Having invented a story of a secret business friendship with the
Professor, I remained with his pretty daughter for perhaps a quarter of
an hour longer.
From her I further learned that Leonard Langton was now back in London,
and that Kirk had written her implicit instructions to remain at
Broadstairs for the present.
Then I bade her farewell, and walked back along the cliffs, past the
Grand Hotel, to the quaint parade of the old-fashioned little
watering-place, turning up to the chemist's shop, which is, at the same
time, the post-office.
Thence I dispatched a telegram addressed to Professor Greer at the
address in Strassburg which his daughter had given me, appending Kirk's
name, and asking for a reply to be sent to the Albion Hotel at
Broadstairs, where I intended staying.
Afterwards I strolled to the hotel, ate my luncheon, and idled along the
deserted jetty and promenade throughout the bleak, bright afternoon in
eager expectation of a response from the impostor. My thought was ever
on my dear lost Mabel. Fettered by ignorance and mystery, I knew not in
which direction to search, nor could I discern any motive by which we
should be thus parted.
My tea I took in the hotel, and afterwards smoked a cigar, until just
before six the waiter handed me a message, a brief reply to mine, which
read:
"Why are you running risks in Broadstairs, when you should be elsewhere?
Be judicious and leave.--Greer."
I read the message over a dozen times. What risks could Kirk be running
by coming to Broadstairs? Was not that telegram essentially a word of
warning given by one accomplice to another?
And yet Ethelwynn trusted Kirk just as blindly and foolishly as her
father had done.
But was not the truth a strange one? She had concealed from me, as she
was concealing from the world, that the Professor had died at the hand
of an unknown assassin.
Or was it that she herself was an accomplice?
No, I could never believe that. I refused to give credence to any such
suggestion.
I ascended the long hill to Broadstairs Station, and half an hour later
left for Victoria. My intention was to go direct to Strassburg and
there to discover and unmask the impostor. But ere I reached London the
night mail for the Continent had already left Charing Cross, so I took a
taxicab to my lonely home, where Gwen was awaiting me, still anxious and
expectant.
I told her of the fruitlessness of my errand, whereupon she sank back
into her chair, staring straight into the fire.
In brief I explained that I had discovered the existence of a person in
Strassburg who could probably give me a clue to the whereabouts of Kirk
and Mabel. Hence my intention of departing by the first service next
morning.
"Cannot you telegraph and ask?" suggested the girl. "We seem, Harry, to
be losing so much time," she added frantically. "You haven't been to
the police."
"I know, Gwen," I said in sorrow, "but I can't do more. To telegraph
further might close the channel of our inquiry. No, we must still
remain patient."
Then, after snatching some food which had been left in the dining-room
for me, I swallowed a glass of burgundy and entered the small room which
I used as my particular den.
From there I rang up Pelham on the telephone, and heard the latest
details concerning the business which I was now sadly neglecting.
Afterwards I sat down and wrote an advertisement for the _Times_, an
appeal addressed to "Silence" for news of my lost wife, an appeal which
at the same time contained a veiled threat of exposure of the affair in
Sussex Place.
This I concluded, and, ringing up an express messenger, dispatched it to
the advertisement offices of the paper.
Then, with sudden resolve, I went forth to Wimpole Street to call upon
Leonard Langton.
I found him in his cosy, well-furnished chambers, busy writing letters,
while the round-faced man seated in a big arm-chair by the fire smoking
a pipe he introduced as his chum with whom he shared chambers, Doctor
Hamilton Flynn.
"Flynn's a specialist on the nose and throat," he laughed. "He has his
consulting rooms along in Harley Street, and we pig it here together."
"Jolly comfortable quarters," I remarked, glancing round. "I called
here before, but you were out."
"Yes, so sorry!" he exclaimed. "Sit down and have a cigar," and he
handed me a box of most excellent weeds.
"Well," exclaimed the smart young fellow who was the confidential
secretary of Sir Albert Oppenheim, "I'm really glad to see you again,
Mr. Holford. That was a most mysterious incident at Sussex Place the
other evening," he added. "I'm still convinced that somebody was in the
house. The Professor's furnace was alight, you recollect, and the
laboratory door stood open."
"Langton has told me all about it," remarked the doctor in a deep voice;
"very curious, it seems."
"Most extraordinary," I declared, "and the more so that Merli, the
butler, should have suddenly disappeared. The other day I met him in
Rome."
