The Stolen Statesman: Being the Story of a Hushed Up Mystery

“Good-night, Mr Smeaton, good-night. I have enjoyed your company immensely. Breakfast at half-past nine – eh?”

He might be a rogue at bottom, and his wealth might not have been acquired honestly, but he was a very pleasant one. And as a host he was beyond reproach.

When Smeaton entered the dining-room the next morning, the butler was waiting for him with a letter in his hand.

“Mr Whyman was called away early this morning, sir. He has left this note for you.”

“Dear Mr Smeaton,” ran the brief epistle. “A thousand apologies for treating you in this discourteous fashion. I received a letter just now calling me abroad on urgent business that brooks no delay. I may be absent some few weeks. Trusting we shall meet again – Yours sincerely, James Whyman.”

Smeaton was too accustomed to surprises to exhibit any emotion. He sat down and ate an ample breakfast, and cogitated over the sudden departure of his host.

The one obvious fact was that Whyman had flown. He need not waste time over that. The important thing remained: what was the reason of his hurried flight?

Before he left the room Smeaton crossed over to a writing-desk in the window, and peered into the waste-paper basket at the side. A forlorn hope – it was empty. A torn-up envelope might have revealed the postmark.

But Mr Whyman was evidently too old a bird to leave anything behind him that would enlighten one of the keenest detectives in England.

Chapter Nineteen.

Still Another Club

“Now that we are alone, sir, permit me to present myself in proper form. My name is Caleb Boyle, profession gentleman, educated at that glorious old school, Winchester, and graduate of Trinity College. Cambridge.”

Mr Boyle made a low bow as he completed his self-introduction, which took place in Smeaton’s room at Scotland Yard. He was full of gesture, employing a pantomime of arms, hands and face to accentuate his remarks.

Smeaton bowed, pointed to a chair, and examined him with minute attention. He was a tall, angular man, thin almost to emaciation. Judging by his figure, you might have put him at forty, but the lines on his face suggested another ten or fifteen years.

“I intended no discourtesy to you personally when I declined to give my card to your satellites or subordinates, or whatever name you give to the hangers-on of a great man.”

Here the fluent Mr Boyle made another of his grotesque bows to lend point to the compliment, and again Smeaton inclined his head politely. He had not as yet quite taken his bearings with regard to this extraordinary creature.

“To such persons, Mr Smeaton, I do not take the trouble to reveal my identity; it would be a waste of time. It is my invariable practice to go straight to the fountain-head when I have anything of importance to communicate.” Here Mr Boyle swelled out his chest, and said in a voice of intense conviction: “I have no toleration for whipper-snappers, and those, sir, are what one finds, spreading like a fungus, in every department of our public life.”

It seemed to the police official’s well-balanced mind that his visitor was a pompous ass, with a slight suspicion of insanity thrown in. He was not a man to suffer fools gladly, but this particular fool had called on him for some purpose, and he must exercise patience till the purpose was revealed.

He must bear with him and coax him. For he felt intuitively that Boyle was one of those men who take a long time in coming to the point.

“We are always happy to receive information here,” he said courteously. “You will understand that I am a very busy man.”

If he thought such a direct hint would arrest the flow of his visitor’s fatal fluency, he was grievously mistaken. Boyle raised an arresting hand, and indulged in some more contortions of arms and hands.

“I recognise the fact, sir, I fully recognise it. A man in your responsible position must find the working hours all too short for what you have to do. You bear upon your shoulders, capable as they are, the weight of Atlas, if I may say so.”

Smeaton had to smile, in spite of himself, at the fanciful imagery. “Not quite so bad as that, Mr Boyle. But a lot has to be got into a limited time, and therefore – ”

But his sentence was not allowed to finish. “Say no more, sir, on that head. I can understand that the time of a valuable official is not to be wasted; in short, that you wish me to come to the point.”

Smeaton nodded his head vigorously. Perhaps there was some remnant of common-sense in the creature after all.

Mr Boyle gracefully threw one leg over the other, bestowed upon the detective an affable but somewhat mechanical smile, and resumed his discourse.

