The Pauper of Park Lane

They passed to the third apartment, likewise a front room, and Max slowly turned the door-handle. In the darkness they stepped within, and again finding it uncarpeted, he shone his light across the place.

Next instant the pair drew back, for sitting up upon a low, iron camp bedstead, glaring at them with eyes haggard and terrified, was old Sam Statham himself.

The room was bare save an old painted washstand and chest of drawers, dirty, uncarpeted, and neglected. The low, narrow bed was covered by an old blue and white counterpane, but its occupant sat glaring at the intruders, too terrified to speak.

In the darkness he probably could not recognise who it was. The electric light blinded him. Next second, however, he touched the switch near his hand, and the wretched room became illuminated, revealing the two intruders.

He tried to speak, but his lips refused to articulate. The old man’s tongue clave to the roof of his mouth.

He knew that his carefully-guarded secret was out!

Chapter Fifty One.

Describes Another Surprise

“To what, pray, do I owe this intrusion?” demanded the old man fiercely, rising from his bed, and standing erect and defiant before them.

“To your own guilt, Mr Statham,” was Max Barclay’s quiet but distinct response.

“My guilt?” gasped the old man. “Of what crime am I guilty?”

“That’s best known to yourself,” answered the younger man. “But I think, now that we’ve investigated your house and discovered your death-trap, we will bid you good-night.”

“You’ve – you’ve found it – eh?” gasped the old fellow, pale as death.

“Yes; and, furthermore, we know how Maud Petrovitch had cast your money at your feet, and defied you.”

“I – I must explain,” he cried, as in frantic eagerness he put on his clothes. “Don’t leave me. Come below, and – and’ll tell you.”

The pair remained in the wretchedly uncomfortable room, while the old man finished dressing. Then all three descended, the millionaire walking first. They passed the door of the room where stood the coffin, and by touching a spring the iron door opened, and they descended to the library.

The noise wakened old Levi, who appeared at the head of the back stairs, full of surprise.

A reassuring word from his master, however, caused him to at once retire again.

Within the library old Sam switched on the light, and invited both his unwelcome visitors to be seated. Then, standing before them, he said:

“I presume, gentlemen, that your curiosity led you to break into my house?”

Max Barclay nodded.

“I can understand you acting thus, sir; but I cannot understand Rolfe, who knows me so well and who has served me so faithfully.”

“And, in return, how have I been served?” asked Charlie, bitterly. “My poor sister has been turned adrift, and you have refused to lift a finger to reinstate her.”

“I admit that on the face of it, Rolfe, I have been hard and cruel,” declared the old man. “But when you know the truth you will not, perhaps, think so unkindly of me as at this moment.”

The old fellow was perfectly calm. All his fear had vanished, and he now stood his old and usual self, full of quiet assurance.

“Well,” Rolfe said, “perhaps you will tell us the truth. Why, for instance, did Maud Petrovitch visit you to-night?”

“She came upon her own initiative. She wished to ask me a question.”

“Which you refused to answer.”

“It was not judicious for me to tell her what she desized to know – not at present, at least.”

“But now that we are here together, in confidence you will, no doubt, allow us to know where she and her father are in hiding,” Charlie asked, breathlessly.

“Certainly, if you will promise not to communicate with them or call upon them without my consent.”

“We promise,” declared Max.

“Then they are living in strictest seclusion at Fordham Cottage, Arundel, in Sussex.”

“But you have quarrelled with Maud?” Charlie remarked, at the same time remembering that closed coffin in the room above.

“Upon one point only – a very small and unimportant one,” responded the old man.

“Where is my sister?”

“Unfortunately, I have no knowledge of where she is at present.”

“But you have just assured me that when I know the truth I shall not regard you so harshly,” Rolfe exclaimed.

“And I repeat it,” Statham said.

The old man’s attitude amazed them both. He was perfectly calm and quite unperturbed by the grim discoveries they had made.

“You mean that you refuse to tell me anything concerning my sister?” Charlie asked, seriously.

“For the present – yes.”

“Why not now? Why forbid us also from seeking the Doctor and his daughter?”

“For reasons of my own. I am expecting a visitor.”

