The Pauper of Park Lane

“Yet she ought, merely to set my mind at rest. She knows how fondly I love Maud.”

“What has she told you?”

“She’s merely urged me to be patient. That’s all very well, because I feel sure that if Maud were allowed to do so she would write to me.”

“Her father may prevent her. He does not write to me, remember,” said Max.

“I can’t understand Marion; she is so very mysterious over it all. Each time I’ve seen her I’ve tried to get the truth from her, but all in vain,” Rolfe declared. “My own idea is that on the night in question, when they went together to Queen’s Hall, Maud told Marion something – something that is a secret.”

Max pondered. His friend’s explanation tallied exactly with his own theories; but the point still remained whether or not there had been foul play.

“But why doesn’t the Doctor send me word of his own safety?” asked Barclay. “I was with him only a few hours before, smoking and chatting. He surely knew then of his impending flight. It had all been most ingeniously and cleverly arranged.”

“No doubt. When I knew of it I was absolutely staggered,” Rolfe said.

It was curious, thought his friend, that he did not admit visiting the house after the furniture had been removed.

“I thought you left at nine that night to go to Belgrade. Marion told me you had gone,” Max remarked.

“Yes. I had intended to go, but I unfortunately missed my train. The next day the old gentleman sent somebody else, as he wanted me at home to look after affairs up in Glasgow.”

“And how did you first know of Maud’s disappearance?” asked Max, thinking to upset his calm demeanour.

“I called at the house,” he replied, vouchsafing no further fact.

“And after that?” Max inquired, recollecting that tell-tale stain upon the woman’s bodice.

“I made inquiries in a number of likely quarters, without result.”

“And what’s your theory?” Max asked, looking him straight in the face, now undecided whether he was lying or not.

“Theory? Well, my dear fellow, I haven’t any. I’d like to hear yours. The doctor and his daughter have suddenly disappeared, as though the earth has swallowed them, and they’ve not left the least trace behind. What do you believe the real truth to be?”

“At present I’m unable to form any actual theory,” his friend replied. “There has either been foul play, or else they are in hiding because of some act of political vengeance which they fear. That not a word has come from either tends to support the theory of foul play. Yet if there has been a secret tragedy, why should the furniture have been made to disappear as well as themselves?” Then, after a pause, he fixed his eyes suspiciously upon Charlie, and added, “I wonder if the Doctor kept any valuables or securities that thieves might covet in his house?”

Rolfe shrugged his shoulders. Mention of that point in no way disturbed him.

“I have never heard Maud speak of her father having any valuable possessions there,” he said simply.

“But he may have done so, and a theft may have been committed!”

“Of course. But the whole affair from beginning to end is most puzzling. I wonder the papers didn’t get hold of it. They could have concocted lots of theories if it had become known.”

“And now, at this lapse of time, the Press could not mention it for fear of libel. They’ll think that the Doctor had done a moonlight flit, instead of paying his rent.”

“It certainly looks like that,” remarked Max with a laugh. “But I only wish we could induce Marion to tell us all she knows.”

Charlie sighed.

“Yes,” he said. “I only wish she would say something. But she refuses absolutely, and so we’re left entirely in the dark.”

“Well, all I can say is, that the Doctor would never wilfully leave me in ignorance of his whereabouts, especially at this moment. We have certain business matters together involving a probable gain of a good round sum. Therefore, it was surely to his interest to keep me in touch with him!” Max declared.

The man before him was silent.

Was it possible that he had misjudged him? Was he lying; or had he really gone to Cromwell Road in search of the Doctor and found the house untenanted and empty?

“It is a complete mystery,” was all that Rolfe could say.

“Do you know, Charlie, a curious thought struck me the other day, and I mention it to you in all confidence. It may be absurd – but – well, somehow I can’t get it out of my head.”

“And what is it?” asked his friend with an eagerness just a little unusual.

Max paused. Should he speak? Or should he preserve silence? The mystery now held him bewildered. What had become of the dear old Doctor and the pretty girl with the tiny wisp of hair straying across her white brow? Yes. He would speak the vague impression that had, of late, been uppermost in his mind.

“Well,” he said, “old Statham has financial interests in Servia, has he not?”

“Certainly. Quite a number. He floated their loan a few years ago.”