"Met Antonio!" gasped Ethelwynn's lover, staring at me in amazement.
"Have you been to Italy?"
"Yes. I told him of our search, but he declared himself ignorant of
everything, though he admitted having seen you passing through the
buffet at Calais-Maritime."
"What is he doing in Rome?"
"I have no idea; I was there in a vain endeavour to recover my lost
wife. She has been misled by a forged telegram purporting to come from
myself, and is somewhere on the Continent. Where, however, I cannot
tell."
"You've lost your wife, eh?" asked the doctor, glancing strangely across
at his companion, I thought. His face was dark and aquiline, his
shoulders sloped. He was not a man to be trusted. "You think she's
been tricked?" he added. "Why?"
"Ah, at present I can form no theory as to the motive. If I could I
might perchance discover the person responsible for her disappearance,"
and I briefly told him of my frantic journey to the Italian capital.
"And now I am going to Strassburg tomorrow," I added.
"Why to Strassburg?" inquired Doctor Flynn, regarding me fixedly with
those keen eyes of his.
"Because Professor Greer is there, and I have an idea that he can tell
me something."
"The Professor is no longer there," was Langton's quick interruption.
"Half an hour ago I spoke to Ethelwynn on the telephone, and she told me
that she had just heard by telegraph from her father that he had left
for Linz on his way to Hungary."
My heart fell within me. Evidently my telegram signed Kirk had scared
the man passing himself off as the Professor.
"But I might go on to Linz, or catch him up somewhere in Hungary," I
suggested.
"It would be futile, my dear fellow," said Langton.
"Why?"
"Well, just at present Professor Greer wishes to be left entirely alone
by his friends."
"But there must be some reason," I cried, for there seemed on every hand
to be a conspiracy of silence again me.
"There is a reason," replied the young man in a low, calm voice, "one
which, however, seems mysterious."
"Ah!" I cried. "Then even you are mystified by these strange
happenings?"
"Yes," he replied, knocking the ash from his cigar, "I have had certain
suspicions aroused, Holford--vague suspicions of something wrong in the
Professor's household. Antonio is absent, the servants have all been
paid and dispersed, the house in Sussex place is closed, and--"
"And the Professor is a fugitive, fleeing towards Hungary," I added.
"Has not Miss Ethelwynn told you anything?"
"What she has told me has been in complete confidence. It has caused me
a great deal of surprise and apprehension, Holford, and this surprise
has been increased by what you have told me this evening--that your wife
has been enticed away, and is missing."
"But what connection can my wife possibly have with any occurrence at
the house of Professor Greer?" I demanded. "She was in ignorance of
everything. She was not even acquainted with Greer. I might tell you
that to-day I have been down to Broadstairs and seen Miss Ethelwynn," I
added.
"Ethelwynn did not seem to remember ever having met you when I told her
of our encounter at the door, and the subsequent events."
"I am a friend of the Professor's, not of his daughter," I hastened to
explain. "But are you absolutely certain that a journey to Strassburg
to-morrow would be useless?"
"Absolutely. If Greer consented to see his friends I would be the first
to see him."
"And he has refused even you, eh?" I asked, smiling within myself at
the superior knowledge I possessed.
"He has. He refuses, too, to allow his daughter to go to him."
"But why?" I asked.
"For reasons known, I suppose, to himself."
"Does he give none?"
"He vaguely answers that certain matters concerning a great scientific
discovery he has made compel him at present to hold aloof from both
family and friends. He fears, I think, that someone who has discovered
his secret may betray it."
"But surely Ethelwynn would not?" I cried. "I desire to see the
Professor because I feel confident he can, if he will, explain the
motive of the trap into which my wife has fallen."
"If he refuses to see his own daughter he will hardly see you," remarked
the dark-faced doctor. "Under exactly what circumstances has Mrs.
Holford disappeared?"
I briefly explained, at the same time regarding the round-shouldered
specialist with some antagonism. To me, it appeared as though he were
erecting an invisible barrier between myself and the knowledge of the
truth. He seemed entirely Langton's friend, corroborating his every
word.
And the more curious became his attitude when at last I remarked with
firm and resolute air:
"Well, if Professor Greer refuses to see me, then I shall invoke the aid
of the police. They will probably very soon discover him, wherever he
may be."
"I hardly think that would be a wise policy," remarked Flynn, tossing
his cigar-end into the fire, and rising quickly from his chair, "unless,
of course, you could make some direct charge against him."