The weeks had slipped by. Smeaton was not at all satisfied with the
progress he was making. His inquiries had led him into a _cul-de-sac_.
The absence of the man Stent from the Savoy worried him. It looked as
though the man had received a hint from Mrs Saxton, and taken the
alarm. In addition, he had constant inquiries from the Home Secretary
as to what progress he was making.
He paid a visit to Chesterfield Street to talk over matters. Before he
left, Sheila screwed up her courage to tell him of Varney's visit, and
their acquiescence in his proposal to investigate on his own account.
She had expected that he would display resentment at their having taken
such a step before consulting him. But, to her relief, he did nothing
of the kind.
"Varney is a rather clever young chap," he admitted, "and if he devoted
himself entirely to detective work, and acquired plenty of experience, I
believe he would be as good as, if not better than, many of us. In the
Caxley mystery he certainly got on the right track, while we went
blundering on wrong lines altogether. And the revelations in the Balham
affair were entirely due to him."
"He spoke very highly of you," said Sheila, with woman's _finesse_. "I
am glad you don't think we did wrong."
"Not at all, my dear young lady. Tell him not to hesitate to come to
me--if he is in need of any special facilities that I can give."
"No news of Mrs Saxton, I suppose?" asked Sheila, as Smeaton was on the
point of leaving the drawing-room.
"None at all. She is at home, and nobody seems to go near her but her
brother. I told you how she put me on the wrong scent about Stent.
Once or twice I have thought of going there again and taxing her with
it. But what would be the good? She would still stick to her story
that she knew next to nothing about him. In giving me the St Albans
clue she would swear she had mixed him up with somebody else. My men
seem cooling their heels to no purpose. She knows she is being watched,
and she won't give us a chance. I expect she does all her necessary
work on the telephone, and we must attend to that point at once."
Next morning Mrs Saxton aroused herself from her apparent inactivity,
and gave her watchers a big surprise, which added to Smeaton's growing
dissatisfaction with the state of affairs.
At about eleven o'clock her maid whistled up a taxi. Mason, the head
detective on duty, immediately communicated with his own taxi-driver,
waiting in readiness round the corner, and entered the cab, giving
instructions to follow the other when it started.
She came out without any luggage, simply carrying a small vanity bag.
She might be going shopping, to pay a visit, to send a telegram, or a
hundred-and-one things. His duty was to follow her.
The woman's cab drove down the Edgware Road, crossed the Park, and
stopped at the Hyde Park Tube Station. Here Mrs Saxton paid the fare,
and went into the booking-office. Mason at her heels. She took a
ticket to Piccadilly Circus, and Mason did the same. They went down
together in the same lift, Mrs Saxton near the door of exit, he at the
other end of the lift.
He was puzzled as to her movements. If she wanted to get to Piccadilly
Circus, why had she taken this roundabout route? The taxi would have
taken her there direct.
The train was full. For a few seconds he was separated from her by a
surging and struggling crowd blocking the entrances to the long cars.
By dint of hard fighting he managed to get in the same carriage.
So far, luck seemed in his favour. It was a non-stop train, and went
past Down Street. At the next station, Dover Street, he saw her turn
half round, and cast a furtive glance in his direction. She was
evidently debating within herself if she would chance getting out there.
While thus deliberating, the train re-started. At Piccadilly Circus
there was a considerable exodus, as there always is. The process of
disembarking was slow, owing to the number of passengers.
They both emerged into Jermyn Street, and went along to the Haymarket.
Here she looked round, apparently for a taxi, but there was not one in
sight. It struck him, as he caught a side glimpse of her features, that
she was looking worried and harassed. Evidently his persistent dogging
had shaken her nerves.
She walked slowly, with the deliberate gait of a person who was
perturbed, and thinking hard. She entered a big drapery shop, where
Mason was compelled to follow her for reasons.
Had it been an ordinary kind of shop, he would have waited outside, till
she came out. This particular establishment, however, had two
entrances, one in Regent Street and one in Piccadilly. She knew this,
of course, and would slip out of the one he was not watching. So he
followed her in.
