After Wingate's hurried departure, Smeaton put Sheila into a taxi, and
quickly took his way back to Scotland Yard. Here he found a note
awaiting him from the Home Secretary, requesting him to step round to
the Home Office.
They knew each other well, these two men, and had been brought together
several times on affairs of public importance. Before he had thrown all
his energies into politics Mr Carlingford had been one of the most
successful barristers of the day. His intellect was of the keen and
subtle order.
He was, of course, profoundly interested in the mysterious disappearance
of his colleague, the Colonial Secretary, and had sent for the detective
to talk over the matter.
"Sit down, Smeaton. Have you any news? I know you are not a man to let
the grass grow under your feet."
Smeaton explained the situation as it stood at present.
"We have partly identified one, and in my opinion the more important, of
the two men who put him in the taxi. His name is given to me as Stent,
and he is supposed to have a house somewhere in the neighbourhood of St
Albans. One of my best sergeants is down there to-day, making
inquiries. I fancy we are also on the track of the second man."
He added that it was to Farloe's sister, Mrs Saxton, that he was
indebted for the somewhat scanty information he possessed.
"I met that lady last winter at Mentone," remarked the Home Secretary.
"She was an attractive young woman, with ingratiating manners. I
remember she introduced herself to me, telling me that her brother was
Monkton's secretary. My impression at the time, although I don't know
that I had any particular evidence to go on, was that there was just a
little touch of the adventuress about her."
"Precisely my impression," agreed the man from "over the way."
"I never took to that fellow, Farloe, either," continued the statesman.
"I don't think Monkton was particularly attached to him, although he
admitted he was the best secretary he ever had. I always thought there
was something shifty and underhand about him."
They talked for a few moments longer, exchanging probable and possible
theories, and then Smeaton rose to take his leave.
"Well, Mr Carlingford, thanks to your kind help we have been able to
keep it out of the Press so far. I hope our inquiries will soon bear
some fruit," he said, and then left the room.
Sheila had gone home feeling very sad and lonely. All her plans for the
day had been upset by Wingate's sudden journey to Brighton.
She had looked forward to spending some hours in the society of her
lover. The excitement of the detective business in which they proposed
to engage for the rest of the day would have taken her out of herself,
and kept alive the courage which flagged sorely now and again, as she
confronted the apparently insoluble problem of her beloved father's
disappearance.
Her luncheon finished, she went into her own dainty little sitting-room
and tried to read. But she could not focus her attention. Her thoughts
strayed away from the printed page, and at last she flung down the book
impatiently.
"I wish that I had insisted on going down to Brighton with Austin," she
said to herself. "I think I must get out. I shall go mad if I stop
within these four walls."
As she was making up her mind, the door opened, and old Grant entered.
"A lady would like to see you. Miss," he said. "She says her name is
Saxton and that you know her, as she is Mr Farloe's sister. She says
she has been here once, but I don't seem to remember her."
Sheila was immediately interested. Their acquaintance was of the
slightest. She recalled the incident at the post-office, and wondered
what was the object of the visit.
"Yes, she came once to a big party. Grant. You have shown her into the
drawing-room, I suppose? I will see her."
She went at once to the drawing-room. Mrs Saxton rose as she entered,
and advanced towards her with outstretched hand, her pretty, rather hard
features subdued to an expression of deep sympathy.
"My dear Miss Monkton, I do hope you will not regard my visit as an
intrusion," she exclaimed fussily. "But, owing to my brother's
connection with your family, I was bound to know something of what has
happened. And I feel so deeply for you."
Sheila replied with some conventional phrase, but her manner was
constrained and cold. Mrs Saxton was acting, no doubt to the best of
her capacity, but there was an absence of sincerity in voice and glance.
She had come, not out of sympathy, but for her own ends. Sheila
remembered what Smeaton had said, namely, that she knew a good deal more
than she chose to tell. She also remembered the telegram which had been
despatched a few hours ago. Was it possible Mrs Saxton had caught
sight of her at the post-office in Edgware Road after all, and had come
with the intention of pumping her?
Whatever the motives might be, Sheila made up her mind to one thing--
that she would say as little as possible, and ask questions rather than
answer them.
"What has Mr Farloe told you?"
