his daughter to go to him.”

“But why?” I asked.

“For reasons known, I suppose, to himself.”

“Does he give none?”

“He vaguely answers that certain matters concerning a great scientific discovery he has made compel him at present to hold aloof from both family and friends. He fears, I think, that someone who has discovered his secret may betray it.”

“But surely Ethelwynn would not?” I cried. “I desire to see the Professor because I feel confident he can, if he will, explain the motive of the trap into which my wife has fallen.”

“If he refuses to see his own daughter he will hardly see you,” remarked the dark-faced doctor. “Under exactly what circumstances has Mrs Holford disappeared?”

I briefly explained, at the same time regarding the round-shouldered specialist with some antagonism. To me, it appeared as though he were erecting an invisible barrier between myself and the knowledge of the truth. He seemed entirely Langton’s friend, corroborating his every word.

And the more curious became his attitude when at last I remarked with firm and resolute air:

“Well, if Professor Greer refuses to see me, then I shall invoke the aid of the police. They will probably very soon discover him, wherever he may be.”

“I hardly think that would be a wise policy,” remarked Flynn, tossing his cigar-end into the fire, and rising quickly from his chair, “unless, of course, you could make some direct charge against him.”

I was silent for a moment.

“And if I did? What then?” I asked, speaking boldly in a clear voice, my eyes fixed upon his, for remember I was fighting for knowledge of my dear wife’s whereabouts.

“Well – if you did,” was his deliberate reply, “it would be you yourself that would suffer, Mr Holford, and no one else.”

Was it not astounding, startling?

This doctor, the bosom friend of Ethelwynn’s lover, had given me exactly the same threatening reply as Antonio had given me on the Pincian in Rome.

What could it mean? The reason why the false Professor was avoiding friends and enemies alike was, of course, sufficiently plain to me. But for what reason was my well-beloved Mabel, the loving wife whom I adored, held in the unscrupulous hands of those who killed Professor Greer?

And why was every effort of mine to discover her met only by threats of impending disaster?

I gazed at the two men before me in silent defiance.

If it cost me my own life I intended to discover her and hold her dear form once again in my arms.

She was mine – mine before God and before man; and these persons seeking for some mysterious motive to shield the false Professor should not further stand in the way of justice.

“You think I dare not go to the police!” I cried at last. “Very well, if you care to come with me to Scotland Yard now – for I am going straight there – I will, in the presence of both of you, unfold a strange tale which they’ll be very much surprised to hear.”

“You believe you know the truth!” laughed Langton. “No, my dear Holford. Don’t be such a fool! The police cannot help in this affair, for the mystery is far too complicated. Keep your own counsel.”

“Yes,” I sneered, “and depend upon the man of whom you have denied all knowledge – the man Kershaw Kirk.”

“Kershaw Kirk!” gasped the doctor, and I saw that he went pale, his dark eyes starting from his head. “Do you know him? Is he – is he your friend, Mr Holford – or —or your enemy?”

Chapter Nineteen

Gwen Reveals Something

It struck me that this keen-eyed, crafty-faced, round-shouldered specialist in diseases of the throat intended to profit by information derived from me regarding the mysterious Kirk. Why, I did not know. We all of us have at times a strange intuition of impending evil, one that we cannot account for and cannot describe.

Recollect, I was only just an ordinary man, a hard-working industrious dealer in motor-cars, a man who made a fair income, who was no romancer, and was entirely devoted to his wife, who had, ever since his marriage, been his best friend and adviser.

The Professor was a scientist, I remembered, and this man Hamilton Flynn was apparently a doctor of some note. Could there be any connection between the pair, I wondered. Flynn, Langton’s most intimate friend, was no doubt aware of much, if not all, that transpired in the Professor’s household. That he knew Kershaw Kirk was apparent by his surprise when I mentioned his name.

“Kirk is a mere acquaintance of mine,” I responded, after a brief pause; “whether he is my friend, or my enemy, remains to be seen.”

“He’s your enemy, depend upon that, Mr Holford,” declared Flynn emphatically. “He is a marvellously clever schemer, and the friend of few.”