“Before coming to the reason of my visit, I must trouble you with a few details of my family history, in order that you may know something of the person you are dealing with. I promise you I shall not be prolix.”

Smeaton groaned inwardly, but he knew he was helpless. As well try to stop a cataract in full flood as arrest the resistless flow of Mr Boyle’s glib fluency.

“I may tell you I am something of an athlete. I played two years in the Winchester Eleven. I rowed in my College boat. If I had stopped on a year longer I should have rowed for the ‘Varsity.’”

He paused, probably to ascertain the effect produced upon his listener by these deeds of prowess. Smeaton exhorted him to proceed, in a faint voice.

“Enough of those early days, when the youthful blood ran in one’s veins like some potent wine. Manhood succeeded the school and college days. I am telling you all this because, as you will perceive presently, it has some bearing upon my visit to you.”

He paused again, to mark the effect of his glowing periods. And again Smeaton, in a voice grown fainter, bade him get on with his story.

Suddenly the weird visitor rose, stretched himself to his full height, and with a dramatic gesture pointed a long, lean finger at the harassed detective. His voice rose and fell with the fervour of his pent-up feelings.

“The man you look upon to-day is only the shadow of what he was in his early prime. The name of Caleb Boyle was well-known about town, in the busy haunts of men. I have sat at great men’s tables, I have partaken of delicate fare, I have quaffed rare wines, fair ladies have favoured me with their smiles.”

He paused for a moment, dropped the pointing hand, and sat down again on his chair, seemingly overcome with his own rhetoric. Smeaton regarded him steadily, uncertain as to what new form his eccentricity would take, but spoke no word.

In a few seconds he had recovered himself, and smiled wanly at his companion.

“Enough of that. You are a man of vast experience, and you have seen men and cities. But I bet you would never guess that not so many years ago I was one of the young bloods of this town, one of what our neighbours across the Channel call the jeunesse dorée.”

And at last Smeaton was moved to speech. He looked at the well-cut but worn clothes; he remembered Winchester and Cambridge; he recognised the flamboyant and ill-controlled temperament. He drew his deductions swiftly.

“You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth,” he said bluntly; “you had every advantage that birth and education could give you. Through some fatal tendency, perhaps inherited, you threw away all your chances, and are living on your memories – and very little else.”

So far from being offended with this plain exposition of facts, Mr Boyle smiled affably, and, leaning forward, patted the detective approvingly on the shoulder.

“You’re a man after my own heart, sir; you go to the very marrow of things. You have hit it off correctly. But mark you, I regret nothing; I would alter nothing if the time came over again. I have lived, sir: warmed both hands at the fire of life; filled the cup of enjoyment to the brim. Nothing has daunted me, nothing ever will daunt me. Old as I am, derelict as I may be, I still look the world in the face, and, in the words of the poet, ‘Stand four-square to all the winds that blow.’”

Smeaton stirred uncomfortably. Was the man simply an original kind of beggar, and was all this the preface to a request for a modest loan? He had assurance enough for anything!

“Mr Boyle, my time is really very much occupied. May I beg you to come to the point, and state the object of your visit? These personal reminiscences and reflections are, of course, highly interesting, but – ” He made an eloquent pause.

“I have transgressed, I have abused your patience,” observed this singular man, in a voice of contrition; “I came to ask you a simple question, and here it is, plain, straight, and put as briefly as possible: What is at the bottom of Reginald Monkton’s disappearance?”

Smeaton looked up sharply. “Who says that he has disappeared?” he asked with some asperity.

Mr Boyle smiled blandly. “Why beat about the bush? Monkton is not in his place in the House. There is not a line in the papers about his movements, except that he is on the Riviera. The public may not yet have tumbled to it. But Fleet Street knows. The House of Commons knows. The clubs know. And last – you and I know. I still have some connection with the world in which I was once not an insignificant figure.”

Smeaton hardly knew what to answer. The man had every quality that offended his well-ordered mind, but he was not the absolute fool he had taken him for.

“Cannot a statesman, worn out and weary with hard work, take a brief holiday without letting loose all these absurd rumours?” he asked with pretended petulance.

