The Pauper of Park Lane

“It is not a question of betrayal,” he hastened to reassure her. “It is to his own interest as well as to mine that we should meet. If we do not, it will mean ruin to him.”

“And if he is dead?” suggested Marion.

“My own belief is that he is not dead,” was the millionaire’s reply. “I know more of him and of his past than you imagine. There is every reason why he should live.”

“And Maud – what of her?”

He shrugged his shoulders, and replied:

“As regards her – you know best. She told you the truth.”

“Yes – and which I will not repeat.”

“Oh! but, my dear young lady, you must! Why waste time like this? Every day, nay every hour, causes the affair to assume increased gravity. I would have gone to the police long ago, only such a course would have brought the Doctor into a criminal dock. I have his interests, as well as my own at heart.”

“I have given my promise of secrecy, Mr Statham, and I will not betray it,” she repeated, again rising from her chair, anxious to leave the house.

“You still refuse!” he cried starting to his feet also, and standing before her. “You still refuse – even to save yourself!”

“To save myself!” she exclaimed. “I do not follow you, Mr Statham.”

A sinister grin spread over his grey face.

“You are perfectly free to leave this place, Miss Rolfe,” he said in a hard, meaning voice, “but first reflect what they will say at Cunnington’s regarding your visit here to-night!”

“You – you will tell them!” she gasped, drawing back from him, pale as death as she realised, for the first time, how she had imperilled her good name, and how completely she was in his power. “I – I believed, Mr Statham, that you were an honourable man!”

“Where a man’s life is concerned it is not a question of honour,” was his reply. “You refuse to assist me – and I refuse to assist you. That is all!”

Chapter Thirty One.

“His Name!”

“Not a question of honour, Mr Statham!” she cried. “Is it not a question of my own honour!” and she stood before him, erect and defiant.

“My dear young lady,” he laughed, “pray calm yourself. Let us discuss the matter quietly.”

“There is nothing to discuss,” she exclaimed resentfully, looking straight into the old man’s grey face. “You have threatened to divulge the secret of my visit to you to-night if – if I refuse to betray my friend! Is such an action honourable? Does such a threat against a defenceless woman do you credit?” she asked.

“You misunderstand me,” he hastened to assure her, realising the mistake he had made.

“I understand that you ask me a question,” she said. “You wish me to repeat what was told to me in confidence – the secret imparted to me by the girl who was my beat friend!”

“Yes; I wish to know what Maud Petrovitch told you,” he answered, standing with his thin hands behind his back.

“Then I regret that I am unable to satisfy your curiosity,” was her firm response. “I now realise your motive in inviting me here at this hour to see you in secret. You meant me to compromise myself – to remain away from Cunnington’s and be punished for my absence – the punishment of dismissal,” she went on, her fine eyes flashing in anger at his dastardly tactics. “You know quite well, Mr Statham, that the world is only too ready to think ill of a woman! You anticipate that I will betray my friend, in order to save myself from calumny and dismissal from the service of the firm. But in that you are mistaken. No word shall pass my lips, and I wish you good-night,” she added with serve hauteur, moving towards the door.

“No, Miss Rolfe!” he cried, quickly intercepting her. “Surely it is unnecessary to create this scene. I hate scenes. Life is really not worth them. You have denounced what you are pleased to call my ungentlemanly tactics. Well, I can only say in my defence that Samuel Statham, although he is not all that he might be, has never acted the blackguard towards a woman, and more especially, towards the daughter of his dear friend.”

“You have told me that you will refuse to assist me further!” she said. “In other words, you decline to preserve the secret of my visit here, although you made a promise that my absence to-night from Cunnington’s should not be noted!”

“I have given you a promise, Miss Rolfe, and I shall keep it,” was his quiet and serious response.

She looked at him with distrust.

“You have asked me a question, Mr Statham – one to which I am not permitted to reply,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because – well, because I have made a vow to regard what was told me as strictly in confidence.”

Sam Statham pursed his lips. Few were the secrets he could not learn when he set his mind upon learning them. In every capital in Europe he had his agents, who, at orders from him, set about to discover what he wished to know, whether it be a carefully-guarded diplomatic secret, or whether it concerned the love affair of some royal prince to whom he was making a loan. He knew as much of the internal affairs of various countries as their finance ministers did themselves, and with the private affairs of some of his clients he was as well acquainted as were their own valets.