“And has it not struck you then that he and the Doctor might be acquainted?”

“They were strangers,” he exclaimed quickly, darting a strange look across at Barclay.

Max was somewhat surprised at the vehement and decisive nature of Charlie’s declaration.

“And Maud never met the old fellow?”

“Never – to my knowledge.”

“Statham has a number of friends and acquaintances whom you do not know. The Doctor may have been one of them.”

“Oh, Sam has very few secrets from me. I am his confidential secretary,” was the other’s rather cold response.

“I know – I know. But would it not be to Statham’s interest to be on friendly terms with such a powerful factor in the Servian political world as Dr Petrovitch?”

“Well, it might. But you know how independent he is. He never goes into society, and has no personal friends. He’s utterly alone in the world – the loneliest man in London.”

“Then let us go a trifle further,” said Max at last. “Answer me one question. Is it or is it not, a fact that you were at the house in Cromwell Road on the night of – of their disappearance?”

Rolfe’s countenance changed in an instant. His lips went white.

“Why?” he faltered – “what do you mean to imply? – why – ?”

“Because, Rolfe,” the other said in a hard, determined voice, “because I saw you there – saw you with my own eyes!”

Chapter Twenty Five.

Two Men and a Woman

The face of Charlie Rolfe went pale as death.

He was in doubt, and uncertain as to how much, or how little, was known by this man who loved his sister.

“I saw you there, Rolfe, with my own eyes,” repeated Max, looking straight into his face.

He tried to speak. What could he say? For an instant his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth.

“I – I don’t quite understand you,” he faltered. “What do you mean?”

“Simply that I saw you at the Doctor’s house on the night of their disappearance.”

“My dear fellow,” he laughed, in a moment, perfectly cool, “you must have been mistaken. You actually say you saw me?”

“Most certainly I did,” declared Max, his eyes still upon his friend.

“Then all I can say is that you saw somebody who resembled me. Tell me exactly what you did see.”

Max was for a moment silent. He never expected that Rolfe would flatly deny his presence there. This very fact had increased his suspicions a hundredfold.

“Well, the only person I saw, Charlie, was you yourself – leaving the house. That’s all.”

“Somebody who closely resembled me, I expect.”

“Then you deny having been at the house that evening?” asked Max in great surprise.

“Why, of course I do. You’re absolutely mistaken, old chap,” was Charlie’s response. “Of course, I can quite see how this must have puzzled you. But what now arises in my mind is whether someone has not endeavoured to personate me. It seems very much as though they have. You say that I left the house. When?”

“After the removal. You were in the empty house, which you left secretly.”

“And you were there also, then?” he asked.

“Of course. I called, ignorant that they had left.” Charlie Rolfe did not speak for several moments.

“Well,” he exclaimed at last, “it seems that somebody has been impersonating me. I certainly was not there.”

“Why should they impersonate you?”

“Who knows? Is there not mystery in the whole affair?”

“But if somebody went there dressed to resemble you, there must have been a motive in their visit,” Max said.

“Well, old fellow, as you know, I have kept away from the house of late – at Maud’s request. She feared that her father did not approve of my too frequent visits.”

“And so you met her at dusk in the quiet streets about Nevern Square and the adjacent thoroughfares?”

“Certainly. I told you so. I made no secret of it to you. Why should I?”

“Then why make a secret about your visit to the house on that particular evening?”

“I don’t make any secret of it,” he protested. “As I’ve already told you, I was not there.”

“But you didn’t leave Charing Cross, as you made people believe you had done. You didn’t even go to the station,” returned Max.

“Certainly I did not.”

“You had no intention, when you saw Marion at Cunnington’s, of leaving at all. Come, admit that.”

“You are quite right. I did not intend to leave London.”

“But Statham had given you orders to go.”

“I do not always obey his orders when it is to his own interest that I should disregard them,” he replied enigmatically.

“Then you had a reason for not going to Servia?”

“I had – a very strong one.”

“Connected with Maud Petrovitch?”

“In no way whatever. It was a purely personal motive.”

“And you thought fit to disregard Statham’s injunctions in order to attend to your own private business!”

“It was his business, as well as mine,” declared Charlie, who, after a pause, asked: “Now tell me, Max, why are you cross-examining me like a criminal lawyer? What do you suspect me of?”