"Oh, as little as he possibly could. But although it has been very
cleverly kept from the Press, rumours are flying about at the clubs, in
the House of Commons, everywhere. Your father has not been seen for
several days, and he is much too important a man not to be missed."
Sheila made no answer. She was resolved to take a very passive _role_
in this interview which had been thrust upon her. She looked steadily
at Mrs Saxton, who bore the scrutiny of those candid young eyes with
absolute composure, and waited for her to resume the conversation.
"A rather strange thing happened the other day," went on her visitor,
after a somewhat lengthy pause. "I had a visit from a Scotland Yard
official, of the name of Smeaton. He told me he was very much
interested in a Mr Stent, whose acquaintance I happened to make abroad
a couple of years ago. I wonder if this Mr Stent happens to be a
friend of yours, or your father's?" This time Sheila felt she could
make a direct answer without committing herself. "I certainly do not
know the man myself. For my father I cannot, of course, speak
positively. In his position he must have known heaps of people, more or
less intimately. But, as I have never seen him in this house, he could
not have been a friend."
Mrs Saxton spoke again in her well-bred, but somewhat artificial voice:
"I hope you will excuse me for having put the question. But it struck
me after he had left that his visit might have been connected with the
sad events that have happened here, and that he believed Mr Stent to
have been mixed up with them."
"Were you able to give him any information?" asked Sheila quickly. She
thought it was her turn to question now.
"Nothing, I am afraid, of any value. I had simply met him abroad at an
hotel, in the first place, and came across him about a dozen times
afterwards. You know what a lot of people one picks up in that casual
sort of way, people you know absolutely nothing about."
Sheila agreed that this was a common experience, and after the
interchange of a few commonplaces, Mrs Saxton took leave. She renewed
her expressions of sympathy, and begged Miss Monkton to make use of her
in any way, if she thought she could render assistance.
What had been the motive of her visit? To reiterate the slenderness of
her knowledge of the man Stent, so that the fact would be communicated
to Smeaton? Or had she hoped to find an artless and impressionable
girl, who would confide to her all that had been done, up to the
present, to unravel the mystery of Monkton's disappearance?
If so, she had signally failed. She had gone away, having learned
nothing. And Sheila had put no questions herself, although she was
burning to ask her: "Who is that man at Brighton to whom you sent the
telegram of warning?"
It had been a day of surprises, and events proceeded very rapidly,
mostly in the direction of disappointments.
In the first place, Smeaton was rung up from Brighton by Wingate, who
reported the failure of his attempt to get hold of the telegram, and
asked for further instructions.
The detective mused a few moments before replying. He placed little or
no reliance on the efforts of amateurs, however full of zeal. Still,
the young man was there, and he might as well make use of him.
"Would it be inconveniencing you to spend a few more hours down there?"
he asked at length over the wire from his room at Scotland Yard.
The reply was what might be expected. Wingate would be only too happy
to place himself entirely at Smeaton's disposal.
"Thanks. In that case, I would ask you to keep a watch on the
post-office for as long as you think worth while. This fellow will be
pretty certain to call again in an hour or two for another wire. You
may depend their correspondence has not finished with that first
telegram."
So that was settled; it was a toss-up whether or not anything would
result from Wingate's observations.
A little later one of the two men who were watching Hyde Park Mansions
reported that Mrs Saxton had driven to Chesterfield Street, and
remained in Monkton's house for some twenty minutes.
Smeaton at once rang up Sheila Monkton, and obtained particulars of the
brief interview, which confirmed his opinion that Farloe's attractive
sister was engaged in some deep game.
This opinion was further corroborated by the arrival of the detective he
had sent down to St Albans at an early hour that morning.
This man had scoured the neighbourhood on his motor-cycle within a
radius of twelve miles from the city of St Albans. Nobody of the name
of Stent was known, and so far as his information went, which he had
picked up at various shops and local inns, nobody of that name had ever
been a resident, at any rate within the last four or five or six years.
Smeaton cursed Mrs Saxton heartily. A really innocent woman might have
made a mistake. But he was sure in his own mind that this
innocent-looking young person with the charming manners and the
well-bred voice had deliberately put him on a wrong scent.
And for what motive? Perhaps in order to gain time. Well, he had lost
a few hours, but he intended to run Mr Stent to earth yet, without her
assistance.