Mr Boyle shrugged his shoulders. “My dear sir, I know as well as you do that this matter is in your hands, and you are hushing it up in the hopes that you will find a solution, and avoid a scandal. So far you have failed. If you had succeeded, either Monkton would have been back by now, or you would know of his death, and there would have been a public explanation. You have failed, and do you know why?”

“I shall be very glad to know why,” Smeaton replied, goaded into a half-admission by the contemptuous tone of the other man.

“Because, although you have some very clever men here you want a leavening of men of different calibre. It is good to know every corner of the slums, to be acquainted with every incident in the career of burglar Bill and light-fingered Jack, to know the haunts of all the international thieves and forgers and anarchists. That is sound and useful knowledge.”

“I am glad you think so,” said Smeaton sarcastically.

“In a case like this, however, you want another sort of knowledge altogether,” pursued Mr Boyle, callously indifferent to the detective’s sarcasm. “You want a man who has mixed in the big world from his boyhood, who knows all the ins and outs, all the intrigue of social life, all the gossip, all the scandal that has been going round the clubs and drawing-rooms for the last forty years.”

“In other words, men like yourself – eh? We have plenty such in our pay.”

“But they are not a recognised part of your official organisation,” rejoined Mr Boyle quickly. “As you are kind enough to suggest myself,” he added modestly, “I think I may say that in certain cases I should earn my salary. But I admit that at the burglar business I should be no use at all.”

There was a long silence. Smeaton was trying to smother his indignation. He had taken a dislike to the man from the first moment he had set eyes upon him. His long-windedness, his self-conceit, his grotesque gestures, his assumption of superiority, his gibes at Scotland Yard methods, had added to it. But he must bear with him; he was sure that Boyle had something more to say before he took his leave.

Mr Boyle pursued his discourse, quite unconscious of the other’s antipathy.

“In spite of troubles that would have crushed a weaker man, I think I have worn well: I am frequently taken for ten years younger than I am. As a fact, there is only one year’s difference between Monkton and myself. We were at a tutor’s together, and we went up to Cambridge in the same year.”

Smeaton breathed a sigh of relief. He had an intuition that at last this exasperating person was coming to the point.

“The Monkton of those days was very different from the Monkton of later years – the keen politician, the statesman conscious of the grave responsibilities of office. He was full of fun and go, one of a band of choice spirits who kept things lively, and, as a matter of course, got into many scrapes, and came more than once into conflict with the authorities.”

Smeaton listened intently. This was certainly not the prevalent idea of the statesman who had so mysteriously disappeared.

“I saw a great deal of him afterwards. We moved in much the same set. He married early, and everybody said that he was devotedly attached to his wife. So, no doubt, he was. At the same time, he had been a great admirer of the fair sex, and it was rumoured that there had been tender passages between him and several well-known ladies occupying high positions in society.”

The flamboyant manner had departed. For the moment he seemed an ordinary, sensible man, setting forth a sober statement of actual fact.

“There was one lady, in particular, with whom his name was especially connected. She was at that time some live or six years younger than Monkton, and married – people said, against her will – to a very unpopular nobleman much older than herself, who was madly jealous of her. It was reported at the clubs that the husband strongly resented Monkton’s attentions, and that on one occasion a fracas had taken place between the two men, in which Monkton had been severely handled. Some corroboration was lent to the statement by the fact that he did not appear in the Courts for a week after the occurrence was supposed to have taken place.”

“Did this fracas to which you allude take place before or after his marriage?” asked the detective.

“Speaking from memory, I should say about a year before.”

And at this point Mr Boyle rose, drew a pair of faded gloves from his pocket, and put them on preparatory to his departure.

“In a case of this kind, Mr Smeaton, it is well to remember the French proverb, ‘Look out for the woman.’ You, no doubt, have followed several clues, and evidently to no purpose. Well, I will give you one gratis – keep your eye upon Lady Wrenwyck, now a middle-aged woman, but, at the time to which I refer, one of the most celebrated beauties of her day, and, according to rumour, wildly in love with Reginald Monkton. It may lead to nothing, of course, but I think the tip is worth following.”

“I am obliged to you, and will certainly act upon your advice,” said Smeaton gravely, as he held out his hand.