To the possession of sound but secret information much of the old man’s success was due. The mysterious men and women who so often came and went to that house all poured into his ear facts they had gathered – facts which he afterwards duly noted in the locked green-covered book which he kept in the security of his safe.

Surely the contents of that book would, if published, have created a huge sensation; for there were noted there many ugly incidents in the lives of the men who were most prominent in Europe, together, be it said, with facts concerning them that were highly creditable, and sometimes counterbalanced the black pages in their history.

And this man of many secrets stood there thwarted by a mere chit of a girl!

He regarded her coldly with expressionless eyes. His gaze caused her to shudder. She withdrew from him with instinctive dislike. About this man of millions, whose touch turned everything to gold, there seemed to her something superhuman, something indescribably fearsome. His very gaze seemed to fascinate her, and yet at the same time she regarded him with distrust and horror. She was a fool, she told herself, ever to have listened to his appeal. She ought to have had sense enough to know that by bringing her there at that hour he had some sinister motive.

His motive was to wring from her the words of Maud Petrovitch.

Suddenly he altered his tactics, and, drawing her chair forward again, said:

“Let us sit down and talk of something else. You look pale. May I offer you something?”

“No, thank you,” she replied. It was true that his threatening words a few moments ago had upset her, therefore she was glad to be seated again. He evidently did not intend that she should leave yet.

Having re-seated himself near his writing-table, he said: “As I explained, I want you, if you will, to go on a journey for me. The car is awaiting you round in Deanery Street.”

“A journey? Is it far?”

“That all depends – if you are prepared to render me this service,” he replied.

“I am prepared to render you any service, Mr Statham, that is within my power, and my conscience permits me,” she said in a firm voice.

“Ah, now, that’s better. We’re beginning to be friends. When you know me, you will not accuse me of ungentlemanly conduct – especially towards a woman. But,” he added with a laugh, “I’m a woman hater. I daresay you’ve heard that about me – eh?”

She smiled also.

“Well – yes. I’ve heard that you are not exactly a ladies’ man. But surely you are not alone in the world in that!”

“If all men were like me, Miss Rolfe,” he said, “there wouldn’t be much work for the parsons in the matter of marrying.”

“You’ve been unfortunate, perhaps, in your female acquaintances,” she ventured to suggest. His manner towards her had altered, therefore she was again perfectly at her ease.

“Yes,” he sighed. “You have guessed correctly – unfortunate.”

And then a dead silence fell, and Marion, watching his face, saw that he was reflecting deeply.

Of a sudden, he looked straight into her face again, and said:

“You have a lover, Miss Rolfe – and you are happy. Is not that so?”

The girl blushed deeply at this unexpected statement. How could the old man possibly know, unless some of the people at Cunnington’s had carried tales to him. Perhaps Mr Warner had told Mr Cunnington, and he had spoken to the millionaire!

“I see,” he laughed, “that I’ve spoken the truth. Max Barclay loves you, doesn’t he? He’s a friend of your brother’s. I know him, and allow me to congratulate you. He’s a thoroughly good fellow, and would be better if he’d keep off hazardous speculation.”

She did not reply. The old man’s final sentence impressed her. Max’s speculations were hazardous. This was news to her.

“You don’t deny that you love young Barclay, do you?” the old man demanded.

She hesitated, her cheeks crimsoning.

“Well, why should I?” she asked. “He is very good to me – very good, indeed.”

“That’s right,” he said approvingly. “If I did not think him an honest, upright fellow I should warn you against him. Girls in your dependent position, you know, are too frequently victims of men whom the world call gentlemen. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she answered in a low voice. She was impressed by his solicitude on her behalf. In his eyes was a kindly glance, and she began to declare within herself that she had misjudged him.

“Well,” he went on, “when it came to my knowledge that Max Barclay was paying court to you, and that you were seen together of an evening and on Sundays, it gave me great satisfaction. I owe a debt of gratitude to your poor father, Miss Rolfe, and I am endeavouring to repay it to his children. Therefore I admit to you now that more than once I wondered what kind of lover would be yours. I anticipated annoyance, but, on the contrary, I have only the most complete satisfaction.”