“Well – shall I be frank?”

“Certainly. We are old enough friends for that.”

“Then I’m sorry to say, Charlie, that I suspect you of telling a lie.”

“Lies are permissible in certain cases – for instance, where a woman’s honour is at stake,” he replied, fixing his eyes steadily upon those of his friend.

“Then you admit that what you have just told me is not the truth?”

“I admit nothing. I only repeat that I was not in Cromwell Road on the evening in question.”

“But my eyes don’t deceive me, man! I saw your face, remember.”

“If it was actually my face, it was not in Cromwell Road. That’s quite certain?” laughed old Statham’s secretary. “But it was your face.”

“It was, I repeat, somebody who resembled me,” he declared. “But you haven’t told me what the person was doing in the empty house.”

“That’s just what I don’t know,” Barclay replied. “I only know this: When I entered that night I saw nothing of a safe let into the wall. But on going there the next day the safe stood revealed, the door was open, and it was empty.”

“And so you charge me with being a thief!” cried Rolfe, his cheek flushing.

“Not at all. You asked me for the truth, and I’ve told you.”

“Well, it’s evident that you suspect me of sneaking into the house, breaking open the Doctor’s safe, and taking the contents,” he said plainly, annoyed.

“The Doctor may have returned himself in secret,” Max replied. “But such could hardly be the case, for the door had been blown open by explosives.”

“That would have created a noise,” Charlie remarked quickly. “Shows that whoever did it was a blunderer.”

“Exactly. That’s just my opinion. What I want to establish is the motive for the secret visit, and who made it.”

“Well, I can assure you that I’m in entire ignorance of the existence of any safe in the Doctor’s house.”

“And so was I. It was concealed by the furniture until my second visit, on the following morning.”

“Curious,” Rolfe said. “Very curious indeed. The whole thing is most remarkable – especially how both father and daughter got away without leaving the least trace of their flight.”

“Then you don’t anticipate foul play?” Max asked quickly.

“Why should one?”

“The Doctor had a good many political enemies.”

“We all have enemies. Who has not? But they don’t come and murder one and take away one’s household goods.”

“Then I am to take it that it was not you I saw at Cromwell Road, Charlie?” asked his friend in deep earnestness, at the same time filled with suspicion. He felt that his eyes could not deceive him.

“In all seriousness,” was the other’s reply. “I was not there. This personation of myself shows that there was some very clever and deeply-laid scheme.”

“But you’ve just declared that a falsehood was permissible where a woman’s honour was concerned?”

“Well, and will not every man with a sense of honour towards a woman hold the same opinion? You yourself, Max, for instance, are not the man to give a woman away?”

“I know! I know – only – ”

“Only what? Surely you do not disagree with me!”

“In a sense I don’t, but I’m anxious to clear up this matter as far as you yourself are concerned.”

Rolfe saw that he had shaken his friend’s fixed belief that he had seen him in Cromwell Road. Max was now debating in his mind whether he had not suspected Charlie unjustly. It is so easy to suspect, and so difficult to satisfy one’s self of the actual truth. The mind is, alas! too apt to receive ill-formed impressions contrary to fact.

“It is already cleared up,” Rolfe answered without hesitation. “I was not there. You were entirely mistaken. Besides, my dear chap, why should I go there when I had been particularly asked by Maud not to visit the house?”

“When did she ask you?”

“Only the night before. That very fact is, in itself, curious. She urged me that whatever might occur, I was not to go to the house.”

“Then she anticipated something – eh?”

“It seems as though she did.”

“And she told Marion something on the night when she and her father disappeared.”

“I know.”

“You know what she told her?”

“No. Marion refuses to tell me, I wish I could induce her to speak. Marion knows the truth – that’s my firm belief.”

“And mine also.”

“The two girls have some secret in common,” Rolfe said. “Can’t you get Marion to tell you?”

“She refuses. I’ve asked her half a dozen times already.”

“I wonder why! There must be some reason.”

“Of course there is. She is loyal to her friend. But tell me honestly, Charlie. Do you know the Doctor’s whereabouts?”

“I tell you honestly that I haven’t the slightest idea. The affair is just as great a mystery to me as to you.”

