It struck me that this keen-eyed, crafty-faced, round-shouldered
specialist in diseases of the throat intended to profit by information
derived from me regarding the mysterious Kirk. Why, I did not know. We
all of us have at times a strange intuition of impending evil, one that
we cannot account for and cannot describe.
Recollect, I was only just an ordinary man, a hard-working industrious
dealer in motor-cars, a man who made a fair income, who was no romancer,
and was entirely devoted to his wife, who had, ever since his marriage,
been his best friend and adviser.
The Professor was a scientist, I remembered, and this man Hamilton Flynn
was apparently a doctor of some note. Could there be any connection
between the pair, I wondered. Flynn, Langton's most intimate friend,
was no doubt aware of much, if not all, that transpired in the
Professor's household. That he knew Kershaw Kirk was apparent by his
surprise when I mentioned his name.
"Kirk is a mere acquaintance of mine," I responded, after a brief pause;
"whether he is my friend, or my enemy, remains to be seen."
"He's your enemy, depend upon that, Mr. Holford," declared Flynn
emphatically. "He is a marvellously clever schemer, and the friend of
few."
I bit my lip. Well did I know, alas! that the fellow whose asides to
his pet "Joseph" were so entertaining was not my friend.
It was upon my tongue to explain how the description of that man who was
travelling with my wife in search of me tallied with that of my strange
neighbour who had, with such subtle cunning, drawn me into that
mysterious tragedy. But next second I hesitated. This man Flynn I
mistrusted. My impression was that he was not playing a straight game,
either with myself or with his friend Leonard Langton.
A thousand questions I had to ask those men--and Langton especially--but
I saw by their attitude that their intention was rather to mislead me
than to reveal anything. When I presently bade them farewell neither of
them offered to assist me in my search for Mabel.
Therefore I went forth into the darkness and silence of Wimpole Street--
for it was now near midnight--and walked down into Oxford Street ere I
could find a taxi-cab to convey me back to my now cheerless home.
Lying awake that night, I decided to postpone my journey to Germany. It
was evident that the impostor passing himself off as the Professor had
taken my telegram purporting to come from Kirk as a warning, and had
escaped. I had been a fool to telegraph. I should have gone there
instead. His reason for keeping up the fiction that the Professor was
alive was, of course, obvious, for while he did so there would be no
inquiry into the whereabouts of the missing man.
I had made a promise to Kershaw Kirk, yet now that he had so grossly
deceived me, why should I keep it? Why should I not tell the truth?
I reflected; there were, I saw, three reasons why I should still
preserve silence. The first was because, after that lapse of time, I
should be suspected, perhaps arrested, as an accomplice and dragged
through a criminal court. The second was that Ethelwynn herself was,
for some amazing reason, pretending that her father still lived; and the
third was by reason of the strange threat of Mabel's death uttered by
the evil-faced Italian, and repeated by that Harley Street specialist
who was Leonard Langton's closest friend.
The assassins were actually holding my dear wife as hostage against any
revelation I dared to make! That, in a word, was the true position.
I paced my room that night in the agony of despair. Of nothing did I
think but the dear, sweet-faced woman so suddenly enticed away from my
side by reason of her eagerness to meet me. She was a woman of high
ideals and of lofty sentiments; a womanly woman who, though fond of a
little gaiety and of the theatre, realised that her place was in her own
home, where she reigned supreme.
Before my marriage my father, as fathers will, had looked upon her with
considerable misgiving. She was a little too flighty, too fond of
dress, of dinners, and dances, he had said. But after our wedding and
our honeymoon spent in a car touring up in Scotland, she had settled
down, and never for a single instant had I regretted my choice. Few men
could say that.
Indeed, up to that day when Kershaw Kirk called to inspect the Eckhardt
tyre, I was one of the happiest men in all London; prosperous in my
business, and contented in my love.
Now, alas! all had changed. I was obsessed by the knowledge of a great
and startling secret, and at the same time I had lost all that to me was
most dear and cherished.
Next morning Gwen, fresh in her clean cotton blouse, and the big black
bow in her hair, sat in her accustomed place at the breakfast table, but
after greeting me lapsed into a thoughtful silence.