As Mr Boyle took it his former eccentricities of manner returned. He bowed profoundly, and spoke in his high, artificial voice.

“Sir, I am more than flattered. I shall go later on to Miss Monkton. I should much like to make the acquaintance of my old friend’s daughter.”

Smeaton was aghast at this declaration. He had a shrewd suspicion that his real object in interviewing Sheila was to trade on his old acquaintance with her father, and probably obtain a loan. It was a hundred to one that such a mercurial creature would drop some disquieting hints about Lady Wrenwyck.

“I would beg of you to postpone your call, Mr Boyle. Miss Monkton is, naturally, in a state of great depression and anxiety. I should, however, very much like you to see Mr Austin Wingate, who is her best friend. If you will favour me with your address, I will arrange a meeting.”

Mr Boyle, indulged in another of his grotesque bows. He scribbled on a piece of paper, and handed it to the detective.

“I should be glad to have that meeting arranged as soon as possible, Mr Smeaton.” There was a shade of anxiety in his voice. Smeaton was sure that philanthropy was not the sole motive of his visit. “Once more, good-bye.”

He advanced to the door, hesitated, with his hand upon the knob, and half turned round, as if about to say something more. Apparently he changed his mind.

“A random thought occurred to me, but it is nothing – not worth pursuing,” he said airily, and passed out.

But Smeaton knew instinctively the reason of that pause. Boyle had screwed up his courage to borrow money, but he could not bring it to the sticking-point.

Had he told the truth or were his statements pure invention?

Chapter Twenty.

A Conference at Downing Street

“He’s a blatant idiot, with lucid moments. And in one of those rare moments of lucidity he told me about Lady Wrenwyck. You agree with me, I am sure, that, at any cost, he must be kept from Miss Monkton.”

Such was Smeaton’s pithy summing-up of his late visitor to Austin Wingate, who had hurried round on receipt of an urgent note from the detective.

“I agree absolutely,” was Wingate’s emphatic response. “She believes in her father so utterly that it would cut her to the heart to think he was anything short of immaculate, that he had ever shared the weaknesses of ordinary men. You know all good women make idols of their male-folk. Now, tell me a little more about this person Boyle. Is he what we should call a gentleman?”

Smeaton shrugged his shoulders. “I have nothing but his own statement to go upon, you understand. But I should say you might have described him as such once. Now, he is broken down, slightly shabby, has got the ‘seen-better-days’ look, and is, I surmise, hard-up. You will see him, of course, and I give you this hint beforehand: I think he will want to borrow money. I’m sure he was within an ace of tapping me.”

“He can borrow what he likes, in reason, so long as I can keep him away from Chesterfield Street,” said Austin fervently.

Smeaton looked at him approvingly. He was a gallant young lover. No wonder that the girl’s heart had gone out to him in her loneliness and misery.

Wingate scribbled a brief but polite note to Boyle, inviting him to dinner the following day at a Bohemian club in Shaftesbury Avenue of which he was a member. In this tolerant atmosphere his guest’s eccentricities of manner and shabbiness of attire were less likely to provoke comment.

Having arranged this, he took his leave of Smeaton, whom he left cogitating over the new development of affairs.

The detective had no doubt in his own mind that Boyle, flighty and feather-brained as he seemed, could be level-headed on occasions. The story he told him about Lady Wrenwyck certainly bore the impress of truth, but it was impossible for a man of such peculiar mentality to avoid exaggeration. Before going further into the matter, he would like some corroboration. To whom could he apply?

And at once he thought of Mr Chesterton, the Prime Minister. He and Monkton were life-long friends, had been at Cambridge together. Although not actually “born in the purple,” having come from commercial stock, he had been adopted into society from his earliest youth. His rare eloquence and commanding gifts had done the rest, and raised him to his present high position.

An hour later he was closeted with the Premier in the big, heavily-furnished room at Downing Street.

Mr Chesterton received him with that easy and graceful cordiality which was one of his greatest charms.

“I have ventured to intrude upon your time, sir, with reference to the matter which is still baffling us – the mysterious disappearance of your colleague Mr Monkton, the Colonial Secretary. I have had a visit from a peculiar person who calls himself Caleb Boyle, and he has given me some information that may or may not prove valuable. He says he knew Mr Monkton intimately. I am aware that you were life-long friends. Do you happen to know anything of the man Boyle?”