Max laughed sarcastically. The reason put forward seemed too absurd.

“Ah! you don’t believe it!” cried the old fellow. “But you will see. Your curiosity has, no doubt, led you to misjudge me. It was only to have been expected. I ought to have guarded my secret better.”

Neither man spoke. Both had their eyes fixed upon the grey face of the old millionaire before them. They recollected his despair before he had retired to rest, and remembered, too, the tender care of his faithful Levi.

The clock chimed the half-hour – half-past three in the morning.

The night had been fraught by so many surprises that neither Charlie nor his friend could believe in the grim reality of it all. They never suspected that that fine mansion was practically unfurnished, or that its millionaire owner practically lived the life of a pauper. Had not Charlie been well aware of his master’s shrewdness in his business and clearness in his financial operations, he would have believed it all due to an unbalanced brain. But there was no madness in Samuel Statham. He was as sane as they were. All his eccentricity was evidently directed towards one purpose.

As he stood there he practically told them so.

“You misjudge me!” said he, his grey face relaxing in a smile. “You think me mad – eh? Well, you are not alone in that. A good many people believe the same of me. I am gratified to think they believe it. It is my intention that they should.”

“But, Mr Statham, we have asked you a question to which you have refused to answer. We wish to know what has become of Marion Rolfe.”

“You were engaged to her – eh? Yes, I know,” responded the old man. “For that very reason I refuse to tell you. I can only reassure you, however, that you need experience no anxiety.”

“But I do. I love her!”

“Then I am very sorry, your mind must still continue to be exercised. At present I cannot tell you anything.”

“Why?”

“Have I not already told you? I am expecting a visitor.”

It was all the satisfaction they could obtain.

Charlie longed for an opportunity to refer to the gruesome object in that locked room upstairs. The man who had so suddenly reappeared and sworn vengeance upon the great financier was dead – fallen a victim, no doubt, to the old man’s clever cunning. He had, without doubt, been enticed there to his death. The secret reason of the white-enamelled door at the top of the stairs was now quite plain. In that house was a terrible death-trap, as deadly as it was unexpected.

They held knowledge of the truth. How would the old man act?

Contrary to their expectations, he remained quite indifferent. He even offered them a drink, which they refused.

His refusal to tell them anything regarding Marion and his treatment of Maud had incensed them, and they both were bitterly antagonistic towards him. He was, no doubt, playing a huge game of bluff. His disregard of their discoveries was in order to lessen their importance, and his story of a visitor told to gain time.

Probably he intended to make good his escape.

Both were expecting every moment that his coolness would break down, and that he would suggest that they kept silence as to what lay concealed on the floor above.

Indeed, they were not mistaken, for of a sudden he turned to them, and in rather strained voice said:

“Now, gentlemen, I admit that you have discovered my secret; that my position is – well – a disagreeable one, to say the least. Is there any real reason why you should divulge it – at least for the present?”

Charlie shrugged his shoulders, and Max at the same time realised that a deadly fear was creeping back upon the old man, whose enormous wealth had stifled all human feeling from his soul.

“I merely ask your indulgence,” said the old man, in a low, eager tone.

“For how long?”

“For a day – maybe for a week – or perhaps a month. I cannot tell.”

“That means that we preserve the secret indefinitely?”

“Until the arrival of my visitor.”

“Ah! the visitor!” repeated Max, with a grin of disbelief. “When do you expect the visit?”

“I have expected it during many months,” was the millionaire’s brief reply.

“And you can tell us nothing more? Is not your story a somewhat lame one?”

“Very – I quite admit it. But I can only assure you of its truth.”

“It is not often you speak the truth, Mr Statham, is it?” asked Max, pointedly.

“I suppose I am like many another man,” was his reply. “I only speak it when obliged!”

As he uttered those words there sounded in the hall the loud electric bell of the front door. It was rung twice, whereupon old Sam drew himself up in an instant in an attitude of alertness.

“The visitor!” he gasped, raising his bony finger. “The long-expected caller!”

The two rings were evidently a pre-arranged signal.

They heard old Levi shuffling outside. The door opened, and he stood expectant, looking at his master, but uttering no word.