I bit my lip. Well did I know, alas! that the fellow whose asides to his pet “Joseph” were so entertaining was not my friend.

It was upon my tongue to explain how the description of that man who was travelling with my wife in search of me tallied with that of my strange neighbour who had, with such subtle cunning, drawn me into that mysterious tragedy. But next second I hesitated. This man Flynn I mistrusted. My impression was that he was not playing a straight game, either with myself or with his friend Leonard Langton.

A thousand questions I had to ask those men – and Langton especially – but I saw by their attitude that their intention was rather to mislead me than to reveal anything. When I presently bade them farewell neither of them offered to assist me in my search for Mabel.

Therefore I went forth into the darkness and silence of Wimpole Street – for it was now near midnight – and walked down into Oxford Street ere I could find a taxi-cab to convey me back to my now cheerless home.

Lying awake that night, I decided to postpone my journey to Germany. It was evident that the impostor passing himself off as the Professor had taken my telegram purporting to come from Kirk as a warning, and had escaped. I had been a fool to telegraph. I should have gone there instead. His reason for keeping up the fiction that the Professor was alive was, of course, obvious, for while he did so there would be no inquiry into the whereabouts of the missing man.

I had made a promise to Kershaw Kirk, yet now that he had so grossly deceived me, why should I keep it? Why should I not tell the truth?

I reflected; there were, I saw, three reasons why I should still preserve silence. The first was because, after that lapse of time, I should be suspected, perhaps arrested, as an accomplice and dragged through a criminal court. The second was that Ethelwynn herself was, for some amazing reason, pretending that her father still lived; and the third was by reason of the strange threat of Mabel’s death uttered by the evil-faced Italian, and repeated by that Harley Street specialist who was Leonard Langton’s closest friend.

The assassins were actually holding my dear wife as hostage against any revelation I dared to make! That, in a word, was the true position.

I paced my room that night in the agony of despair. Of nothing did I think but the dear, sweet-faced woman so suddenly enticed away from my side by reason of her eagerness to meet me. She was a woman of high ideals and of lofty sentiments; a womanly woman who, though fond of a little gaiety and of the theatre, realised that her place was in her own home, where she reigned supreme.

Before my marriage my father, as fathers will, had looked upon her with considerable misgiving. She was a little too flighty, too fond of dress, of dinners, and dances, he had said. But after our wedding and our honeymoon spent in a car touring up in Scotland, she had settled down, and never for a single instant had I regretted my choice. Few men could say that.

Indeed, up to that day when Kershaw Kirk called to inspect the Eckhardt tyre, I was one of the happiest men in all London; prosperous in my business, and contented in my love.

Now, alas! all had changed. I was obsessed by the knowledge of a great and startling secret, and at the same time I had lost all that to me was most dear and cherished.

Next morning Gwen, fresh in her clean cotton blouse, and the big black bow in her hair, sat in her accustomed place at the breakfast table, but after greeting me lapsed into a thoughtful silence.

At last she asked: “Have you packed your things, Harry?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you!” I exclaimed. “I’m not going to-day. I’ve changed my mind.”

“Not going? Why, I thought you intended to see the Professor in Strassburg?” she cried.

“He has left,” I sighed; “I learned last night that he is on his way to Hungary.”

“And will you not follow?” asked the girl in reproach. “Will you not try to discover where Mabel is?”

“I’ve tried, Gwen – and failed,” I answered despairingly.

“You have not told me all, Harry,” she said, looking across at me. At the head of the table was Mabel’s empty place. “You have concealed something from me,” she declared.

“It is nothing that you should know,” was my quick reply. “My own private business does not concern you, Gwen – or Mabel either.”

“But surely I ought to know the truth? Mabel has been decoyed away abroad, and there must be some motive for it,” she replied in bitter complaint.

“Of course, my dear girl, but even I, in the knowledge of what has passed, cannot discern what the motive can be. If I could, all would be plain sailing, and we would soon recover her,” I said.

“Who is this Professor of whom you have spoken?” she asked, leaning her elbows upon the table, and gazing straight into my eyes.

