"Now that we are alone, sir, permit me to present myself in proper form.
My name is Caleb Boyle, profession gentleman, educated at that glorious
old school, Winchester, and graduate of Trinity College. Cambridge."
Mr Boyle made a low bow as he completed his self-introduction, which
took place in Smeaton's room at Scotland Yard. He was full of gesture,
employing a pantomime of arms, hands and face to accentuate his remarks.
Smeaton bowed, pointed to a chair, and examined him with minute
attention. He was a tall, angular man, thin almost to emaciation.
Judging by his figure, you might have put him at forty, but the lines on
his face suggested another ten or fifteen years.
"I intended no discourtesy to you personally when I declined to give my
card to your satellites or subordinates, or whatever name you give to
the hangers-on of a great man."
Here the fluent Mr Boyle made another of his grotesque bows to lend
point to the compliment, and again Smeaton inclined his head politely.
He had not as yet quite taken his bearings with regard to this
extraordinary creature.
"To such persons, Mr Smeaton, I do not take the trouble to reveal my
identity; it would be a waste of time. It is my invariable practice to
go straight to the fountain-head when I have anything of importance to
communicate." Here Mr Boyle swelled out his chest, and said in a voice
of intense conviction: "I have no toleration for whipper-snappers, and
those, sir, are what one finds, spreading like a fungus, in every
department of our public life."
It seemed to the police official's well-balanced mind that his visitor
was a pompous ass, with a slight suspicion of insanity thrown in. He
was not a man to suffer fools gladly, but this particular fool had
called on him for some purpose, and he must exercise patience till the
purpose was revealed.
He must bear with him and coax him. For he felt intuitively that Boyle
was one of those men who take a long time in coming to the point.
"We are always happy to receive information here," he said courteously.
"You will understand that I am a very busy man."
If he thought such a direct hint would arrest the flow of his visitor's
fatal fluency, he was grievously mistaken. Boyle raised an arresting
hand, and indulged in some more contortions of arms and hands.
"I recognise the fact, sir, I fully recognise it. A man in your
responsible position must find the working hours all too short for what
you have to do. You bear upon your shoulders, capable as they are, the
weight of Atlas, if I may say so."
Smeaton had to smile, in spite of himself, at the fanciful imagery.
"Not quite so bad as that, Mr Boyle. But a lot has to be got into a
limited time, and therefore--"
But his sentence was not allowed to finish. "Say no more, sir, on that
head. I can understand that the time of a valuable official is not to
be wasted; in short, that you wish me to come to the point."
Smeaton nodded his head vigorously. Perhaps there was some remnant of
common-sense in the creature after all.
Mr Boyle gracefully threw one leg over the other, bestowed upon the
detective an affable but somewhat mechanical smile, and resumed his
discourse.
"Before coming to the reason of my visit, I must trouble you with a few
details of my family history, in order that you may know something of
the person you are dealing with. I promise you I shall not be prolix."
Smeaton groaned inwardly, but he knew he was helpless. As well try to
stop a cataract in full flood as arrest the resistless flow of Mr
Boyle's glib fluency.
"I may tell you I am something of an athlete. I played two years in the
Winchester Eleven. I rowed in my College boat. If I had stopped on a
year longer I should have rowed for the `Varsity.'"
He paused, probably to ascertain the effect produced upon his listener
by these deeds of prowess. Smeaton exhorted him to proceed, in a faint
voice.
"Enough of those early days, when the youthful blood ran in one's veins
like some potent wine. Manhood succeeded the school and college days.
I am telling you all this because, as you will perceive presently, it
has some bearing upon my visit to you."
He paused again, to mark the effect of his glowing periods. And again
Smeaton, in a voice grown fainter, bade him get on with his story.
Suddenly the weird visitor rose, stretched himself to his full height,
and with a dramatic gesture pointed a long, lean finger at the harassed
detective. His voice rose and fell with the fervour of his pent-up
feelings.
"The man you look upon to-day is only the shadow of what he was in his
early prime. The name of Caleb Boyle was well-known about town, in the
busy haunts of men. I have sat at great men's tables, I have partaken
of delicate fare, I have quaffed rare wines, fair ladies have favoured
me with their smiles."