“I am sure, Mr Statham, it is very kind of you to say this. And surely it is very generous of you to take in interest in Charlie and myself.”

“It is not a matter of kindness, but a matter of duty,” he said. “We were talking of Barclay. How did you meet him?”

“Charlie introduced him to me one Sunday afternoon in the Park.”

“And he has promised you marriage? Tell me frankly.” She nodded, again blushing deeply.

“Then you have my very heartiest wishes for your future happiness,” he declared with a pleasant smile. “Mind I am told the date, so that I can send you the usual teapot!”

Whereat they both laughed in chorus. The old man could be charming when he wished.

“Oh! we shan’t be married for a long time yet, I suppose!” Marion exclaimed. “Max talks of going with a shooting party up the Zambesi next spring. They’ll be away a full year, I expect.”

“And you’ll be left all alone?” he said in a tone of surprise. “No, I don’t think he’ll do that. He ought not to leave you alone at Cunnington’s.”

“Oh, but he’s going out to Turkey now – in a few days I think. He has some financial business out there. Something which will bring him in a very big sum of money.”

“Oh, what’s its nature?” asked the old financier, instantly pricking up his ears.

“I believe it’s a concession from the Sultan for the construction of a railway from some place on the Servian frontier, across Northern Albania, down to San Giovanni di Medua – if I pronounce the name aright – on the Adriatic.”

“What!” cried Statham, starting up. “Are you quite certain of this?”

“Yes; why?” she asked, surprised at the sudden effect her words had produced upon him.

“Well – well, because this is a surprise to me, Miss Rolfe,” he said. “Tell me the details, as far as you know them. Has he spoken to you about it?”

“Yes. He is hesitating to go, not wishing to leave me.”

“Of course. Did I not tell you so a moment ago?” he remarked with a smile. “But are you aware that this concession, if the Sultan really gives it, is of the greatest importance to the commercial development of the Near East? There are big interests involved, and correspondingly big profits. Curious that I have not heard anything of the scheme lately! It’s a dream that every Balkan statesman has had for the past fifteen years – the creating of an outlet for trade to the Adriatic; but the Sultan could never be induced to allow the line to run through his dominion. He is not too friendly with either Bulgaria or Servia. I thought I was being kept well informed of all the openings in Constantinople where British capital can be employed. Yet I haven’t heard anything of this long discussed scheme for quite a year.”

“Your informants believe, perhaps, that it would not interest you?”

“Interest me!” he echoed. “Why, they could not successfully carry it through in London without my aid – or, at least, without my consent. Whoever is getting the concession – if it is being obtained at all, which I very much doubt – knows full well that in the long run he must come to Sam Statham. Do you happen to know who, besides Barclay, is interested in the scheme?”

“There is a French gentleman – a friend of Max’s – who wants him to go to Constantinople with him.”

“What is his name? I may probably know him?”

“Adam – Jean Adam.”

“Jean Adam!” gasped the old man. “Jean Adam – a friend of Max Barclay?”

“Yes,” she answered, staring at him. “Why?”

“Why, girl!” he cried roughly. “Don’t ask me why? But tell me all about it – tell me at once!”

Chapter Thirty Two.

Man’s Broken Promises

“I know very little of the details,” replied the girl. “Max could, of course, tell you everything. He introduced me one night to Mr Adam, who seemed a very polite man.”

“All bows and smiles, like the average Frenchman – eh? Oh, yes. I happen to know him. Well?”

“He seems a most intimate friend of Max’s.”

“Is he really?” remarked the millionaire. “Then Max doesn’t know as much about him as I do.”

“What?” asked Marion in quick alarm. “Isn’t he all that he pretends to be?”

“No, he isn’t. I must see Barclay to-morrow – the first thing to-morrow. I wonder if he’s put any money into the venture?”

“Of that I don’t know. He only told me that it would mean a big fortune.”

“So it would – if it were genuine.”

“Then isn’t it genuine?” she asked anxiously.