“Professor Greer, the well-known chemist.”

“Greer?” echoed the girl, staring at me strangely.

“Yes, why?”

But she hesitated, as though disinclined to tell me something which was upon her mind.

“You know the Professor, eh, Harry?”

“I’ve met him once,” I replied, which was perfectly true.

“And only once?” she asked.

“Only once,” was my quick response.

“That’s curious.”

“Why?”

“Well – well, I suppose I ought not to tell you, for, of course, Harry – it’s no business of mine,” remarked the girl, “but as Mabel is now missing, no fact should be concealed, and I think you really ought to know that – ”

“That what?” I cried. “Tell me quickly, Gwen! Conceal nothing from me!”

“Well, that Mabel one morning received a note delivered by express messenger, and I asked her whom it was from. She seemed unusually flurried, and told me that it was from Professor Greer.”

“But she never knew him!” I gasped. “What day was that?”

“The day before you returned from Glasgow.”

“The same day on which she received that telegram from Italy purporting to be signed by me!”

I exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me this before, Gwen?”

“Mabel’s affairs have nothing to do with me. I am not interested in her correspondents, Harry,” she replied. “Surely it is not my place to carry tales to you, is it?”

“No; pardon me,” I said, hastening to excuse myself, “but in this affair the truth must be told.”

“Then why haven’t you told it to me?” asked the girl. “Why are you so carefully hiding other facts?”

“Because they are of concern only to myself – a secret which is mine, and mine alone.”

“And it does not concern Mabel?” she demanded.

“No,” I replied hoarsely, “except that her acquaintance with the Professor has placed a new phase upon the mystery. Tell me all that happened concerning that note.”

“It came about eleven o’clock in the morning,” she said. “I saw a telegraph-boy come up the steps, and believed he had a message from you. Annie took the note and brought it here into the dining-room, where Mabel signed for it. She read it through, and I saw that it caused her a great shock of surprise. Her hands were trembling. I inquired what was the matter, but she made some evasive reply. I demanded to know whom it was from, and she replied that her correspondent’s name was Greer. ‘He ought never to have written to me,’ she added. ‘Men are sometimes most injudicious.’ Then she rose and placed the letter in the flames, watching it until it had been burned.”

“And is that all?” I demanded, astounded at the girl’s story.

“Yes, except that for some hours afterwards she seemed very upset. To me it appeared as though she had received word of some unusual occurrence. At noon she called a taxi by telephone, and went out. She did not return for luncheon, so I was alone. At three she came back, and I saw that she looked pale and distressed, while her eyes were red, as though she had been crying. But I attributed that to our ignorance of where you were. You know, Harry, how upset she is if when you are away you don’t write or wire to her every day,” added the girl.

The story held me utterly speechless. That Mabel was acquainted in secret with the Professor astounded me. But it had been the false Professor who had written to her. Possibly the fellow was already in London while I was searching for him in Glasgow, and, if so, what was more probable than that she should have met him by appointment?

Not one single instant did I doubt Mabel’s truth and love. If she had met this impostor, then she had been the victim of some cleverly-planned plot. I was incensed only against the perpetrators of that foul crime in Sussex Place, not against the sweet, soft-spoken woman who was so near my heart. Mabel was my wife, my love, my all-in-all.

Poor Gwen, watching my face intently, believed that she had acted as a sneak towards her sister, but I quickly reassured her that it was not so. Her revelations had sent my thoughts into a different channel.

“The telegram summoning her to Italy came after her return?” I asked.

“Yes, she was upset, and would eat no tea,” the girl answered. “Her conversation was all the time of you. ‘Harry is in danger,’ she said several times. ‘Something tells me that he is in the greatest danger.’ Then, when the message came, she became almost frantic in her anxiety for your welfare, saying, ‘Did I not tell you so? My husband is in peril. He is the victim of a plot!’”

“You never heard her speak of the Professor before?” I inquired.

“Never, Harry; and, truth to tell, I was surprised that she should receive a letter from a man who she admitted to me was unknown to you.”

“She told you that?” I cried.

“She said that you were not acquainted with the Professor, and that you might object to him writing to her, if you knew.”

