What actually occurred was this. I had risen from the table when Annie
entered with a telegram which, on opening, I found to be an urgent
message from Langton, at Broadstairs, begging me to go there at once, as
he had some important information to communicate to me.
From the time-table I found that a fast train left Victoria in an hour,
and full of excitement I bade good-bye to Gwen, promising to wire her
the result of the interview.
Soon after noon I strode down the steep street of the quiet little
watering-place so beloved by Dickens. On that February day it was very
chilly, and very deserted, but gaining the parade I crossed the
footbridge, and, continuing past the Grand Hotel, went along the top of
the cliffs beyond the town, to where stood the late Professor's seaside
red-brick home.
In the small but pretty drawing-room I was greeted by Ethelwynn and her
lover, who were standing talking near the fire as I entered. The girl
looked delightfully sweet in a pale blue blouse and dark brown skirt,
her splendid hair dressed in a style that suited her admirably, while
he, on his part, presented the appearance of the typical clean-limbed,
well-bred Englishman. They were, indeed, a handsome pair.
"It's very good of you, Mr. Holford, to come down so quickly!" the girl
exclaimed, as she took my hand. "Leonard wants to have a serious chat
with you."
And yet this was the girl who was privy to her father's tragic end. Was
it possible that her lover also knew the truth?
Langton invited me to a chair, and commenced by haltingly apologising
for bringing me down from London.
"We, however, considered it necessary," he went on; "necessary in the
interests of us all that there should exist a clear and perfect
understanding between us."
"In what manner?" I asked Langton.
"Well," he said, "it has come to our knowledge that you have been
relating a most extraordinary story regarding Ethelwynn's father. You
declare that he died under suspicious circumstances."
"Whatever I've said is the truth--the plain and absolute truth," I
declared openly. "Mr. Kirk introduced me into the house in Sussex
Place, where I saw the poor Professor lying dead in his laboratory."
"Ah!" cried the girl quickly, her manner suddenly changing. "Then you
are a friend of Kirk's--not of my father?"
"That is so," I admitted. "And in Kirk's company I saw your father
lying dead through violence."
"And you've dared to put forward this story as an absolute fact!"
Langton cried. "Do you happen to know who Kershaw Kirk really is?"
"No; I'd very much like to know," I said, full of anxiety. "Who is he?"
"If you knew, you would, I think, have hesitated before you went to the
police with such a fairy tale as yours."
"It is no fairy tale, Mr. Langton!" I declared very earnestly. "I have
with my own eyes seen the Professor lying dead."
"But you forget that my father went to Edinburgh on that night, and
wired me from there next day," the girl pointed out, fixing her splendid
eyes on mine with unwavering gaze.
"I forget no point of the remarkable affair, Miss Greer," I said
quietly. "As a matter of fact, I followed the man believed to be your
father to Scotland."
"You--you followed him?" gasped Langton, while the girl's cheeks grew
paler. "Did you see him? Did you speak with him?"
"No; but I discovered some rather interesting facts which, when the time
arrives, I intend to put forward as proof of a very remarkable
subterfuge."
The pair exchanged meaning glances in silence. The girl was seated in
an arm-chair opposite to me, near the fire, while Langton stood upon the
hearthrug, with his hands thrust with feigned carelessness into his
pockets.
"The whole affair was no doubt most cleverly planned, thanks to the
ingenuity of Kirk. The servants were all in ignorance of anything
unusual--all save Antonio, who, as you know, has escaped to the
Continent."
"Escaped!" The pretty girl laughed uneasily. "The last I heard of him
was that he was with my father, travelling in Hungary."
"When?"
"Four days ago."
"How can I find them? What is the Professor's address?" I asked.
"He has no fixed abode. My last letter I sent to the Poste Restante in
Buda-Pesth."
In this I saw an intention still to preserve the secret of the
impostor's whereabouts.
"But it was not my intention in asking you down, Mr. Holford, to go into
details of what may, or may not, have happened. We--that is, Ethelwynn
and myself--know the truth."
"Then tell it to me--relieve this burden of a crime which is oppressing
me?" I begged. "Let me know the truth, and let me at least regain my
lost wife."
"Well? And if we did?" asked Ethelwynn, after a pause. "We should only
lay ourselves open to an unjust retaliation."
Were not those the words of a woman who possessed some guilty knowledge,
if not herself guilty of parricide? I saw their frantic desire to close
my mouth, so I let them proceed, smiling within myself at their too
apparent efforts to avoid the revelations which must inevitably result.
"I do not follow your meaning," I said. "Why should I retaliate, if you
are not responsible for my wife's absence?"
She glanced uneasily across to her lover, who exclaimed:
"As far as I see, the whole thing lies in a nutshell, Mr. Holford. You
have been misinformed, and have made a ridiculous and quite unfounded
statement concerning Professor Greer--one which seriously reflects upon
his daughter, his household, and his friends. Therefore--"
"Then does his daughter actually deny having seen him, as I saw him,
lying dead in the laboratory?" I interrupted.
"I have never seen my father lying dead!" declared the girl in a low,
faltering tone which in itself showed her to be uttering an untruth.
"Your story is entirely unfounded."
"Then let me tell you one thing more, Miss Greer," I said plainly. "I
myself knelt at your side with Kirk when we found you in the diningroom
lying, as we thought, lifeless. There was a white mark upon your face.
See! It has hardly disappeared yet; there are still traces--a slight
red discoloration!"
The girl held her breath at this allegation. That mark upon her cheek
condemned her. Even her lover, for a moment, could not reply.
"Ah," he said at last, "the loss of Mrs. Holford has upset you, and
causes you to make all sorts of wild and ridiculous statements, it
seems. Kirk says they would not listen to you at Scotland Yard--and no
wonder!"