“Genuine! Why, of course not! Nothing that Jean Adam has anything to do with, my dear young lady, is ever genuine. Depend upon it that his Majesty the Sultan will never grant any such concession. He fears Bulgaria far too much. If it could have been had, I may tell you at once I should already have had it. There is, as you say, a big thing to be made out of it – a very big thing. But while the Sultan lives the line will never be constructed. Pachitch, the Prime Minister of Servia, told me so the last time I was in Belgrade, and I’m entirely of his opinion.”

“But what you tell me regarding Mr Adam surprises me.”

“Ah! you are still young, Miss Rolfe! You have many surprises yet in store for you,” he replied with a light laugh. “Do you know Adam personally?”

“Yes.”

“Then beware of him, my girl – beware of him!” he snapped, his grey face darkening in remembrance of certain ugly facts, and in recollection of the sinister face of the shabby lounger against the park railings.

“Is he such a bad man, then?”

Sam Statham pressed his thin lips together.

“He is one of those men without conscience, and without compunction; a man whose plausible tongue would deceive even Satan himself.”

“Then he has deceived Max – I mean Mr Barclay,” she exclaimed, quickly correcting her slip of the tongue, her cheeks slightly crimsoning at the same time.

“Without doubt,” was the millionaire’s reply. “I must see Barclay to-morrow, and ascertain what are Adam’s plans.”

“He is persuading Mr Barclay to go to Constantinople. I know that because he asked me to use my influence upon him in that direction.”

“Oh, so he has approached you, also, has he? Then there is some strong motive for this journey, without a doubt! Barclay will be ill-advised if he accepts the invitation. The bait held out is a very tempting one; but when I’ve seen your gentleman friend he will not be so credulous.”

“I’m very surprised at what you told me. I thought Mr Adam quite a nice person – for a foreigner.”

“No doubt he was nice to you, for he wished to enlist your services to induce your lover to go out to Turkey. For what reason?”

“How can I tell?” asked the girl. “Mr Barclay mentioned that the railway concession would mean the commercial development of the Balkan States, and that it would be one of the most paying enterprises in Europe.”

“That is admitted on all hands. But as the concession is not granted, and never will be granted, I cannot see what object Adam has in inducing your friend to visit Constantinople. Was he asked to put money into the scheme, do you know?”

“Mr Adam did not wish him to put up any money until he had thoroughly satisfied himself regarding the truth of his statements.”

Statham was silent.

“That’s distinctly curious,” he remarked at last, apparently much puzzled by her statement. “Underlying it all is some sinister motive, depend upon it.”

“You alarm me, Mr Statham,” the girl said, apprehensive of some unexpected evil befalling the man she loved.

“It is as well to be forearmed in dealing with Jean Adam,” was the old man’s response. “More than one good man owes the ruin of his life’s happiness, nay his death, to the craft and cunning of that man, who, under a dozen different aliases, is known in a dozen different capitals of the world.”

“Then he’s an adventurer?”

“Most certainly. Tell Barclay to come and see me. Or better, I will write to him myself. It is well that you’ve told me this, otherwise – ” and he broke off short, without concluding his sentence.

The pretty clock chimed the half-hour musically, reminding Marion of the unusual hour, and she stirred as if anxious to leave. Her handkerchief dropped upon the floor. The old man noticed it, but did not direct her attention to it.

“Then if you wish it, Mr Statham, I will say nothing to Mr Barclay,” she remarked.

“No. You need say nothing. I will send him a message in the morning. But,” he added, looking straight into the girl’s beautiful face, “will you not reconsider your decision, Miss Rolfe?”

“My decision! Of what?” she asked.

“Regarding the statement made to you by Maud Petrovitch. She told you something. What was it? Come, tell me. Some very great financial interests are involved in the ex-Minister’s disappearance. Your information may save me from very heavy losses. Will you not assist me?”

“I regret that it is impossible.”

“Have I not even to-night been your friend?” he pointed out. “Have I not warned you against the man who is Max Barclay’s secret enemy – and yours – the man Jean Adam?”

“I am very grateful indeed to you,” she answered; “and if it were in my power, I would tell you what she told me.”

“In your power!” he laughed. “Why, of course, it is in your power to speak, if you wish?”

“Maud made a confession to me,” she declared, “and I hold it sacred.”

“A confession!” he exclaimed, regarding her in surprise. “Regarding her father, I suppose?”