“Then she was in fear of discovery, eh?” I asked in a husky voice.

“Yes,” faltered the girl. “It – it almost seemed as though she was. But really, Harry, I – I know I’ve done wrong to tell you all this. I – I’m quite ashamed of myself. But it is because I am in such great fear that something has happened to my sister.”

“You have done quite right, Gwen,” I assured her. “The circumstances have warranted your outspokenness. Some men might perhaps misjudge their wives in such a case, but I love Mabel, and she loves me. Therefore I will believe no ill of her. She is the innocent victim of a plot, and by Heaven!” I cried fiercely, “while I live I’ll devote my whole life to its exposure, and to the just punishment of any who have dared to harm her!”

Chapter Twenty

One Traveller Returns

One fact was quite plain. It was the false Professor who had written to my wife. For aught I knew, the man whom I had followed from Edinburgh to Glasgow might have already been in London, and she might have met him by appointment.

During the morning I took the “forty-eight,” and ran over to Regent’s Park, passing slowly before both front and back of the house in Sussex Place. The blinds were up, but from the condition of the doorsteps it was plain that the place was tenantless.

From the “London Directory” I obtained the number of Lady Mellor’s, in Upper Brook Street, and called. The fat butler told me that Morgan, Miss Greer’s maid, had left with her mistress, and as far as he knew was down at Broadstairs with her. Her ladyship was at Bordighera.

I inquired if he knew anything of the other servants at Professor Greer’s.

“No, nothing,” was the man’s answer. “At least, nothing except that the Professor went abroad suddenly, and that they were all discharged and given wages in lieu of notice.”

“That Italian fellow discharged them, didn’t he?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. I never liked him. He’s gone abroad with his master, they say, and they’ve left a caretaker in charge.”

“Oh, there is someone there, eh?”

“Yes, a policeman named Murphy and his wife. They used to take care of this house for her ladyship, and Miss Ethelwynn has now given her father’s house over to them. They’re a very steady pair, and live on the premises.”

Surely it was a master-stroke of the girl’s to give over to the police that house of tragedy! Why was she concealing the fact of her father’s death?

I drove back to Chiswick with that one thought uppermost in my mind.

That afternoon I sat in my own office trying to attend to the details of a business too long neglected, and listening mechanically to Pelham, to Dick Drake, and to the others in my employment, who were complaining of the unsatisfactory trials of a new car I had recently purchased.

Professor Greer was dead, and every trace of the crime removed, save for those grim, indisputable relics which I had recovered from the ashes and now held most sacred. But further, my dear wife, whose knowledge of the impostor was so amazing, was also missing.

The one point which, I confess, caused me some qualms, was the reason why, not discovering me, she had not telegraphed to Gwen. That, surely, would be her first thought. If she had missed me, she would surely have let either Gwen or Pelham know.

Hence I could only think that she had either fallen into some fatal trap – and there are many in the by-ways of certain Continental cities – or else she was forcibly held from communicating with the outer world. If so, by whom? Probably by the Professor’s false friend, Kershaw Kirk.

I could not put away from my mind the curious altitude of Hamilton Flynn. Why had he endeavoured to frighten me from going to Scotland Yard? What motive had he in this? In what manner was he assisting his friend, Leonard Langton?

Again, was Langton in ignorance of the Professor’s end, or had he knowledge of it, and was it by his persuasion that his beloved was so cleverly feigning ignorance of all the past?

I began to suspect that these two men, bosom chums that they were, had some hidden motive for concealing the Professor’s death. Yet, after all, the point most amazing was the reason why, in the face of facts now revealed, my mysterious neighbour should have taken such pains to reveal the truth to me.

That evening, after a hasty meal at home with Gwen, I went back to the garage, put on a greasy engineer’s suit which I sometimes wore when doing dirty work around the cars, and buttoned over it a frayed tweed coat belonging to one of the men. Then, with a cap on and a pipe in my mouth, I went forth, and made my way on the top of a motor-’bus to the corner of Wimpole Street.