He paused for a moment, dropped the pointing hand, and sat down again on
his chair, seemingly overcome with his own rhetoric. Smeaton regarded
him steadily, uncertain as to what new form his eccentricity would take,
but spoke no word.
In a few seconds he had recovered himself, and smiled wanly at his
companion.
"Enough of that. You are a man of vast experience, and you have seen
men and cities. But I bet you would never guess that not so many years
ago I was one of the young bloods of this town, one of what our
neighbours across the Channel call the _jeunesse doree_."
And at last Smeaton was moved to speech. He looked at the well-cut but
worn clothes; he remembered Winchester and Cambridge; he recognised the
flamboyant and ill-controlled temperament. He drew his deductions
swiftly.
"You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth," he said bluntly; "you
had every advantage that birth and education could give you. Through
some fatal tendency, perhaps inherited, you threw away all your chances,
and are living on your memories--and very little else."
So far from being offended with this plain exposition of facts, Mr
Boyle smiled affably, and, leaning forward, patted the detective
approvingly on the shoulder.
"You're a man after my own heart, sir; you go to the very marrow of
things. You have hit it off correctly. But mark you, I regret nothing;
I would alter nothing if the time came over again. I have lived, sir:
warmed both hands at the fire of life; filled the cup of enjoyment to
the brim. Nothing has daunted me, nothing ever will daunt me. Old as I
am, derelict as I may be, I still look the world in the face, and, in
the words of the poet, `Stand four-square to all the winds that blow.'"
Smeaton stirred uncomfortably. Was the man simply an original kind of
beggar, and was all this the preface to a request for a modest loan? He
had assurance enough for anything!
"Mr Boyle, my time is really very much occupied. May I beg you to come
to the point, and state the object of your visit? These personal
reminiscences and reflections are, of course, highly interesting, but--"
He made an eloquent pause.
"I have transgressed, I have abused your patience," observed this
singular man, in a voice of contrition; "I came to ask you a simple
question, and here it is, plain, straight, and put as briefly as
possible: _What is at the bottom of Reginald Monkton's disappearance_?"
Smeaton looked up sharply. "Who says that he has disappeared?" he asked
with some asperity.
Mr Boyle smiled blandly. "Why beat about the bush? Monkton is not in
his place in the House. There is not a line in the papers about his
movements, except that he is on the Riviera. The public may not yet
have tumbled to it. But Fleet Street knows. The House of Commons
knows. The clubs know. And last--you and I know. I still have some
connection with the world in which I was once not an insignificant
figure."
Smeaton hardly knew what to answer. The man had every quality that
offended his well-ordered mind, but he was not the absolute fool he had
taken him for.
"Cannot a statesman, worn out and weary with hard work, take a brief
holiday without letting loose all these absurd rumours?" he asked with
pretended petulance.
Mr Boyle shrugged his shoulders. "My dear sir, I know as well as you
do that this matter is in your hands, and you are hushing it up in the
hopes that you will find a solution, and avoid a scandal. So far you
have failed. If you had succeeded, either Monkton would have been back
by now, or you would know of his death, and there would have been a
public explanation. You have failed, and do you know why?"
"I shall be very glad to know why," Smeaton replied, goaded into a
half-admission by the contemptuous tone of the other man.
"Because, although you have some very clever men here you want a
leavening of men of different calibre. It is good to know every corner
of the slums, to be acquainted with every incident in the career of
burglar Bill and light-fingered Jack, to know the haunts of all the
international thieves and forgers and anarchists. That is sound and
useful knowledge."
"I am glad you think so," said Smeaton sarcastically.
"In a case like this, however, you want another sort of knowledge
altogether," pursued Mr Boyle, callously indifferent to the detective's
sarcasm. "You want a man who has mixed in the big world from his
boyhood, who knows all the ins and outs, all the intrigue of social
life, all the gossip, all the scandal that has been going round the
clubs and drawing-rooms for the last forty years."
"In other words, men like yourself--eh? We have plenty such in our
pay."
"But they are not a recognised part of your official organisation,"
rejoined Mr Boyle quickly. "As you are kind enough to suggest myself,"
he added modestly, "I think I may say that in certain cases I should
earn my salary. But I admit that at the burglar business I should be no
use at all."