Having bought a pair of long cream gloves she glanced furtively around,
and then left the shop, passing into Regent Street. Afterwards she
spent some time looking into the shop windows up and down that busy
thoroughfare, ultimately returning to the Piccadilly Tube Station, where
she took a ticket for Knightsbridge, Mason following all the while.
Her face was wan and haggard with the relentless chase, but her eyes
expressed indomitable resolution. They seemed to flash across at him as
they sat in the same car the unspoken message: "I will outwit you yet."
At Knightsbridge both watcher and watched ascended in the same lift,
with its clanging lattice gate, and it was quite plain that Mrs Saxton
was now in a quandary how to escape. In a careless attitude she passed
from the street back into the booking-hall, where she pretended to idle
up and down, as though awaiting someone. Now and then she looked up at
the clock as though anxious and impatient.
Mason believed her anxiety to be merely a ruse, but was both surprised
and interested when a small ragged urchin entering the place suddenly
recognised her, and handed her a note.
She took it eagerly, and without examining it crushed it hurriedly into
her little black silk bag, giving the little fellow a shilling,
whereupon he thanked her and ran merrily out.
Next instant Mason slipped forth after the lad in order to question him,
leaving the woman safely in the booking-hall. In a few seconds he
stopped the boy and asked good-humouredly who had given him the letter.
"A gentleman in Notting 'Ill," was the urchin's prompt reply. "I don't
know 'im. 'E only said that a lady in a big black 'at, and dressed all
in black and carryin' a bag, would be waitin' for me, and that I were to
give the note to 'er."
"Is that all you know, my good lad?" Mason inquired quickly, giving him
another shilling.
"Yus. That's all I knows, sir," he replied.
While speaking, the detective had kept his eye upon the booking-hall,
and swiftly returned to it, only, however, to find that the woman was
not there.
The descending lift was full, the lattice gates were closed and it had
just started down when he peered within.
In the lift was Mrs Saxton, who, with a smile of triumph, disappeared
from his view.
Mason, in a sorry and chastened frame of mind, took the next lift,
which, as always happens under such circumstances, was unusually long in
arriving. To him, it seemed an eternity.
He got down to the platform, in time to see the tail of a departing
train. Mrs Saxton had not waited in the booking-hall in vain. She had
two minutes' start of him, and he might hunt London over before he would
again find her.
Only one thing was certain: Mrs Saxton was certainly a very clever
woman, who, no doubt, had prepared that very clever ruse of the arrival
of the letter, well-knowing that the messenger must draw off the
detective's attention, and thus give her time to slip away.
That same evening James Farloe, who had been chatting in the Lobby of
the House of Commons with a couple of Members of the Opposition, was
suddenly called aside by Sir Archibald Turtrell, Member for North
Canterbury, who, in a low, mysterious whisper, asked:
"Look here, Farloe, is this rumour true?"
"What rumour?" inquired the private secretary, who was a well-known
figure about the House, as are those of all secretaries to Ministers of
the Crown.
"Why, that Mr Monkton is missing, and that he is not at Cannes as the
papers say. Everyone is discussing it."
The sleek, well-dressed young man in a morning suit with a white slip
within his waistcoat, laughed sarcastically, as he replied:
"I wonder. Sir Archibald, who it is who spreads such ridiculous
rumours. I had a letter from Mr Monkton only this morning from Cannes.
That's all I know."
"And yet a telegram that I sent to the Beau Site yesterday has been
returned to-night undelivered!"
For a second Farloe held his breath. Serious inquiry was apparently
being made by Members of the House, in spite of all the precautions of
the Home Secretary.
"Oh," he replied, with well-feigned carelessness. "The Colonial
Secretary left the Beau Site over a fortnight ago. People were worrying
him, so his doctor sent him to a furnished villa."
"What is his address?"
"I'm very sorry. Sir Archibald, but I am unable to give it. I have
instructions to that effect," was the secretary's cautious reply. "If
you give me your note, or write to his club, I will see that it is
attended to. Doctor Monier wrote me three days ago asking me not to
send his patient any matters concerning public affairs that might worry
him."