If Flynn went out I intended to watch his proceedings, for though I entertained only a vague suspicion of Langton, yet I felt confident that his friend was not acting squarely.

Have you ever been seized with misgivings of a person whom you have no just cause to doubt? Is not such a feeling the result of some unseen evil influence radiating from the person suspected – often quite rightly?

My first impression of this specialist in diseases of the throat and nose was a bad one.

Therefore, I strolled up the long, eminently respectable street, crossing Wigmore Street and Queen Anne Street, until a few doors on the left before coming into Great Marylebone Street, I halted before the house wherein the pair shared chambers.

There were bright lights in their big sitting-room on the first floor, the room wherein Flynn had made those covert threats. It was then half-past eight. They would have dined by that hour, and if they were going out they would certainly very soon make an appearance.

I strolled to the corner of Great Marylebone Street, and idled at the corner, watching. The evening was bright and cold, and many cabs were passing and repassing. I lit my pipe, and sauntered up and down, my eye ever upon the front door of the house wherein the two men lived.

The time hung heavily, as it ever does when one is watching. An hour dragged by, but no one came out. At last, however, a maid ran up the area steps and came in my direction with a letter in her hand ready for posting in the pillar-box near which I was standing.

As she stopped I spoke to her, but at first she hesitated to answer. After slipping five shillings into her hand, however, I induced her to tell me that the doctor had dined alone, and was sitting upstairs. Mr Langton had, she said, left London early in the afternoon, but she was unaware of where he had gone.

“Tell me,” I asked the girl, “do they ever have a visitor named Kirk?”

“Kirk!” she echoed. “Oh, yes, I recollect, ’e used to often call, but of late ’e ’asn’t been.” And she described my mysterious neighbour exactly.

“When did he last call?” I asked.

“Oh, I should say it ’ud be quite a month ago. ’E always used to arsk for the doctor.”

“Never for Mr Langton?”

“Not to my knowledge. Indeed, one afternoon when ’e called I told ’im that the doctor was out, but that Mr Langton was at ’ome; but ’e told me that ’e wished to see the doctor an’ nobody else.”

“How long has Doctor Flynn lived there?” I inquired.

“About nine months.”

“Does he have many callers?”

“No; they all go round to ’is consulting room in ’Arley Street, I believe.”

“All except Kirk.”

“Yes, Mr Kirk used to call at all hours, and they used to sit together arf through the night sometimes – after Mr Langton ’ad gone to bed. ’E’s never up very late, ’e ain’t.”

And then, after a few more questions, I allowed the cockney girl to return to the house, first, however, impressing upon her the need for secrecy, and adding another five shillings to that I had already given her.

Half an hour later I saw the front door open, and Flynn, in dark overcoat and hard felt hat, ran down the steps and turned towards Oxford Street.

Soon I was at his heels. He presently turned into Wigmore Street, crossed Cavendish Square, and continued through Mortimer Street into Wells Street, quite unconscious of being followed. He walked with an air of preoccupation, twice stopping to light his cigarette.

Now that he was under my observation I did not intend that he should escape me. Besides, there was nothing suspicious about me, for I was merely a plain motor-mechanic, such as is seen about the London streets in dozens at all hours.

Continuing down Wardour Street he came into Coventry Street, where he ascended the carpeted stairs to a saloon well known to a certain class of the habitués of the West End. In my mechanic’s clothes I knew that the uniformed janitor at the bottom of the stairs would direct me to the public bar, therefore I was compelled to remain outside and await the doctor’s exit.

The place was evidently crowded, as it usually is, for it is one of the recognised nocturnal rendezvous in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square.

I crossed the road and stood near the entrance to the Motor Club, of which I was a member. Many men I knew passed and repassed within its swing doors, but none recognised me. Therefore I was quite satisfied that, with my dirty face, Doctor Flynn would not easily identify me.

At last he came forth, and alone.

I saw by his hesitation on the kerb that he was disappointed. Someone he had expected had not turned up, and he was now undecided in which direction to walk.

It was then about half-past ten, the quietest hour of the evening in that neighbourhood, yet the illuminated signs lent an air of gaiety to that scene so typical of London as the middle-class know it.