An amused smile flitted over the Prime Minister’s features. “I remember him well, a harum-scarum, chattering, frothy fellow – utterly devoid of brains. Stay, I think perhaps I do him an injustice. I would rather say he suffered from an excess of brain – of the ill-balanced sort. So he has turned up again – eh? I thought he had disappeared for good.”

“I take it, from that remark, that he has had a somewhat chequered career?” queried Smeaton.

“Most chequered,” was Mr Chesterton’s reply. In a few brief sentences he gave the history of Caleb Boyle, so far as he had known it.

He was a man of good family, and possessed of some small fortune. These advantages were nullified by the possession of nearly every quality that made for failure in life. He was headstrong, prodigal, full of an overwhelming conceit in his own capacity. He dabbled a little in everything – and could do nothing well.

He fancied himself an orator, and spouted on politics till he bored everybody to death. Believed himself a poet, and wrote execrable verses. Flattered himself he was an artist of a high order, and painted daubs that moved his friends to mirth.

The Premier paused. Then proceeding, he said:

“He came to London after leaving Cambridge, and went the pace. In a few years he had run through his money. Then began the downward progress. He became a sponger and a leech, borrowed money in every likely quarter – cadged for his luncheons and dinners. He had been very generous and hospitable in his day, and his friends put up with him as long as they could. One by one, they fell away, wearied by his importunities. Then he came to the last stage – he took to drinking to excess. Through the influence of the stauncher of his acquaintance, who still pitied him, he had secured three or four good positions. One after another he had to relinquish them, owing to his intemperate habits. That was the actual finish. He disappeared from a world in which he had once held a very decent footing, and joined the great army of degenerates who live nobody knows where, and Heaven knows how.”

“I take it he is not speaking the truth when he says that he knew Mr Monkton intimately?” asked Smeaton, when Mr Chesterton had finished the brief narrative.

The Premier shrugged his shoulders. “We were all at Cambridge together. He knew Monkton and he knew me, in the way that undergraduates know each other. We met afterwards, occasionally, in some of the many sets that constitute Society. But I am sure that Monkton was never intimate with him. He was one of dozens of men that he had known at school and college. Boyle always built up his supposed friendships on very slender material. It used to be said that if he knocked against an Archbishop by accident, and begged his pardon, he would swear afterwards that he was on terms of intimacy with him.”

There was a pause before Smeaton put his next question.

“This man tells me that at one time there was a scandal about Mr Monkton and a certain Lady Wrenwyck – a woman of fashion and a noted beauty. I take the liberty of asking you to confirm or refute that.”

Mr Chesterton frowned slightly. “I take it, Mr Smeaton, you have a good reason for asking me this. But, frankly, I am not fond of raising old ghosts.”

Smeaton answered him a little stiffly. “In my calling, sir. we are often compelled to put inconvenient questions, but only when, in our judgment, they are absolutely necessary.”

“I accept your statement on that head, unreservedly, Mr Smeaton.” The frown cleared from the Premier’s brow, and his tone was marked with that fine courtesy which had secured him so many friends.

He paused a moment, drew a sigh, and resumed. “I will be quite frank with you, Smeaton. That chatterbox Boyle has told you the truth. He was not in our particular set, but of course the common rumours reached him. There was a scandal – a very considerable scandal. It distressed his friends greatly, especially those who, like myself, appreciated his exceptional talents, and predicted for him a great career.”

Again he paused. Then he resumed:

“I am glad to say our counsels and influence prevailed in the end. We weaned him from this fascinating lady – who fought very hard for him, I must tell you. In the end we won. A year later he married a very charming girl, who made him the best of wives, and to whom, I have every reason to believe, he was devotedly attached.”

Smeaton rose, and expressed his thanks for the candid way in which Mr Chesterton had treated him.

“One last question, sir, and I have done,” he said. “What would be the present age of this lady?”

“She is ten years or so Monkton’s junior, and looks ten years younger than that. At least, she did the last time I saw her, and that was a few months ago.”