“But why have you kept away from me till to-day?” Barclay asked. “It isn’t like you.”

“Well,” answered Rolfe, with a slight hesitation, “to tell you the truth, because I thought your manner had rather changed towards me of late.”

“Why, my dear fellow, I’m sure it never has.”

“But you suspected me of being in that house on the night of the disappearance!”

“Of course, because I saw you.”

“Because you thought you saw me,” Charlie said, correcting him. “You surely would not misjudge me for that.”

“No. But your theory regarding falsehoods has, I must admit, caused some suspicion in my mind.”

“Of what?”

“Well, of prevaricating in order to shield a woman – Maud it may be.”

“I am not shielding her!” he declared. “There is nothing to shield. I love her very dearly indeed, and she loves me devotedly in return. Cannot you imagine, Max, my perturbed state of mind now that she has disappeared without a word?”

“Has she sent you no secret message of her safety?” Max asked, seriously.

“Not a word.”

“And you do not know, then, if she has not met with foul play?”

“I don’t. That’s just it! Sometimes – ” And he rose from his chair and paced the room in agony of mind. “Sometimes – I – I feel as if I shall go mad. I love her – just as you love Marion! Sometimes I feel assured of her safety – that she and her father have been compelled to disappear for political or other reasons – and then at others a horrible idea haunts me that my love may be dead – the victim of some vile, treacherous plot to take from me all that has made my life worth living!”

“Stop!” cried Max, starting to his feet and facing him. “You love her – eh?”

“Better – ah! better than my own life!” he cried in deep earnestness, his troubled face being an index of his mind.

“Then – then upon her honour – the honour of the woman you love – swear to me that you have spoken the truth!”

He looked into his friend’s eyes for a moment. Then he answered:

“I swear, Max! I swear by my love for Maud that I have spoken the truth!”

And Barclay stood silent – so puzzled as to be unable to utter a word.

Chapter Twenty Six.

Which Puts a Serious Question

At last Max spoke, slowly and with great deliberation.

“And you declare yourself as ignorant as I am myself of their whereabouts?”

“I do,” was Rolfe’s response. Then after a second’s hesitation he added in a changed voice: “I really think, Max, that you are scarcely treating me fairly in this matter. Sorely it is in my interests to discover the whereabouts of Maud! I have done my best.”

“Well?”

“And I’ve failed to discover any clue whatever – except one – that – ”

And he broke off, without finishing his sentence.

“What have you discovered? Tell me. Be frank with me.”

“I’ve not yet established whether it is a real clue, or whether a mere false surmise. When I have, I will tell you.”

“But cannot we join forces in endeavouring to solve the problem?” Max suggested, his suspicion of his friend now removed.

“That is exactly what I would wish. But how shall we begin? Where shall we commence?” asked Rolfe.

“The truth that it was not you whom I saw leaving the house in Cromwell Road adds fresh mystery to the already astounding circumstance,” Max declared. “The man who so closely resembled you was purposely made up to be mistaken for you. There was some strong motive for this. What do you suggest it could be?”

“To implicate me! But in what?”

The thought of that blood-stained bodice ever haunted Max. It was on the tip of his tongue to reveal his discovery to his friend, yet on second thoughts he resolved to at present retain his secret. He had withheld it from the police, therefore he was perfectly justified in withholding it from Charlie.

The flat denial of the latter regarding his visit to Cromwell Road caused him deep reflection. He watched his friend’s attitude, and was compelled to admit within himself that now, at any rate, he was speaking the truth.

“The only reason for the visit of the man whom I must have mistaken for yourself, Charlie,” he said, “must have been to open that safe.”

“Probably so.”

Then Max explained, in detail, the position of the safe, and how he had discovered it being open, and its contents abstracted.

“On your first visit, then, the safe was hidden?”

“Yes. But when I went in the morning it stood revealed, the door blown open by some explosive.”

“By an enemy of the Doctor’s,” remarked Charlie.

Max did not reply. The Doctor’s words regarding his friend on the last occasion they had sat together recurred to him at that moment with a queer significance. The Doctor certainly did not like Rolfe. For what reason? he wondered. Why had he taken such a sudden dislike to him?

