Dr. Spencer Whiles was sitting in a very comfortable easy chair, smoking
a particularly good cigar, with a pile of newspapers by his side. His
appearance certainly showed no signs of hardship. His linen, and the
details of his toilet generally, supplied from some mysterious source
into which he had not inquired, were much improved. Notwithstanding
his increased comfort, however, he was looking perplexed, even a
little worried, and the cause of it was there in front of him, in the
advertisement sheets of the various newspapers which had been duly laid
upon his table.
The Prince came in quietly and closed the door behind him.
“Good afternoon, my friend!” he said. “I understood that you wished to
see me.”
The doctor had made up his mind to adopt a firm attitude. Nevertheless
the genial courtesy of the Prince’s tone and manner had the same effect
upon him as it had upon most people. He half rose to his feet and became
at once apologetic.
“I hope that I have not disturbed you, Prince,” he said. “I thought that
I should like to have a word or two with you concerning something which
I have come across in these journals.”
He tapped them with his forefinger, and the Prince nodded thoughtfully.
“Your wonderful Press!” he exclaimed. “How much it is responsible for!
Well, Dr. Whiles, what have the newspapers to say to you?”
The doctor handed across a carefully folded journal and pointed to a
certain paragraph.
“Will you kindly read this?” he begged.
The Prince accepted the sheet and read the paragraph aloud:
“FIFTY POUNDS REWARD! Disappeared from his home in Long Whatton on
Wednesday morning last, Herbert Spencer Whiles, Surgeon. The above
reward will be paid to any one giving information which will lead to
the discovery of his present whereabouts. Was last seen in a motor
car, Limousine body, painted dark green, leaving Long Whatton in the
direction of London.”
The Prince laid down the paper, smiling.
“Well?” he asked. “That seems clear enough. Some one is willing to give
fifty pounds to know where you are.”
The doctor tapped the advertisement with his forefinger impressively.
“Fifty pounds!” he repeated. “There isn’t a person in the world to whom
the knowledge of my movements is worth fifty pounds--except--”
“Except?” the Prince murmured.
“Except Mr. Inspector Jacks,” Dr. Whiles said slowly.
The Prince seemed scarcely to grasp the situation.
“Well,” he said, “fifty pounds is not a great deal of money. Some
unknown person--possibly, as you suggest, Mr. Jacks--is willing to give
fifty pounds to discover your whereabouts. I, on the other hand, am
giving a thousand guineas to keep you here as my guest. The odds do not
seem even, do they?”
“Put in that way,” Dr. Whiles admitted, “they certainly do not. But
there is another thing which has come into my mind.”
The Prince smiled and helped himself to one of the very excellent
cigarettes which had been provided for the delectation of his visitor.
“Pray treat me with every confidence, Dr. Whiles,” he said. “Tell me
exactly what is in your thoughts.”
“Well, then, I will,” the doctor answered. “Sitting here with nothing
particular to do, one has plenty of leisure to think. For the first
time, I have seriously tried to puzzle out what Mr. Inspector Jacks
really wanted with me, why he came down to ask me about the person whom
I treated for injuries resulting from a bicycle accident one Wednesday
evening not long ago, why he took me up to London to see if I could
identify that person in a very different guise. I have tried to put the
pieces together and to ask myself what he meant by it all.”
“With so much time upon your hands, Dr. Whiles,” the Prince remarked,
“you can scarcely fail to have arrived at some reasonable explanation.”
“I don’t know whether it is reasonable or not,” the doctor answered,
“but the obvious explanation is getting on my nerves. There are two
things which I cannot get away from. One is that I cannot for the life
of me imagine your riding a bicycle twelve or fifteen miles north of
London between eleven o’clock and midnight; and the other--”
“Come, the other?” the Prince remarked encouragingly.
“The other,” the doctor continued, “is the fact that within half a mile
of my house runs the main London and North Western line.”
“The London and North Western Railway line,” the Prince repeated, “and
what has that to do with it?”