“Gentlemen,” exclaimed old Sam. “If you will permit me, I will go and receive my visitor. May I ask you to remain here until I return to you – return to answer any inquiries you may be pleased to put to me?”

The old fellow was quite calm again. He seemed to have braced himself up to meet his visitor, whoever he or she might be. It was one of his secret agents, Charlie thought, without a doubt.

Both men consented, and old Sam withdrew with Levi.

“Please remain here. I ask you both to respect my wishes,” he said, and going out, closed the door behind him.

The two men listened with strained ears.

They heard the sound of footsteps outside, but as far as they could distinguish, no word was spoken. Whether the mysterious visitor was male or female they could not ascertain.

For several moments they stood at the door, listening.

Then Max, unable to resist his own curiosity, opened the door slightly, and peered into the hall.

But only Levi was there, his back turned towards the door. His master and his visitor had ascended the stairs together, passing the iron door which now stood open for the first time.

Max beckoned Charlie, who, looking outside into the hall, saw Levi standing with both hands pressed to his brow in an attitude of wildest despair.

His agitation was evidently for his master’s safety.

A visitor at a quarter to four in the morning was unusual, to say the least. Who could it be?

Levi turned, and as he did so Max closed the door noiselessly, for he did not wish the faithful old servant to discover him as an eavesdropper.

Fully ten minutes elapsed, when of a sudden the sharp crack of a pistol-shot echoed through the empty upstairs rooms.

It caused both men to start, so unexpected was it.

For a second they hesitated; then opening the door, they both dashed up the forbidden stain.

Chapter Fifty Two.

Contains a Complete Revelation

A complete surprise awaited them.

The door of the small room on the first floor stood open, and within the light was switched on.

Upon the threshold they both paused, dumbfounded by the scene before them.

Just as they had left it, the coffin stood upon its trestles, but lying on the floor beside was the body of the man whose name it bore upon its plate – the man Jean Adam!

In his nerveless grasp was a big service revolver, while the small round hole in his white temple told its own tale – a tale of sudden denunciation and of suicide.

The dead man wore evening-dress. On his white shirt-front was an ugly crimson splash, while his fast-glazing eyes, still open, stared blankly into space. At the opposite wall, leaning against it for support, was old Sam Statham, his countenance blanched, his jaw set, unable to utter a word.

The sudden unexpectedness of the tragedy had appalled him. He stood speechless. He could only point to the inanimate form upon the floor.

Max lifted the body and sought eagerly for signs of life. There were, however, none. The bullet had penetrated his brain, causing instant death.

Sam Statham’s enemy – the man whom they had presumed was already in his coffin was dead! Yet what was the meaning of it all? The whole affair was a complete enigma. Why had Jean Adam, the adventurer who had lived by his wits for years and the hero of a thousand thrilling adventures, taken his own life beside his own coffin?

Rolfe and Barclay turned away from the gruesome scene, and in silence descended the stairs, where, standing back in the shadow, trembling like an aspen, stood old Levi.

As they passed down, the servant entered the room to join his master, with whispered words of awe.

Then, at the millionaire’s suggestion, when he descended to them five minutes later, Charlie went forth into Park Lane, and, walking hastily towards the fountain, found a constable, whom he informed of the tragedy.

As he went back to the house with the policeman at his side, he wondered whether, after all, he had not misjudged old Sam. In any case, there was a great and complete mystery which must now be elucidated.

Just outside the little old town of Arundel in rural Sussex at the top of the steep hill which leads on to the high road to Chichester, a road rendered dusty in summer and muddy in winter by the constant succession of motor cars which tear along it, stands Fordham Cottage, a small unpretentious redbrick house, surrounded by a pretty garden, and divided from the road by a high old wall clothed completely by ivy.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon.

Within the neat old-fashioned front parlour – for the owners of the house were two prim maiden ladies – stood Rolfe and Barclay, together with the grey-haired, grey-bearded man who, having rented the place furnished, was living there in complete seclusion – Doctor Michael Petrovitch.