Hitherto, they had been quite friendly, ever since the well-remembered meeting at the Villa des Fleurs, in Aix-les-Bains, and the Doctor had never, to his knowledge, objected to Maud’s association with the smart young fellow whose keen business instincts had commended him to such a man as old Sam Statham. The Doctor held no doubt, either secret knowledge of something detrimental to Rolfe, or else entertained one of those sudden and unaccountable prejudices which some men form, and which they are unable to put behind them.

“The one main point we have first to decide, Charlie,” he said at last, standing at the window and gazing thoughtfully down into the narrow London street, “is whether or not then has been foul play.”

Rolfe made no reply, a circumstance which caused him to turn and look straight into his friend’s face. He saw a change there.

His countenance was blanched; but whether by fear of the loss of the woman he loved, or by a guilty knowledge, Max knew not.

“Marion can tell us,” he answered at last. “But she refuses.”

“You, her brother, can surely obtain the truth from her?”

“Not when you, her lover, fail,” Charlie responded, his brows knit deeply.

“But a moment ago you said you had a clue?”

“I think I have one. It is only a surmise.”

“And in what direction does it trend?”

“Towards foul play,” he said hoarsely.

“Political?”

“It may be.”

“And were both victims of the plot?”

“I cannot tell. At present I’m making all the secret inquiries possible – far afield in a Continental city. It takes time, care, and patience. As soon as I obtain anything tangible, I will tell you. But first of all, Max,” he added, “I wish to have your assurance that you no longer suspect me. I am not your enemy – why should you be mine?”

“I am not, my dear fellow,” declared Barclay. “How can I be the enemy of Marion’s brother? I was only suspicious. You would have been the same in similar circumstances, I’m sure.”

“Probably,” laughed Charlie. “Yet what you’ve told me about the endeavour to implicate myself in the affair is certainly extraordinary. I don’t see any motive.”

“Except that you were known by the conspirators, whoever they are, to be Maud’s lover.”

“If so, then they intend, most probably, to bring some false charge against me. And – and – ”

“And what?” asked Max in some surprise.

“Why, don’t you see?” he said hoarsely, staring straight into his friend’s face with a horrified expression as a terrible truth arose within him. “Don’t you see that you yourself, Max, would become the principal witness against me!”

Max stood wondering at the other’s sudden anticipation of disaster. What could he dread if this denial of his was the actual truth?

Again he grew suspicious.

“How can I be witness against you if you are innocent of any connection with the affair?” he queried.

“Because the Doctor’s enemies have done this, in order to shield themselves.”

“But if the Doctor is really still alive, what have you to fear?”

“Is he alive? That is the point.”

“Marion gives me to understand that both he and Maud are safe,” Max responded quickly.

The other shook his head dubiously, saying: “If she has told you that, then it is exactly contrary to what she has given me to understand.”

“What? She has expressed a suspicion of foul play?”

“Yes – more than a suspicion.”

“Well – this is certainly strange,” Max declared. “Marion has all along been trying to allay my fears.”

“Because she feared to upset you, perhaps. With me it is different. She does not mind my feelings.”

“I’m sure she does, Charlie. She’s devoted to you. And she ought to be. Few brothers would do what you have done.”

“That’s quite outside the question,” he said, quickly pacing anxiously up and down the room. “She told me distinctly the other day that her fears were of the worst.”

“Ah! if you could only induce her to tell us what Maud confessed to her. It was a confession – a serious and tragic one, I believe.”

“Yes. It was, no doubt; and if she would only speak we could, I believe, quickly get at the truth,” Rolfe said. “To me it seems incredible that the Doctor, your most intimate friend, should not have found some secret manner by which to communicate with you, and assure you of his safety.”

There was a pause. Suddenly Max turned to the speaker and exclaimed —

“Tell me, Charlie. Be perfectly frank with me. Have you, do you think, at any time recently given some cause for offence to the Doctor?”

“Why do you ask that?” inquired the other in quick surprise.

“I have reasons for asking. I’ll tell you after you’ve answered my question.”

“I don’t know,” he laughed uneasily. “Some men, and especially foreigners, are very easily offended.”

“But have you offended the Doctor?”

“Perhaps. A man never knows when he gives unintentional offence.”

“Are you aware of having done anything to offend him?”