"But his daughter still remains in Chesterfield Street," observed the
Baronet. "It is strange she is not with him. The rumour is growing
that Monkton has disappeared, and that the police are searching for
him."
"I know," laughed the other. "I have heard so. It is all too
ridiculous. The truth has already been published in the Press. Mr
Monkton has had a very serious nervous breakdown, and is on the
Riviera--even though it is summer."
"You are quite certain of that--eh, Farloe?"
"Why should I tell you an untruth?" asked the secretary blandly.
They were standing near the Members' post-office, and the Baronet,
having exchanged a nod with the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who
was just passing into the House itself, gazed full into the secretary's
eyes.
"Tell me, Farloe--tell me in strict confidence," he urged. "I'll not
whisper a word, but--well, do you happen to know anyone of the name of
Stent?"
The young man hesitated, though he preserved the most complete and
remarkable control.
"Stent? Stent?" he repeated. "No. The name is quite unfamiliar to
me."
"Are you quite certain? Think."
"I have already thought. I have never heard that name," was the reply.
"You are quite positive that he is not acquainted with Mr Monkton in
some peculiar and mysterious way?"
"How should I possibly know? All the Colonial Minister's friends are
not known to me. Mr Monkton is a very popular man, remember. But
why," he added, "do you ask about this man Stent?"
"Because it is told to me that he is a mysterious friend of Monkton's."
"Not as far as I am aware," declared Farloe. "I certainly have no
knowledge of their friendship, and the name is so unusual that one would
certainly recollect it."
The Baronet smiled. Farloe, seeing that he was unconvinced, was eager
to escape from any further awkward cross-examination.
"I really wish that you would be frank with me," said Sir Archibald, who
was one of Britain's business magnates and a great friend of Monkton's.
"I am informed that this person Stent is in possession of the true and
actual facts concerning the Minister's curious disappearance."
Farloe realised that something was leaking out, yet he maintained a firm
attitude of pretended resentment.
"Well, Sir Archibald," he protested. "I cannot well see how I can be
more frank with you. I've never heard of this mysterious person."
"H'm!" grunted the Baronet, unconvinced. "Perhaps one day, my dear
Farloe, you will regret this attempt to wriggle out of a very awkward
situation." Then, after a pause, he added: "You know quite as well as
I, with others, know, that my friend Monkton is missing!" and the
Baronet turned abruptly, leaving Farloe standing in the Lobby. He
passed the two police constables and the idling detective, and entered
the House itself.
Farloe, utterly aghast at Sir Archibald's remarks and the knowledge he
evidently possessed, walked blindly out of St Stephen's full of grave
thoughts.
Not only were the police hot upon the trail which might lead them to the
astounding truth concerning the death of the man who, dressed in the
Colonial Minister's clothes, had expired in the house in Chesterfield
Street, but the facts were being rumoured that night in the world of
politics, and to-morrow the chattering little world which revolves in
the square mile around Piccadilly and calls itself Society, would also
be agog with the sinister story.
At the corner of Dean's Yard, not a hundred yards from where the
taxi-man Davies had been hailed and the unidentified stranger had been
put into his cab, Farloe found a passing taxi and in it drove to his
rooms, a cosy little first-floor flat in Ryder Street, St James's.
So eager was he that, without taking off his hat, he went at once to the
telephone on his writing-table and asked for "trunk." Ten minutes later
he spoke to somebody.
"Get in your car, and come here at once!" he said. "There's not an
instant to be lost. I'll wait up for you, but don't delay a moment. I
can't talk over the 'phone, but the situation is very serious. Bring a
suit-case. You may have to go to the Continent by the nine o'clock
train in the morning."
He listened attentively to the reply.
"Eh--what? Oh!--yes. I sent a boy with a letter to Knightsbridge
station. She's got away all right. Do get here as quickly as you can--
won't you? Leave your car in some garage, and walk here. Don't stop
the car outside. I'll leave the hall-door ajar for you. No--I can't
tell you anything more over the 'phone--I really can't."