They were in earnest conversation, but Charlie kept his eyes upon the window, as though in expectation of the arrival of someone. The autumn day was fine and dry, and Maud, returning from London by the first train, which had arrived at half-past six that morning, had, after luncheon, gone out upon her cycle as was her daily habit.

Her lover, anxious and impatient, scarcely heeded what the Doctor was explaining to Max.

For the past hour both men had been describing in brief what had occurred since the ex-Minister’s disappearance from Cromwell Road, relating practically what has already been chronicled in the preceding chapters. They had told him of Adam’s threats, of the warning given to Charlie by Lorena Lyle, of Adam’s endeavour to entice Max to Constantinople and of Statham’s evident terror of Adam’s vengeance. To it all the grave grey-bearded statesman had listened attentively.

Only when they described their secret visit to the house in Park Lane, and the extraordinary discoveries they had made there, did their hearer evince surprise. Then, knitting his brows, he nodded as though he understood. And when they told him of Adam’s suicide, he drew a deep breath of apparent relief.

“That man,” he said, in a low, distinct voice, with scarce a trace of accent – “that man was my enemy, as well as Statham’s. It was he who, in order to further his speculative financial schemes, paid an assassin to throw a bomb at my carriage – the bomb that killed the poor little child! He was an adventurer who had filched money from widows and orphans – a scoundrel, and an assassin. The assassin, when in the fortress at Belgrade, confessed to the identity of his employer. But in the meantime he disappeared – to South America, it is believed. Prior to the attempt upon me, Lyle, the mining engineer, was his cat’s-paw, as he has ever since been – a good fellow at heart, but weak and at the same time adventurous. Once or twice they made big profits out of concessions for copper mining obtained from my predecessor in office. When Adam found that I refused to participate in business that was a fraud upon the public in Paris and London, he plotted to get rid of me. Fortunately he did not succeed; but when the truth was exposed to the Servian Government that he was the real assassin, certain valuable concessions were at once withdrawn from him, and he was thereby ruined. He vowed vengeance upon me, and also upon Statham – to whom the concessions had been transferred – a terrible vengeance. But soon afterwards he disappeared, and we heard, upon what seemed to be good authority, that he was dead. He had been shot in a drunken brawl in Caracas.”

“And then he suddenly turned up again – eh?” Max remarked.

“Yes; and for that reason Mr Statham suggested that I and my daughter Maud should disappear to some place to which he could not trace us. Statham defied his threats, but at the same time thought that if we disappeared in such a manner that the police would not seek us, it would be a wise step. For that reason I arranged that the furniture, as well as ourselves, should disappear, in order to make it appear that we had suddenly removed, and also to prevent the police searching too inquisitively for ‘missing persons.’ Had they done this, our hiding-place would soon have been discovered. I disappeared more for Maud’s sake, than for my own. I knew the desperate character of the man, and the mad vengeance within his villainous heart.”

“But Statham also feared him,” remarked Charlie, recollecting the occasion when his employer had betrayed such terror.

“Yes. The exact facts I do not know. He will tell you himself,” answered the ex-Minister.

“Maud was in London last night, and called upon Statham,” Max remarked.

“She called in secret lest she might be seen and followed by Adam,” her father replied. “She went there to return to Statham a sum of money he had sent her.”

“For what?”

“He wished to know the whereabouts of Lorena Lyle, who had been her schoolfellow in Belgrade. Statham, I fear, intended, in some way, to avenge himself upon Lyle – and on his daughter more especially – on account of his association with his enemy. The girl is in London, and he wished to know where she was living.”

“And the money which she returned was given her in order, to induce her to divulge?”

The Doctor nodded in the affirmative, adding:

“You see that Statham, surrounded by unscrupulous enemies as he has been, was bound to act always for his own protection. He has been misjudged – by you – by everybody. I, who know him more intimately, perhaps, than anyone save his own brother Levi, assure you that it is so.”

“His brother Levi!” cried Charlie.

“Of course, Levi, who poses as his servant, is his brother. They have been inseparable always, from the early days when Sam Statham was a mining prospector and concession-hunter – the days before fortune smiled upon the three Statham brothers, and they were able to open the doors of the offices in Old Broad Street. The romance of old Sam’s life is the romance of the great firm.”