“This much,” the doctor answered, “that on that very night, about half
an hour before your--shall we call it bicycle accident?--the special
train from Liverpool to London passed along that line. You will remember
the tragic occurrence which took place before she reached London, the
murder of the man Hamilton Fynes. If you read the report of the evidence
at the inquest, you will notice the engine driver’s declaration that
the only time on the whole journey when he travelled at less than forty
miles an hour was when passing over the viaduct and before entering the
tunnel which is plainly visible from my house.”
“This is very interesting,” the Prince remarked, “but it is not new. We
have known all this before. Perhaps, though, some fresh thing has come
into your mind connected with these happenings. If so, please do not
hesitate. Let me hear it.”
“It is a fresh thing to me,” the doctor said,--“fresh, in a sense,
though all the time I have had an uneasy feeling at the back of my head.
I know now what it was which brought Inspector Jacks to see me. I know
now what it was he had at the back of his head concerning the man who
met with a bicycle accident at this psychological moment.”
“Inspector Jacks is a very shrewd fellow,” the Prince said. “I should
not be in the least surprised if you were entirely right.”
The doctor moved restlessly in his chair. His eyes remained on his
companion’s face, as though fascinated.
“Can’t you understand,” he said, “that Inspector Jacks is on your track?
Rightly or wrongly, he believes that you had something to do with the
murder on the train that night.”
The Prince nodded amiably. He seemed in no way discomposed.
“I feel convinced,” he said, “that you are right. I agree with you.
I believe that Inspector Jacks has had that idea for some little time
now.”
The doctor gripped the sides of his chair and stared at this man who
discussed a matter so terrible with calm and perfect ease.
“Yes, I have felt that more than once,” the Prince continued. “My
presence upon the spot at that precise moment with injuries which had to
be explained somehow or other, was, without doubt, unfortunate.”
The two men sat for several moments without further speech. The doctor’s
features seemed to reflect something of the horror which he undoubtedly
felt. The Prince appeared only a trifle bored.
“So that is why,” the former exclaimed hoarsely, “I have been appointed
your physician in chief!”
“I had given you the credit, my dear doctor,” the Prince said smoothly,
“of having arrived at that decision some time ago. To a man of your
perceptions there can scarcely have been any question about it at all.
Besides, even Princes, you know, do not give fees of a thousand guineas
for nothing.”
Dr. Whiles rose slowly to his feet.
“You know the secret of that murder!” he declared.
“Why ask me?” the Prince answered. “If I tell you that I do, you may
find conscientious scruples about remaining here. A man is not bound,
you know, to give himself away. Make the best of things, and do not try
to see too far.”
The doctor was looking a little shaken.
“If you were mixed up in that affair,” he said, “and if I remain here
when my evidence is needed, I become an accomplice.”
“Only if you remain here voluntarily,” the Prince reminded him
cheerfully. “Remember that and be comforted. No effort that you could
make now would bring you into touch with Mr. Inspector Jacks until I am
quite prepared. So you see, my dear doctor, that you have nothing with
which to reproach yourself. I will not insult you,” he continued, “by
suggesting that a reward of fifty pounds could possibly have influenced
your attitude. If you have suffered your mind to dwell upon it for a
single moment, try and remember the relative unimportance of such an
amount when compared with a thousand guineas.”
The doctor moved to the window and back again.
“Supposing,” he said, “I decline to remain here? Supposing I say that,
believing you now to have a guilty knowledge of this murder, I repudiate
our bargain? Supposing I say that I will have nothing more to do with
your thousand guineas,--that I will leave this house?”
“Then we come to close quarters,” the Prince answered, “and you force me
to tell you in plain words that, until I am ready for you to leave
it, you are as much a prisoner in this room as though the keys of the
strongest fortress in Europe were turned upon you. I have told you this
before. I thought that we perfectly understood one another.”
“I did not understand,” the doctor protested. “I knew that there was
trouble, but I did not know that it was this!”
“The fact of your knowing or not knowing makes no difference,” the
Prince answered. “You are no longer a free agent. The only question for
you to decide is whether you remain here willingly or whether you will
force me to remind you of our bargain.”
The doctor was sitting down again now. All the time he watched the
Prince with a gleam in his eyes, partly of horror, partly of fear. He no
longer doubted but that he was in the presence of a criminal.