"Then you know Kirk, eh--you who denied all knowledge of him when we
first met!" I cried. "It was he who placed the poor Professor's
remains in the furnace in the laboratory, for from the ashes I recovered
various scraps of his clothing which are now in my possession."
"Rubbish, my dear sir!" laughed the young man. "You don't know Kirk--or
who he is!"
"I know him to be an adventurer who has two places of residence," I
said.
"But an adventurer is not necessarily a scoundrel," Langton replied.
"Many a good-hearted wanderer becomes a cosmopolitan and an adventurer,
but he still retains all the traits and all the honour of a gentleman."
"Not in Kirk's case!" I cried.
"You've evidently quarrelled with him," remarked Langton.
"I've quarrelled with him in so far as I mean to expose the secret
assassination of Professor Greer and those who, for their own purposes,
are making pretence that the dead man is still alive," I answered
boldly.
"By the latter, I take it, you mean ourselves?" observed the dead man's
daughter.
"I include all who lie, well knowing that the Professor is dead and all
traces of his body have been destroyed," was my meaning response.
"What's this story of yours about Miss Greer presenting an appearance of
death?" asked Langton. "Tell me--it is the first time I've heard this."
In a few brief sentences I told them of our discovery in the
dining-room, and of the removal of the girl in a cab on that foggy
night.
At my words both looked genuinely puzzled.
"What do you say to that?" asked her lover.
"I know nothing--nothing whatever of it!" she declared. "I can only
think that Mr. Holford must be dreaming."
"Surely not when, with my own hands, I held a mirror to your lips to
obtain traces of your breath!" I exclaimed. "Ask Antonio. He will
tell you how he and his brother Pietro placed you in a cab at Kirk's
orders."
"At Kirk's orders?" echoed the young man. "Ask him for yourself," I
said.
They were both full of surprise and anxiety at what I had alleged.
Was it possible that I had been mistaken in Ethelwynn's attitude, and
that she genuinely believed that her father still lived? But that could
not be, for had she not seen him dead with her own eyes? No. The girl,
aided by her lover, was carrying out a cunningly-devised scheme
effectively to seal my lips.
My wife Mabel had, before her disappearance, been in communication with
the impostor whom Ethelwynn had apparently taken under her protection.
This was a point that was most puzzling. Could this girl and my wife
have been secretly acquainted? If so, then it was more than probable
that she might have knowledge of Mabel's whereabouts.
Again I referred to the loss of my wife, declaring that if I found her I
would willingly forgo all further investigation into the Professor's
death.
The handsome girl exchanged glances with her lover, glances which showed
me plainly that they were acting in accordance with some premeditated
plan. Leonard Langton was a sharp, shrewd, far-seeing man, or he would
never have held the appointment of private secretary to Sir Albert
Oppenheim.
"Well, Mr. Holford," he said, "why don't you speak candidly and openly?
You are, I take it, eager to make terms with your enemies, eh?"
"But who are my enemies?" I cried blankly. "As far as I'm aware, I've
made none!"
"A man arouses enmity often without intention," was his reply. "I
cannot, of course, tell who are these enemies of yours, but it is
evident from your statement the other day at Wimpole Street that they
are responsible for your wife's disappearance."
"Well," I said, "you are right. I am open to make terms if Mabel is
given back at once to me."
"And what are they?" asked Ethelwynn, whose very eagerness condemned
her.
"Pardon me, Miss Greer," I said rather hastily, "but I cannot discern in
what manner my matrimonial affairs can interest you."
"Oh--er--well," she laughed nervously, "of course they don't really--
only your wife's disappearance has struck me as very remarkable."
"No, Miss Greer,"! Said, "not really so remarkable as it at first
appears. My own inquisitiveness was the cause of her being enticed
away, so that I might be drawn off the investigation I had undertaken--
the inquiry into who killed Professor Greer."
Her cheeks went paler, and she bit her lip. Her whole attitude was that
of a woman aware of a bitter and tragic truth, yet, for her own honour,
she dared not divulge it. She undoubtedly held the secret--the secret
of her father's death. Yet, for some purpose that was yet a complete
enigma, she was protecting the impostor who had stepped into the dead
man's shoes.
The pair had brought me down there in order to entrap me--most probably
a plot of Kirk's. Their intention was to mislead and deceive me, and at
the same time to secure my silence. But in my frantic anxiety and
constant dread I was not easily entrapped. I had seen through the
transparency of Kirk's attitude, and I had likewise proved to my own
satisfaction that, however much of the truth Leonard Langton knew, the
girl of the innocent eyes was feigning an ignorance that was culpable,
for within her heart she knew the truth of her father's tragic end, even
though she calmly asserted that he still lived and was in the best of
health.
I had believed on entering that room, the windows of which looked out
upon that grey-green wintry sea, that I should learn something
concerning my dear wife, that I should perhaps obtain a clue to her
whereabouts.
But as I fixed my eyes upon those of Ethelwynn Greer, I saw in them a
guilty knowledge, and by it knew that in that direction hope was futile.
True, she had sounded me as to what undertaking I was ready to give, but
the whole situation was so horrible and so bewildering that I could not
bring myself to make any compact that would prevent Greer's assassin
being exposed.
So, instead, I sat full of chagrin, telling the pair much which held
them in fear and apprehension.
It was evident that I knew more than they had believed I did, and that
Langton was filled with regret that he had invited me there.
What, I wondered, could possibly be Ethelwynn's motive in concealing her
father's death? I recollected how the assassin must have brushed past
her in the Red Room to enter the laboratory on that fatal night, and
that he must have again passed her on leaving.
Did she awake and recognise him, or had she herself been an accomplice
in securing her father's sudden and tragic end? Who could tell? In
that startling suggestion I found much food for deep reflection.