There was a long silence. Smeaton was trying to smother his
indignation. He had taken a dislike to the man from the first moment he
had set eyes upon him. His long-windedness, his self-conceit, his
grotesque gestures, his assumption of superiority, his gibes at Scotland
Yard methods, had added to it. But he must bear with him; he was sure
that Boyle had something more to say before he took his leave.
Mr Boyle pursued his discourse, quite unconscious of the other's
antipathy.
"In spite of troubles that would have crushed a weaker man, I think I
have worn well: I am frequently taken for ten years younger than I am.
As a fact, there is only one year's difference between Monkton and
myself. We were at a tutor's together, and we went up to Cambridge in
the same year."
Smeaton breathed a sigh of relief. He had an intuition that at last
this exasperating person was coming to the point.
"The Monkton of those days was very different from the Monkton of later
years--the keen politician, the statesman conscious of the grave
responsibilities of office. He was full of fun and go, one of a band of
choice spirits who kept things lively, and, as a matter of course, got
into many scrapes, and came more than once into conflict with the
authorities."
Smeaton listened intently. This was certainly not the prevalent idea of
the statesman who had so mysteriously disappeared.
"I saw a great deal of him afterwards. We moved in much the same set.
He married early, and everybody said that he was devotedly attached to
his wife. So, no doubt, he was. At the same time, he had been a great
admirer of the fair sex, and it was rumoured that there had been tender
passages between him and several well-known ladies occupying high
positions in society."
The flamboyant manner had departed. For the moment he seemed an
ordinary, sensible man, setting forth a sober statement of actual fact.
"There was one lady, in particular, with whom his name was especially
connected. She was at that time some live or six years younger than
Monkton, and married--people said, against her will--to a very unpopular
nobleman much older than herself, who was madly jealous of her. It was
reported at the clubs that the husband strongly resented Monkton's
attentions, and that on one occasion a _fracas_ had taken place between
the two men, in which Monkton had been severely handled. Some
corroboration was lent to the statement by the fact that he did not
appear in the Courts for a week after the occurrence was supposed to
have taken place."
"Did this _fracas_ to which you allude take place before or after his
marriage?" asked the detective.
"Speaking from memory, I should say about a year before."
And at this point Mr Boyle rose, drew a pair of faded gloves from his
pocket, and put them on preparatory to his departure.
"In a case of this kind, Mr Smeaton, it is well to remember the French
proverb, `Look out for the woman.' You, no doubt, have followed several
clues, and evidently to no purpose. Well, I will give you one gratis--
keep your eye upon Lady Wrenwyck, now a middle-aged woman, but, at the
time to which I refer, one of the most celebrated beauties of her day,
and, according to rumour, wildly in love with Reginald Monkton. It may
lead to nothing, of course, but I think the tip is worth following."
"I am obliged to you, and will certainly act upon your advice," said
Smeaton gravely, as he held out his hand.
As Mr Boyle took it his former eccentricities of manner returned. He
bowed profoundly, and spoke in his high, artificial voice.
"Sir, I am more than flattered. I shall go later on to Miss Monkton. I
should much like to make the acquaintance of my old friend's daughter."
Smeaton was aghast at this declaration. He had a shrewd suspicion that
his real object in interviewing Sheila was to trade on his old
acquaintance with her father, and probably obtain a loan. It was a
hundred to one that such a mercurial creature would drop some
disquieting hints about Lady Wrenwyck.
"I would beg of you to postpone your call, Mr Boyle. Miss Monkton is,
naturally, in a state of great depression and anxiety. I should,
however, very much like you to see Mr Austin Wingate, who is her best
friend. If you will favour me with your address, I will arrange a
meeting."
Mr Boyle, indulged in another of his grotesque bows. He scribbled on a
piece of paper, and handed it to the detective.
"I should be glad to have that meeting arranged as soon as possible, Mr
Smeaton." There was a shade of anxiety in his voice. Smeaton was sure
that philanthropy was not the sole motive of his visit. "Once more,
good-bye."
He advanced to the door, hesitated, with his hand upon the knob, and
half turned round, as if about to say something more. Apparently he
changed his mind.
"A random thought occurred to me, but it is nothing--not worth
pursuing," he said airily, and passed out.
But Smeaton knew instinctively the reason of that pause. Boyle had
screwed up his courage to borrow money, but he could not bring it to the
sticking-point.
Had he told the truth or were his statements pure invention?