“He treated my sister badly,” declared Charlie. “For that I can never forgive him.”

“No; there you are wrong. It is true that he would not allow her to be reinstated at Cunnington’s, and, on the face of it, treated her unjustly. But he had a motive. True, she refused to betray to him something which my daughter had told her in confidence. For that refusal he allowed her to be dismissed from her situation; but on the following day he sent her down to me here to remain in concealment.”

“Why?”

“Because of that man Adam. He had been attracted by her good looks, and had begun to pester her with his attentions. Statham knew this from the report of one who had watched her in secret. Therefore, by sending her here into hiding, he was acting in her best interests.”

“Then she is here?” cried Max, anxiously, his face suddenly brightening.

“Yes. See! here she comes – with Maud!” and as both men turned quickly to the window they saw the two laughing girls, flushed by their ride, wheeling their cycles up the path from the road.

Next moment both men dashed outside, and both girls, utterly amazed and breathless, found themselves suddenly in the arms of their lovers.

The Doctor looked on, smiling, and in silence. He saw the lips of both girls covered with the hot fervent kisses of good and honest men. He heard their whispered words, and then he turned away.

Those long black days of suspicion and despair were at an end. The mystery of it all was now being rapidly solved, and both girls within that little parlour wept tears of joy upon the shoulders of the men whom they had chosen as their husbands.

The happiness of four young hearts was complete. The grim shadow had lifted, and upon them now fell at last the bright sunshine of life and of love.

The self-effacement of that little household was at an end. Freed from the bondage of silence, the truth was at last told. Maud, with her own lips, explained to Charlie the confession she had made to Marion on the night of their disappearance. She had told her how the man Adam, whom she had known in Belgrade, had followed her several times in the neighbourhood of Earl’s Court, had spoken to her, and had declared his love for her. She never suspected that he had been her father’s enemy – the man who had been the instigator of the dastardly outrage – until on the previous evening, her father had, in confidence, told her the truth, and added that, because of his re-appearance, they had to fly. She dared not tell him they had met, but she had made Marion her confidante. It was the story of the bomb outrage that had held Marion horrified.

Charlie, when he had listened open-mouthed to the explanation of his well-beloved, cried:

“The assassin! And he dared to speak to you of love!”

“He is dead, dearest,” answered the girl, quietly stroking his hair from his brow. “Let us forgive him – and forget.” For answer he took her again in his arms, and kissed her tenderly upon the lips.

Three days later.

The coroner’s jury had returned a verdict of “suicide while of unsound mind,” and the body of Jean Adam had, with the undertaker’s assistance, been buried in Highgate Cemetery in the actual coffin which had been so long prepared for him. It was surely a weird revenge of old Sam’s.

But the whole occurrence was a grim and terrible repayment of an old debt.

In the fading twilight of the wet and gloomy day on which the dead man’s body was, without a single follower, committed to the grave, Rolfe and Barclay were seated with the millionaire in the familiar library in Park Lane.

Old Sam had been making explanations similar to those made by the Doctor down at Arundel. Suddenly he said, looking from one to the other:

“And now I have to apologise to you both. In arranging the disappearance of my dear friend the Doctor, I contrived to mislead you, in order to add mystery to the occurrence. I knew, Rolfe, you lost your train at Charing Cross that night; that you did not wish to be seen off by your sister Marion because you had – in my interests – quarrelled with Adam and had made murderous threats against him – perhaps unwisely. These threats, however, you believed Adam had told to Barclay, hence your fear of the last-named later on. I arranged that a man should be present at Cromwell Road in clothes resembling your own, that a garment should be placed in the house with a bloodstain upon it, and that the doctor’s safe should be blown open as though thieves had visited the place after the removal of the furniture. I knew from the Doctor that you, Barclay, would go there that evening, and my object was to puzzle and mislead you, at the same time believing that, having suspicions of your friend Rolfe, you would not go to the police. Again, in order to test Rolfe’s devotion to myself, I suggested that the honour of the woman he loved, if sacrificed, could save me. I made this suggestion in order to put Rolfe off the scent.”