“No; regarding herself.”

“Ah! A confession of a woman’s weakness – eh?”

“Its nature is immaterial,” she responded in a firm tone. “I was her most intimate friend, and she confided in me.”

“And because it concerns her personally, you refuse to divulge it?”

“I am a woman, Mr Statham, and I will not betray anything that reflects upon another woman’s honour.”

“Women are not usually so loyal to each other!” he remarked, not without a touch of sarcasm. “You appear to be unlike all the others I have known.”

“I am no better than anybody else, I suppose,” she replied. “Every woman must surely possess a sense of what is right and just.”

“Very few of them do,” the old man snarled, for woman was a subject upon which he always became bitterly sarcastic. In his younger days he had been essentially a ladies’ man, but the closed page in his history had surely been sufficient to sour him against the other sex.

The world, had it but known the truth, would not have pondered at Sam Statham’s hatred of society, and more especially the feminine element of it. But, like many another man, he was misjudged because he was compelled to conceal the truth, and was condemned unjustly because it was not permitted to him to make self-defence.

How many men – and women, too – live their lives in social ostracism, and perhaps disgrace, because for family or other reasons they are unable to exhibit to the world the truth. Many a man, and many a woman, who read these lines, are as grossly misjudged by their fellows as was Samuel Statham, the millionaire who was a pauper, the man who lived that sad and lonely life in his Park Lane mansion, daily gathering gold until he became crushed beneath the weight of its awful responsibility, his sole aim and relaxation being the mixing with the submerged workers of the city, and relieving them by secret philanthropy.

The sinner assumes the cloak of piety, while too often the denounced and maligned suffer in silence. It was so in Samuel Statham’s case; it is so in more than one case which has come under my own personal observation during the inquiries I made before writing this present narrative of east and west.

The old millionaire was surprised at the girl’s admission that what the Doctor’s daughter had told her was a confession. He realised how, in face of the fact that her brother loved Maud Petrovitch, it was not likely that she would betray her. Still, his curiosity was excited. The girl before him knew the truth of the ex-Minister’s strange disappearance – knew, most probably, his whereabouts.

“Was the confession made to you by the Doctor’s daughter of such a private nature that you really cannot divulge it to me?” he asked her, appealingly. “Remember, I am not seeking to probe the secrets of a young girl’s life, Miss Rolfe. On the contrary, I am anxious – most anxious – to clear up what is at present a most mysterious and unaccountable occurrence. Doctor Petrovitch disappeared from London just at a moment when his presence here was, in his own interests, as well as in mine, most required. I need not go into the details,” he went on, fixing her with his sunken eyes. “It is sufficient to explain to you that he and I had certain secret negotiations. He came here on many occasions, always in secret – at about this hour. He preferred to visit me in that manner, because of the spies who always haunted him and who reported all his doings to Belgrade.”

“I was not aware that you were on friendly terms,” Marion remarked. “Maud never told me that her father visited you.”

“Because she was in ignorance,” Statham replied. “The Doctor was a diplomatist, remember, and could keep a secret, even from his own daughter. From what I’ve told you, you can surely gather how extremely anxious I am to know the truth.”

Marion was silent. She realised to the full that financial interests of the millionaire were at stake – that her statement might save huge losses if she betrayed Maud, and told this man the truth. He was her friend and benefactor. To him both she and Charlie owed everything. Without him they would be compelled to face the world, she friendless and practically penniless. The penalty of her silence he had already indicated. By refraining from assisting her, he could to-morrow cast her out of her employment, discredited and disgraced!

What would Max think? What would he believe?

If she remained silent she would preserve Maud’s honour and Charlie’s peace of mind. He was devoted to the sweet-faced, half-foreign girl with the stray little wisp of hair across her brow. Yet if he knew what she had told him he would hate her – he must hate her. Ah! the mere thought of it drove her to a frenzy of despair.

She set her teeth, and, with her face pale as death, she rose slowly to go. Her brows were knit, her countenance determined.

Come what might, she would be loyal to her friend. Charlie should never know the truth. Rather than that she would sacrifice herself – sacrifice her love for Max Barclay, which was to her the sweetest and most treasured sentiment in all the world.