“I am sorry,” the Prince continued, “that you have allowed this little
matter to disturb you. I thought that we had arranged it all at our last
interview. If you did not surmise my reasons for keeping you here, then
I am afraid I gave you credit for more intelligence than you possess.
You will excuse me now, I am sure,” he added, rising. “I have some
letters to send off before I change. By the bye, do you care to give me
your parole? It might, perhaps, lessen the inconvenience to which you
are unfortunately subject.”
The doctor shook his head.
“No,” he said, “I will not give my parole!”
Late that night, he tried the handle of his door and found it open. The
corridor outside was in thick darkness. He felt his way along by the
wall. Suddenly, from behind, a pair of large soft hands gripped him by
the throat. Slowly he was drawn back--almost strangled.
“Let me go!” he called out, struggling in vain to find a body upon which
he could gain a grip.
The grasp only tightened.
“Back to your rooms!” came a whisper through the darkness.
The doctor returned. When he staggered into his sitting room, he
turned up the electric light. There were red marks upon his throat and
perspiration upon his forehead. He opened the door once more and looked
out upon the landing, striking a match and holding it over his head.
There was no one in sight, yet all the time he had the uncomfortable
feeling that he was being watched. For the first time in his life he
wondered whether a thousand guineas was, after all, such a magnificent
fee!
Almost at the same time the Prince sat back in the shadows of the
Duchess of Devenham’s box at the Opera and talked quietly to Lady Grace.
“But tell me, Prince,” she begged, “I know that you are glad to go home,
but won’t you really miss this a little,--the music, the life, all these
things that make up existence here? Your own country is wonderful, I
know, but it has not progressed so far, has it?”
He shook his head.
“I think,” he said, “that the portion of our education which we have
most grievously neglected is the development of our recreations. But
then you must remember that we are to a certain extent without that
craving for amusement which makes these things necessary for you others.
We are perhaps too serious in my country, Lady Grace. We lack altogether
that delightful air of irresponsibility with which you Londoners seem to
make your effortless way through life.”
She was a little perplexed.
“I don’t believe,” she said, “that in your heart you approve of us at
all.”
“Do not say that, Lady Grace,” he begged. “It is simply that I have
been brought up in so different a school. This sort of thing is very
wonderful, and I shall surely miss it. Yet nowadays the world is being
linked together in marvellous fashion. Tokio and London are closer today
than ever they have been in the world’s history.”
“And our people?” she asked. “Do you really think that our people are so
far apart? Between you and me, for instance,” she added, meaning to
ask the question naturally enough, but suddenly losing confidence and
looking away from him,--“between you and me there seems no radical
difference of race. You might almost be an Englishman--not one of these
men of fashion, of course, but a statesman or a man of letters, some one
who had taken hold of the serious side of life.”
“You pay me a very delightful compliment,” he murmured.
“Please repay me, then, by being candid,” she answered. “Consider for
a moment that I am a typical English girl, and tell me whether I am so
very different from the Japanese women of your own class?”
He hesitated for a moment. The question was not without its
embarrassments.
“Men,” he said, “are very much the same, all the world over. They are
like the coarse grass which grows everywhere. But the flowers, you know,
are different in every country.”
Lady Grace sighed. Perhaps she had been a trifle too daring! She was
willing enough, at any rate, to let the subject drift away.
“Soon the curtain will go up,” she said, “and we can talk no longer.
I should like to tell you, though, how glad I am--how glad we all
are--that you can come to us next week.”
“I can assure you that I am looking forward to it,” he answered a little
gravely. “It is my farewell to all of you, you know, and it seems to me
that those who will be your father’s guests are just those with whom I
have been on the most intimate terms since I came to England.”
She nodded.
“Penelope is coming,” she said quickly,--“you know that?--Penelope and
Sir Charles Somerfield.”
“Yes,” he answered, “I heard so.”
The curtain went up. The faint murmur of the violins was suddenly caught
up and absorbed in the thunderous music of a march. Lady Grace moved
nearer to the front. Prince Maiyo remained where he was among the
shadows. The music was in his ears, but his eyes were half closed.